From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Wed Jul 25 2007 - 14:48:51 EDT
Prof. Marcel van der Linden's book on "Western Marxism and the Soviet Union", translated by yours truly and published with the kind assistance of Sebastien Budgen, is now available from Brill publishers. http://www.brill.nl/product_id21864.htm I do not know why they don't publish a cheaper paperback version, but no doubt there are reasons for that (some books in the HM series have been published in paperback as well as hardback). From the introduction of Marcel's book: "The 'Russian Question' was an absolutely central problem for Marxism in the 20th century. It was and remains, as Castoriadis put it, 'the touchstone of theoretical and practical attitudes which lay claim to revolution.' For that reason, it is all the more astonishing that, until this very day, not one scholar has tried to portray the historical development of Marxist thought about the Soviet Union from 1917 until the present in a coherent, comprehensive appraisal. Quite possibly the reason for this lacuna has not so much to do with the specific topic area, but with the underdeveloped historiography of Marxist theories generally. Anderson concluded years ago in his Considerations on Western Marxism that 'the causes and forms of [Marxism's] successive metamorphoses and transferences remain largely unexplored.' Likewise, in the history of ideas Marxist theories have not received the attention they deserve. Nevertheless not only the primary literature, but also the secondary literature about 'Western Marxism and the Soviet Union' is quite extensive, as can be easily verified from the bibliography at the end of this study. (...) My own inquiry diverges from earlier research in two main respects: (i) It aims to present the development of the Marxist critique of the Soviet Union across a rather large period in history (from 1917 to the present) and in a large region (Western Europe and North America). Within this demarcation of limits in time and space, an effort has been made to ensure completeness, by paying attention to all Marxist analyses which in some way deviated from or added to the older contributions. (ii) On the basis of the presentation defined in (i), my research moreover aims to begin, at least in outline, with the elaboration of a meta-theory of this theoretical evolution, in order to identify what the logic of the development sketched has been." The English edition is a bit larger than the Dutch and German versions appearing previously, including some new text and documentation, and re-edited somewhat. Marxist literature appearing in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Dutch is included. Although this was a point of discussion between us at one time, Marcel did not analyse those Western Marxist views, not themselves reflective of/derived from CPSU opinion, according to which the USSR was nevertheless some kind of "socialist" or "state-socialist" formation. I personally would have liked those to have been included, for the sake of completeness, but then, I was only the translator. Nevertheless he makes a good job of showing - sometimes with a glint of Dutch humor - how a whole gallery of Western Marxist intellects strained to interpret the unprecedented society of the Soviet Union, mainly from afar and often without knowing Russian language, within a categorical framework that not infrequently stretched the bounds of credulity. At some points, Marcel diverges from the "regional" limits he imposed on his study, discussing for example critiques from East-European or Russian dissidents/migrant intellectuals which were published in the West, and which became part of the controversy. I suppose this book, like any other, can be critiqued (I hope it will be), but I'm glad it's there, as an historical reference work, and with any luck it might stimulate some better theorising in future. I certainly learnt a lot from translating it, not just in respect of small matters of style but also with regard to the human co-operation such a project requires. Jurriaan
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