Lucio Colletti

[BAM]

I am wondering what people think of him?

I have read his excellent introduction to the Penguin edition of his early writings, as well as a couple of things from the web.

He is, in my opinion, probably one of the most underrated of European Marxists. He's been overlooked because of other "big names" in Western Marxism, but I think time may be ripe for a re-appraisal.

What do others think?

[vyborg]

As he wrote in italian, I read all these books in original.
At the beginning he was a scholar of Gaetano Della Volpe, a communist non ortodox philosopher. he wrote many interesting books about dialectics, marxism, etc.
Then, in the 70s Colletti started to degenerate. It seems that the reasons were political as well as personal (he was heavily threatened by stalinists in the university where he teached because he was a non stalinist communist).

he started to become a social-democrat attacking dialectic and marxism at the end of the 80s. in the 90s he became a right wing intellectual, he supported Craxi, then Berlusconi.

[Raúl Duke]

Then, in the 70s Colletti started to degenerate. It seems that the reasons were political as well as personal (he was heavily threatened by stalinists in the university where he teached because he was a non stalinist communist).

he started to become a social-democrat attacking dialectic and marxism at the end of the 80s. in the 90s he became a right wing intellectual, he supported Craxi, then Berlusconi. Reminds me that here in the U.S. we have this man called Max Shachtman who was a Trotskyist and over time he degenerated one could say and some people who were influenced by him/his colleagues became neo-conservatives (i.e. supported Bush, etc. Supported the wars in the middle east).

Now I wonder if many countries with a non-orthodox communist (i.e. non-Stalinist, in other words mostly Trostskyist) presence has had their own Shachtman.

[ZeroNowhere]

He was definitely one of the most underrated of 20th Century Marxists, and I'd say that 'Marxism and Hegel' is probably the best work on Marx (and quite a lot more) that I have read so far. Definitely, if you liked the introduction, he expands on quite a lot of that there, accompanied with a lovely mixture of subtle quips and thoroughly unrepentant, but probably justified, abuse, so consider picking that up. It's probably one of the only books on Marx that can actually add to your reading of him and let you look at things from new angles; even other good ones, such as 'The Violence of Abstraction', mainly have value in asserting what would probably be evident to any reader of 'The German Ideology' if they didn't wish not to see it.

I haven't read 'From Rousseau to Lenin' yet, except for the couple of essays online, though I have heard good things about it, especially the essay on 'Marxism as Sociology'.

To be honest, I've never really understood why he is referred to as 'Kantian' in some circles. Other than dismissing the 'Critique of Practical Reason', he also critiques Kant a fair bit, though he certainly isn't as Kantophobic as many of the 20th Century Marxists.

Della Volpe also sounds interesting, and I'm thinking of reading him sometime later.

[vyborg]

Colletti was a great philisopher and he wrote very intersting stuff. Schachtman I would say not at all after he degenerated and also before was not that interesting

We must always remember how the horrible stalinist atmosphere of the communist parties like PCI and PCF repelled great intellectuals that were very close to the workers. I think, for instance, to a man like Foucault that was so repelled by the PCF that he went away after a while from it.

For Colletti the threat came from stalinist groups but the point is similar

[RED DAVE]

A better parallel than Schachtman was Sidney Hook (although much of Schactman's early writings are worth reading). Hook's Towards an Understanding of Karl Marx is probably the best book on Marxism written by an American and one of the best written in English ever. Then he became a Cold War liberal. I wonder if he and Schachtman got together in the 70s?

RED DAVE

[BAM]

thanks for these comments.

Vyborg: I knew he became a conservative in later life, which is always a shame. I expect, as you say, that his experiences in the PCI played a huge part in this.

ZeroNowhere: I will try and find a copy of Marxism and Hegel. I too have read the couple of pieces that are available online. It is a huge pity that there is nothing by or really about Colletti on Marxists dot org. If anyone has any other essays, they should let me know and we can post them on the web somewhere.

It is true that he is perhaps the best commenter on Marx around. The introduction to the Penguin Marx Early Writings edition is superb. I only wish I had read him much sooner. It would have saved me a lot of bother with "Hegelian Marxism". So much of it seems like sheer rubbish after reading Colletti. He is absolutely right that you cannot salvage or separate a "radical method" from Hegel's conservative system. The two go together.

Indeed, even at that point when Marxist dialecticians try to rescue a materialist dialectic from Hegel, is that point where Hegel in the Logic (in Colletti's words) "annihilates matter"!

I do not know to what the accusation of Kantianism has reference. Probably just one of those myths.

[ZeroNowhere]

It's probably because Colletti locates some fundamental points of Marx's critique of Hegel as coming from the 'Critique of Pure Reason', mediated through Feuerbach, and as such goes through the argument as it was presented there in order to then bring in the connections with Marx. Though he's hardly 'Kantian', he's probably less Kantian than Marx was Ricardian, and he wasn't.

It's good to see that people are reading him; it seems that even in groups such as the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, who put quite a lot of stress on ideas that Colletti emphasized, such as that of directly social labour, he doesn't get mentioned, and I think he could have quite a lot to offer.

[BAM]

Well, Kant was more materialist than Hegel. Also, if what Colletti says about Marx and Kant is correct - and I will have to wait till I have a copy of the book - then it means that the old story of the linear progress of Kant to Hegel to Marx is overturned. Sounds good.

[ZeroNowhere]

More or less, yes. And it does seem that Kant's materialistic tendencies, the tinges of materialism along the idealism, are what interests Colletti. Well, other than pointing out occasions where a Kantian is closer to Marx than many Marxists, which I'm sure was also a contributing factor.

[BAM]

It would seem to me that Marx also holds, like Kant, the distinction between the manner of comprehending reality and the independent existence of a real world in itself. In which case, indeed a Kantian would be closer to Marx than many Marxists!

"With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought." (1873 Afterword to Capital). "Phenomena" and "noumena" anyone?

[ZeroNowhere]

That's probably the case. Incidentally, 'Marxism and Hegel' does feature some comment on the 'phenomena' and 'noumena' distinction, viewing it as a sort of attack on idealism, in the section where he is quoting Cassirer in order to shed light upon an often ignored aspect of Marx's critique of Hegel, which he says Cassirer was able to do because of his contact with Kant.

[BAM]

I have ordered a second-hand copy of "Marxism and Hegel". Can't wait to read it now! I had a look into Cassirer. I am totally unfamiliar with him and indeed with the neo-Kantians.

[blake 3:17]

I really like his work from the 60s and 70s. His essay Marxism: Science or Revolution? really affected me.