Historija Marksizma. by Predrag VranickiReview by: Milorad M. DrachkovitchSlavic Review, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 1964), pp. 137-138Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2492383 .

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Reviews PREDRAG VRANICKI, Historija Marksizma. Zagreb: Naprijed, 1961.

633 pp.

In over six hundred pages, with nearly a thousand footnotes and a list of approximately five hundred bibliographical items, a professor of philoso- phy at the University of Zagreb, Predrag Vranicki, has presented to the Yugoslav reading public a panoramic survey of Marxist thought from its inception to 1960.

Introducing himself as an "integral Marxist" for whom Marxism repre- sents "the most viable modern idea," Vranicki sees three phases of authen- tically progressive and creative Marxist thinking: one of these, obviously, is the Marxism of the "founding fathers," Marx and Engels themselves, whose work signified "the greatest triumph of scientific thinking by new social forces" (p. 145). Lenin then arrived on the scene to rescue Marxist thought, even before 1914, from the dubious "Marxists" of the Second Interna- tional. Viewing the October Revolution as the "greatest, the most ingenious and the most significant accomplishment of Lenin," Vranicki, using the word "genius" unsparingly to qualify everything Lenin wrote and did, sees Lenin as the only man of the twentieth century who by virtue of "sharpness of the intellect, breadth of culture and revolutionary intuitiveness" could be compared to Marx. Finally, after a long period of atrophy resulting from the Stalinist deformation of everything Marxist, "the Yugoslav revo- lution constitutes a new stage in the evolution of socialism and Marxist thought, carrying on all the great and profound ideas of Marxism which have made it the dominant concept of contemporary history" (p. 594).

This central, dialectical element of Vranicki's history (with Leninism representing a synthesis of Marxist thesis and antithetical "revisionism," and Titoism representing a synthesis of Marxist-Leninist thesis and the antithetical Stalinism) is carefully documented, and his wide-ranging cen- sure of nonorthodoxy emphasizes even more what could be termed Vran- icki's "Titocentric" interpretation of present-day Marxism.

The classical Social Democrats of all shadings-Kautsky, Bernstein, Aus- tromarxists-are all denounced by the author as deviants from true Marx- ism: Bernstein was "wrong on all basic questions" (p. 180); Karl Kautsky was a "bourgeois liberal" (p. 200); Otto Bauer shared Kautsky's conclusions (p. 242); Henri De Man goes unmentioned, as does John Strachey, nor is there any allusion to any Social Democratic writer today whom one might presume to have continued or enriched NMarxist thought or tradition.

Professor Vranicki then turns to a survey of contemporary Marxism, both East and West, and again finds few palatable elements. The author de- votes very uneven attention to the Marxist thought outside the "socialist camp." His main effort is directed toward analyzing i\Iarxism in France (26 pages), where only the ideas of Henri Lefebvre and Jean-Paul Sartre are discussed sympathetically and at length, while the "official French Marxists" and in particular the "Stalinist" Roger Garaudy, are sharply criticized and summarily dismissed as being "entirely under the influence

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138 Slavic Review

of Soviet ideology" (p. 541). M\Sarxist thought in other Western countries is treated in only five pages, and summarized in a somewhat less than com- plimentary sentence: "Marxist theory [in these countries] has in general not reached the level necessary for obtaining international recognition"

(p. 544). As for Marxism in the "socialist camp," only twTo persons receive a clean

bill of Marxist health-Georg Lukacs and, particularly, Ernst Bloch (as- signed to a common category of progressive Marxists ostracized by "bloc" officialdom along with the Yugoslav Marxists and L. Kolakowski in Poland. Kolakowski's case is reviewed in a brief but sympathetic footnote on page 498, while the philosophy of Adam Schaff is referred to by a single coml- ment that he was unable to transcend the usual manner of treating philo- sophical problems, though he tries to argue differently from Soviet philoso- phers). In a brief chapter on "China and Mlarxism" the author acknowl- edges Mao Tse-tung's ability to "apply Marxism creatively during the revo- lution." At the same time, however, he advises the Chinese Communists to learn from the experience of others, particularly of the Yugoslav M,arx- ists, how to "perceive and overcome the statist, bureaucratic distortions in the development of socialism" (p. 516).

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is dedicated to the state of MVarxist thinking in the Soviet Union during 1956-59. While recognlizing the im- portance of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the author does not find any attempt at original Marxist thinking transcending "the ideological vacuum and confusion" of the Stalinist era. His sharpest criticism is aimed at the "subjectivism" or "practicism" of Soviet Marxists who, as in Stalin's time, still carry on "the intolerable stamp of officialism," while the "whole clumsy ideological machinery, which allegedly fights against dogmatism and revi- sionism, itself suffers from both" (p. 493).

The conclusion of the book is also significant and certainly not free of paradox. The author is willing to concede the intrinsic value of the work of the "most eminent and lucid bourgeois thinkers." He pleads in favor of a "critical and creative dialogue" with them, nevertheless stressing again and again his conviction on the "superiority of Marxist theoretical thought." This contention, however, is negated by the conclusions of his own analysis, for, with the exception of Titoists and a few others, the en- tire book suggests that there are no original and creative MVlarxist thinkers in the world today.

Stanford University MILORAD M. DRACHKOVITCH

BASILE G. SPIRIDONAKIS, AMe'moires et docutments dut Ministe'e des Affaires JEtrangeres de France sur la Russie. Quebec: Faculte des Arts, Universite de Sherbrooke, n.d. 148 pp. Mimeographed.

This is a complete listing of forty-seven volumes of manuscripts covering the period from the late seventeenth century to 1884 and located in the Foreign MIinistry Archives in Paris under the title "Me'moires et documents: Fonds divers (Russie)." Most of the documents either have never been pub-

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