The Invention of Marxism How an Idea Changed Everything

Description

How did one man's critique of capitalism guide the course of modern history? When he died in 1883, Karl Marx left behind an intellectual legacy of formidable proportions and revolutionary potential, yet one that exerted limited actual political, social, or economic influence. The full force of his ideas did not come into play for another generation, and only after they had been appropriated and applied by some of Marxism's earliest proponents. The history of Marxism, in other words, is the story of those who brought Marx's ideas into play, transforming a sweeping but fractious and occasionally abstruse view of historical and social forces into a coherent plan of action. Christina Morina's illuminating book focuses on the first generation of Marxists who turned the work and ideas of one social theorist, one among many, into one of the most powerful transnational political movements in modern history. The Invention Of Marxism is therefore a group portrait, featuring such figures as Rosa Luxemburg, Max Adler, Jean Jaurès, Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky, and Vladimir Lenin--German, French, Russian, Czech--whose lives became dedicated to interpreting and applying Marxist thought. They were the vehicles by which his ideas were read, debated, and gradually adopted in socialist movements across Europe. Morina's fascinating book therefore reconstructs the beginnings of Marxism through the individual politicization of a group of intellectuals who made it their purpose in life to solve the "social question," exploring the nexus between their intellectual constructs and social and political reality. The Invention of Marxism shows how what started as a theory of capitalism grew into a fully-fledged political philosophy and platform, one that shaped the century that followed Marx's death. In short, it reveals how an idea first conquered these individuals and then the world. Cover The Invention of Marxism Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Prologue: The Founding Generation of Marxism PART I Socialization 1. Born in the Nineteenth Century: Origins and Influences 2. Adolescence and Its Discontents: Emerging Worldviews 3. Beating the Drum: Literary Influences PART II Politicization Paths to Marxism I: London, Paris, Zurich, Vienna (1878-88) 4. Translating Marx: Guesde and Jaurès 5. Star Students: Bernstein and Kautsky 6. Theory and Practice: Adler’s Belated Marxism Paths to Marxism II: Geneva, Warsaw, St. Petersburg (1885-1903) 7. The Social Question as a Political Question: Plekhanov’s Turn toward Marx 8. The Social Question as a Question of Power: Struve and Lenin 9. Engagement as Science: Luxemburg PART III Engagement On Misery, or the First Commandment: The Radical Study of Reality 10. Miserable Lives: The Everyday World of Proletarians and Peasants 11. Miserable Labor: The Proletarian World of Work On Revolution, or the Second Commandment: Philosophy as a Practice 12. Revolutionary Expectations 13. Revolution at Last? Dress Rehearsal in St. Petersburg, 1905–​6 Conclusion: From Marx to Marxism: Fieldworkers, Bookworms, and Adventurers Notes Bibliography Index