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
Acknowledgements Abbreviations PROLOGUE: Marxism as a Generational Project I SOCIALIZATION Born in the Nineteenth Century: Family Influences Adolescence and Its Discontents: Emerging Worldviews Beating the Drum: Literary Influences II POLITICIZATION Paths to Marxism I: London, Paris, Zurich, Vienna (1878-1888) Translating Marxism: Guesde and Jaurès Star Students: Bernstein and Kautsky Theory and Practice: Adler's Belated Marxism Paths to Marxism II: Geneva, Warsaw, St. Petersburg (1885-1903) The Social Question as a Political Question: Plekhanov's Turn toward Marx The Social Question as a Question of Power: Struve and Lenin Engagement as Science: Luxemburg III ENGAGEMENT On Misery, or the First Commandment: The Radical Study of Reality Miserable Living: Depicting Proletarians and Peasants Miserable Labor: The Proletarian World of Work On Revolution, or the Second Commandment: Philosophy as Practice Revolutionary Expectations Revolution at Last? Dress Rehearsal in St. Petersburg, 1905/06 CONCLUSION: From Marx to Marxism: Fieldworkers, Bookworms, and Adventurers Bibliography Index
Christina Morina is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Bielefeld. Her research focuses on major themes in 19th and 20th century German and European history, especially World War II, the Holocaust and bystander history, political and memory cultures in Germany since 1945, the history of Marxism, and the history of historiography.
Reviews for The Invention of Marxism: How an Idea Changed Everything
"""Morina's pen-portraits - fine-grained, deftly interlinked - are superb. Forgotten figures, such as Adler and Struve, are coaxed back into the sunlight, famous ones - Lenin, Kautsky, Luxemburg - reimagined"" -- Madoc Cairns, Times Literary Supplement"
