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MARGIT KOVES*
It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the
connection of German philosophy with German reality, the connection
of their criticism with their own material world.
German Ideology
The most important challenge of the 1920s and 1930s was the adequate
response to the historical developments connected with the emergence of
Italian, German and other Fascist movements in several countries of Europe.
Georg Lukaics whose work spanned seven decades and ranged over aesthet-
ics, literary criticism, politics and philosophy wrote extensively about Fas-
cism. Lukacs's analysis of the social base and ideological aspects of Fascism
had pointed to dimensions of Fascism, which can occur, in any country at a
particular phase of capitalism.
Fascist parties and their military organizations emerged in the course of ag-
ricultural, industrial and financial crises after the workers revolutions fol-
lowing the First World War. The Communist International and the emigres
of the socialist revolutions in Moscow, Vienna and in their locations of exile,
observed the radicalization of working class politics and expected another
round of revolutions and the world revolution in tlie 1920s. Contrary to
their expectations the slump reduced most of the international Communist
movements to isolated Europe outside Russia. While the slump strengthened
the anti-imperialist movements in the colonies, it transformed the fascist
movements in a number of countries of Europe, in Japan and in South-America
into international movements. The growth of fascist movements was con-
nected with the crisis of existence and unemployment, they were tolerated
and later maintained for their ability to counter and neutralize the political
influence of social-democratic and communist movements in countries where
the left had made important achievements in the area of workers rights and
welfare benefits. Fascist movements adapted many of the symbols and the
rhetoric of left revolutionaries in the 1920s, and had an appeal for those
strata in society who were marginalised as a result of the economic depres-
sion. They also used this appeal to mobilize large masses, engineer street vio-
lence and dispense with democratically elected governments and parliaments.
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28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
II
"in the fact that it expresses concretely and dynamically the possibilities
of the given concrete developmental stage ot humankind (showing up fu-
ture perspectives)."2
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Lukacs and Fascism 29
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30 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
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Lukacs and Fascism 31
can be mentioned that he was their main critic from the beginn
First World War when they supported the war, and he was consi
their opponent within the Hungarian Workers Council. Yet in t
Hungary he suggested in The Blum Theses a front of workers an
against Fascism for a transitional democracy and he also recogni
tive role trade unions played in the concrete political situation i
These trade unions were led by Social democrats. This showed his sense of
realism in the Hungarian context.
The Hungarian Communist Party did not adopt the programme of a joint
front of workers and peasants against Fascism. In his later reminiscences
Lukacs said that his isolation in the Hungarian Communist Party in the ques-
tion of The Blum Theses, its rejection and the possibility that he may be
expelled from the party (as Karl Korsch was from the German Communist
Party in 1926) made him publish his self-criticism and decide to concentrate
on his work on an international level.7 His work however proceeded along
the theoretical content of The Blum Theses.
III
In contrast to our other ideas this one has, interestingly enough, a very
wide currency in the Soviet Union. And the reason of its popularity is that
no one really knows that it was Lifshitz and I who introduced it.10
Lasalle's play was discussed by Marx and Engels in the context of aesthet-
ics and politics, the failure of the 1849 revolution and the author's tragic
view of revolution. At this historical juncture, the question of bourgeois revo-
lution, the specificity of German development and their aesthetic reflection
were at the centre of Lukacs' interest.
Lasalle selected a participant of the 1522-23 rebellion of the German
knights as the protagonist of his play Franz von Sickingen.11 Marx and Engels
criticized Lasalle for the choice of his hero, Sickingen and they drew a paral-
lel between him, a knight and the member of a declining class and Thomas
Miinzer, a theologian and reformer who joined the rebellion with other mem-
bers of his peasant commune and was executed in 1525. Marx and Engels
felt that Miinzer as a representative of the plebeian wing of the Peasant War
would have been a better choice, than Sickingen."2
The tragedy of revolution, which Lasalle professed he wanted to express,
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32 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
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Lukacs and Fascism 33
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34 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
IV
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Lukacs and Fascism 35
What was called the worldview of Fascism was the product of centuries
long philosophical development. It became a political force, a tool in the
struggle of the social-economic crisis of this formation (Imperialism) which
could lend the appearance of revolution to reactionary thought forms.25
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36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
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Lukacs and Fascism 37
NOTES
1. Otto Bauer, Fascism, in: Austro-Marxism, transl. and ed. By Tom Bottomore & Patric
Goode, Oxford pp. 167-168.
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38 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
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