GEORG LUKACS

Georg Lukacs was born at Budapest (Hungary) in 1885 (April 13). After graduating from Budapest University, he studied at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg. He had diverse interests, During the first phase of his life, even while he was studying he devoted considerable time to literary criticism. In this field, his early works are Soul and Form (1910), History of Development of Modern Drama (1911), Aesthetic Culture (1913) and the Theory of Novel (1916). His initial inclination during this period was towards ethical idealism. Plato and Hegel seem to have considerably infleunced him in this respect. Gradually, he was attracted by Marxian philosophy and within a couple of years he got intensely involved in the communist movement of his country. He joined the Communist Party of Hungary and became the Education Minister in 1919 in the short-lived Communist Government. After the fall of the communist regime, he was tried by the new Hungarian Government and sentenced to death. He fled from Hungary and spent nearly 20 years in Austria, Germany and the Soviet Union. It was during his stay in Austria that he wrote his most seminal work - History and Class Consciousness. This is the most important work of Lukacs and it has influenced a large number of Marxists. In fact, the Student Movement in France and in other countries of Europe in the 1960s is said to have been inspired by this work. The Frankfurt School was also influenced by him. He returned to I-lungary in 1945 to become a professor of Aesthetics at the Budapest University. Here, he got actively involved in political activities and consequently, became a target of serious criticism. In 1956, in the wake of de-Stalinization, he became the Minister of Culture in the Communist Government of Imray Nagi in Hungary for a few months. After the fall of this government, he was deported to Romania but he returned in 1957. Thereafter, till his death in 1971 (June 4) lie was engaged in writing philosophical and literary works.

Rejection of Dialectical Materialism

You would recall that Marx had predicted that when contradictions in capitalism would grow, it would be overthrown in a revolution by the proletariat. However, it was noticed during the twentieth century that this prediction of Marx did not come true and capitalism continued to grow despite its periodic crises. It was a problem for all post-Marx Marxists to explain as to why capitalism was not coming to an end. In the previous lesson, we discussed that Lenin's explanation was that capitalism was still surviving because it had reached its highest stage of imperialism which was the last stage of capitalism. Lukacs, Gramsci and the Frankfurt School offered other answers to explain this phenomenon. Lukacs argued that for the overthrow of capitalism, the mere existence of the proletariat class was not enough as Marx had argued; this proletariat must also acquire revolutionary consciousness. He was critical of the view that Marxism was like physical sciences. He criticized Engel's argument that human behaviour was governed by dialectical laws. He also criticized Engels for applying dialectics to the social world, because the interaction of subject and object in the social world is not the same as in the natural world. He went on to say that thought does not merely mirror or reflect the physical world sans mental activity. He rejected the Marxian theory of dialectical materialism. Likewise, Gramsci questioned the very Marxian view that the economic base determines the ideological political superstructure. He tried to explain how one class maintains its hold on the other. He argued that the rule of one class over the other does not depend merely on the economic and physical power, it depends on the ability of the ruling class to impose its social, cultural and moral values on the ruled. Thus, while Lukacs emphasized the role of consciousness instead of material forces, Gramsci highlighted the role of cultural aspects instead of the economic base determining the super structure.

Lukacs carried out a philosophic revisionism of Marxism. He questioned several key aspects of Marxism, Leninism. He attacked historical materialism which is the very basis of Marxism. He argued that it was vulgar Marxism to say that a set of economic laws will determine whether the situation was ripe for revolution or not. He asserted that material conditions in themselves cannot change history. Socialist revolution is not a consequence of sharpening of just contradictions of capitalism. It is only when a class becomes conscious of these contradictions that revolutionary change occurs. Thus, he emphasized the creative role of human consciousness. In the previous unit, it was pointed out that according to Marx, it is the sharpening of contradictions between the forces or means of production and relations of production that leads to changes in society, Lukacs reversed this argument. He asserted that contradictions between means and relations of production (which is a objective fact) cannot itself bring about any change in society, unless there is a human subject (proletariat class) which grasps this contradiction. To put it in other words. Lulcacs did not accept the basic Marxian position that matter isprimary and mind secondary. Mere fact that there is exploitation and alienation of the proletariat class is not enough to bring about a revolution; rather it is only when the proletariat class becomes conscious of this alienation and exploit ion that revolution would talce place. Thus, Lukacs took a semi-Hegelian or quasi Hegelian position.

It almost amounted to saying that mind is primary and matter secondary. In fact, Lukacs seems to agree with the Marxian thesis of Feuerbach that the essential element in historical evolution is not contradiction, but proletariat's awareness about this contradiction which it acquires when engaged in resolving it. Further, the proletariat's consciousness about this contradiction is not direct, but only through its having experienced alienation. Lukacs, argument is that in the social world (unlike the natural world) there are no objective historical laws which are not subject to human control.

Denial of Lenin's Vanguard Thesis

The above position of Lukacs also amounts to a denial of Lenin's thesis about the role of the Comnzunist Party as the vanguard of the proletariat, because he maintains that such revolutionary consciousness will not come to the proletariat through some internzediary, but directly by experiencing alienation and exploitation. Consciousness in this way does not remain a super-structural category as in Marx. In Lenin's position as stated in What is to be Done (1902), the proletariat can acquire revolutionary consciousness (awareness about the need to overthrow capitalism) only by relying on outside elements (professional revolutionaries) who have a clear awareness of historical evolution which the proletariat cannot have on its own. The Communist Party, in Lenin's argument, represents a suitable mechanism for imparting such revolutionary consciousness to the proletariat; but for Lukacs the proletariat must acquire this consciousness about its class position without any outside help. To a question as to how the proletariat will acquire such revolutionary consciousness, Lukacs' response was that it would come through Workers' Councils and not by the party organisation as Lenin had maintained.

Relation of Subject and Object

In classical materialism, consciousness is considered a mere reflection of reality and the only valid category is totality which can be grasped by the dialectical method alone. Lukacs calls. it the "reflective" or copy theory of knowledge which apprehends a false objectivity. This is a very complex argument of Lukacs. He is saying that to stop at the reality of a mere object is to grasp only at the appearance of things. According to him, the revolutionary praxis of the proletariat enables it to have a new and higher form of consciousness. When the proletariat begins to see that in capitalism, it has become a mere commodity or a mere objecr, it ceases to be a mere commodity and a mere object. It becomes a subject (agent of change). Thus, comprehension of this reality enables it to change this reality. Lukacs further argued that object and subject (being and consciousness) are not related to each other as base and super structure, but co-exist in a single dialectic. In other words, while Marx had argued that it is the material conditions of society which change history, according to Lukacs consciousness is not a simple reflection of the process of history, but it truly is an agent by which history may be transformed. While consciousness is a product of material conditions, it is also the driving force by which material conditions may be changed. While the orthodox Marxian position states that the proletariat's conditions of existence determines their consciousness, Lukacs maintains that the proletariat's consciousness would change their conditions of existence. Thus, consciousness is the most decisive factor in the self-liberation of the proletariat. It is through tlie acquisition of revolutionary consciousness that the proletariat transforms itself from a 'class in itself to a 'class for itself, from an object of history to a subject of history.