Main Currents Of Marxism by Leszek Kołakowski

He himself began as a leading light of the last Eastern European generation to try to reclaim Marxism as a source of humane idealism. By the time he has scrambled up all of Marxism’s columns and around all of its cornices, from the sources of the dialectic in the classical philosophy of Plotinus to the pathetic “thought” of Brezhnev, Kim Il-Sung and Elena Ceausescu, nothing is left except rubble.īut he is not unsympathetic to Marxism. For nearly 1,300 pages, the author clambers over the edifice of his subject like an indefatigable spider, laying his charges.

His Main Currents of Marxism (translated by PS Falla) is not only a monumental intellectual history of Marxist thought it is also one of the world’s grandest, most thoroughgoing intellectual demolition jobs. “He’s got a great chapter about what he calls ‘the Promethean motif’ in Marxism – the idea that it’s the destiny of humanity to steal fire from the gods and make the world whatever we want it to be.” “You need to read Kolakowski,” said the person I was with.

The wavelets of a small artificial ocean made by damming the river Ob were splashing on the sand, and I was wondering out loud about the roots of the Soviet passion for making grand modifications to nature. I was standing on a beach in Siberia when this book was recommended to me.

Main Currents Of Marxism by Leszek Kołakowski