Lukacs's crack at Luxemburg

  1. automattick
    automattick
    Comrades:

    There have been many times while reading Marx or the Marxists where I've felt a bit confused about dialectics. Certainly, men more learned than I have felt the same way (Georges Sorel comes to mind). While reading Gyorgy Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness, I couldn't help but reflect on a very small crack Lukacs made at Luxemburg. Here is the very brief passage which I refer to by Lukacs:

    However, this recognition of the role of violence refers only to the negative aspect, to the sweeping away of obstacles; it has no relevance to social construction. This cannot be “imposed or introduced by ukase”. “The socialist system of society,” Rosa Luxemburg claims, “should only be and can only be a historical product, born of the school of its own experiences; and — just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part — has the fine habit of always producing, along with any real social need, the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution.” I shall not pause to dwell on the singularly undialectical nature of this line of thought on the part of an otherwise great dialectician. I

    Just made me think...
  2. Rosa Lichtenstein
    Rosa Lichtenstein
    Thanks for that, I had forgotten he said that of the great Rosa!