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Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia
This book reconstructs Marx and Engels's theory of freedom, highlights its centrality to their vision of the communist society of the future, traces its development in the history of Marxist thought (including Marxism-Leninism), and explains how it was transformed at the height of its influence into a legitimation of totalitarian practices. The author contributes to the explanation of the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe by showing the inherently utopian character of the idea of a marketless economy and by interpreting the Soviet communist experiment as a failed attempt to realize this utopia. Hence, he provides substantial arguments for the view that "really existing socialism" has never been a viable, stable alternative to the market economies of the West. The book's title echoes Engels's phrase "the leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom." "The kingdom of necessity" refers to the Marxist conception of the laws of history, "the leap" to the dictatorship of the proletariat, and "the kingdom of freedom" to the communist conception of freedom as control over economic and social forces. For Marx, the main enemy of human freedom was not political coercion but the "blind, " uncontrollable forces of the market. Thus freedom could be realized only through rational planning that would liberate people from their dependence on material things and alienated social forces. The Leninist determination to realize this ideal regardless of social cost was supported by confidence that the scientific understanding of the laws of history provided (allegedly) by Marxism made the communist party virtually infallible and legitimized its claim to unlimitedpower. Thus, Soviet totalitarianism was a predictable result of a politically forced development aimed toward "the kingdom of freedom." But the dependence of the Soviet regime on ideological legitimization was also its hidden weakness. The Soviet system was unable to develop self-reg
Book Details
- Publisher: Stanford University Press
- Publish Date: Sep 1st, 1997
- Pages: 656
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.03in - 6.05in - 1.46in - 2.00lb
- EAN: 9780804731645
- Categories: • Political Ideologies - Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism• Eastern Europe - General• History & Theory - General
About the Author
Andrzej Walicki is O'Neill Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame.
Praise for this book
"It is impossible to describe the intelligence, precision, nuance, and sophistication of Walicki's exposition and argument in a brief review. The author is consistently forceful without being crude, and he maintains a high intellectual level while dealing with extremely controversial and even inflammatory subjects. indeed, the book is also an important work of historiography, because it discusses, often at length, and in an incisive manner, much literature in the fields of Marxism and Soviet studies. . . . In sum, Walicki has written another major and masterful book."--Slavic and East European Journal
"This book is a product of mature scholarship which serves to confirm anew Walicki's skill as an intellectual historian and his gift for the felicitous expression of his ideas. It is to be recommended to anyone seeking to go beyond a basic introduction to Marxist thought, and it may offer fresh insight to those already familiar with the sources reviewed by Walicki."--The Russian Review
"Walicki makes a significant contribution to debates over reasons for the collapse of international communism. A book of such monumental scope will arouse controversies among Marxologists, but this book is an intellectual tour de force, rarely equaled in studies of Marxism."--R.J. Mitchell, University of New Orleans