The question of organization in the early Marxist work of Lukács
pp. 126-156
in: Tom Rockmore (ed), Lukács today, Berlin, Springer, 1988Abstract
Lukács' History and Class Consciousness contains one of the most important discussions of organizational questions to emerge from the tumultuous period immediately following World War I. Unfortunately, Lukács' contribution is little studied or discussed today and widely misunderstood by contemporary Marxists. Typically, he is viewed as a proto-Stalinist by critical theorists in Germany and America, and as a romantic irrationalist by many Marxists in France and Italy. Michael Löwy's careful study of Lukács' position in its historical context shows that neither of these interpretations is correct. Löwy argues convincingly that Lukács has something original to offer and that his theory has not yet been entirely exhausted by history.1 The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct Lukács' position as it grows out of his evaluation of the work of Luxemburg and Lenin, and then to consider the adequacy of the Lukácsian theory of organization.
