Western Marxism

Western Marxism

Modern western countries oppose Leninism but claim to be Marxism. Appeared in the 1920s, it was originally a "Left" trend of thought in the * * * producing countries. After being criticized by * * * producing countries, it developed outside the party. This trend of thought did not claim to be or be called western Marxism at first. 1955, Melo-Ponty emphasized the opposition between western Marxism and Leninism in his book Adventures of Dialectics, and traced the tradition of the former back to Lukacs' History and Class Consciousness published in 1923. Since then, people have widely used this concept to refer to this trend of thought. In the Western New Left Movement in the late 1960s, especially in the French "May Storm" in 1968, this trend of thought was once regarded by radical young students and workers as an ideological weapon against the hierarchical alienation system in developed capitalist society. Western Marxism tries to combine Marxism with some schools of modern western philosophy, and puts forward opinions contrary to Leninism in the analysis of the prospects of modern capitalist society and socialism and in the strategy and tactics of revolution.

There are two different tendencies in western Marxist thoughts: ① Explain and develop Marxism according to the spirit of hegelianism, Freudianism and Existentialism, which are called hegelianism Marxism, Freudian Marxism and Existentialism Marxism respectively. ② Interpreting and applying Marxism in the spirit of neo-positivism and structuralism is called neo-positivism Marxism and structuralism Marxism.

Western Marxism believes that Marxism gradually does not adapt to historical movements and rejects non-Marxist achievements, so it is often in danger of not understanding the experience of the working class and other classes. In order to prevent and overcome this danger, western Marxism categorically opposes dogmatism and advocates that every generation should rediscover and recreate Marxism. In the process of "rediscovering" and "recreating" Marxism, different ideological trends and schools of western Marxism all emphasize one aspect of Marxism and accuse and deny the other; They all opposed Marx, Engels and Lenin and criticized some principles expounded by Engels and Lenin according to their own needs.

Different ideological trends and schools of western Marxism invariably emphasize the great achievements of borrowing bourgeois ideas. They either systematically borrowed the concepts, terms and categories of some schools of modern western philosophy, or further "supplemented" and "innovated" Marxism with some ideas of western bourgeois philosophy, thus forming a mixture of various bourgeois philosophical schools of Marxism.

On the basis of analyzing and studying the new situation and new phenomena of developed capitalist society, different ideological trends and schools of western Marxism have exposed the chronic diseases and problems of capitalist system to a certain extent, explored the road of western revolution, and criticized the disadvantages and defects of Soviet socialist model. However, due to their departure from the scientific world outlook and methodology of Marxism-Leninism, they failed to point out a way for modern western society to get rid of capitalism and move towards socialism.