Tras las huellas del materialismo histórico

by Perry Anderson, Eduardo Terrén (Translator)

En 1976 Perry Anderson concluía sus Consideraciones sobre el marxismo occidental pronosticando que la escisión dentro del marxismo entre temas filosóficos y estéticos y una verdadera teoría materialista de la sociedad sólo se resolvería con un resurgimiento de la política revolucionaria en Occidente. El presente libro, aun no siendo una continuación de aquel, tiene su origen en el incumplimiento de aquella predicción: la teoría materialista de la sociedad se ha desarrollado con fuerza insólita en Inglaterra y en Estados Unidos, donde los movimientos revolucionarios siguen siendo minoritarios, mientras en la Europa mediterránea el marxismo entraba en una crisis decisiva de credibilidad e influencia. No es preciso compartir la tesis de Anderson –que la crisis del marxismo latino es un fruto del fracaso político del eurocomunismo– para admirar la elegancia y precisión con las que resume y critica las corrientes en boga entre los intelectuales europeos de finales del siglo XX, desde el postestructuralismo al pensamiento de Habermas.
Nunca fue tan necesaria la lectura de este autor, que pasará a ser uno de los gigantes del pensamiento marxista, dada la convulsión y la fragilidad de nuestro tiempo.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Theory, Nonfiction, Sociology, Essays, Criticism

152 pages, Paperback

First published June 18, 1983

About the author

Perry Anderson is an English Marxist intellectual and historian. He is Professor of History and Sociology at UCLA and an editor of the New Left Review. He is the brother of historian Benedict Anderson.

He was an influence on the New Left. He bore the brunt of the disapproval of E.P. Thompson in the latter's The Poverty of Theory, in a controversy during the late 1970s over the scientific Marxism of Louis Althusser, and the use of history and theory in the politics of the Left. In the mid-1960s, Thompson wrote an essay for the annual Socialist Register that rejected Anderson's view of aristocratic dominance of Britain's historical trajectory, as well as Anderson's seeming preference for continental European theorists over radical British traditions and empiricism. Anderson delivered two responses to Thompson's polemics, first in an essay in New Left Review (January-February 1966) called "Socialism and Pseudo-Empiricism" and then in a more conciliatory yet ambitious overview, Arguments within English Marxism (1980).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_An...

Reviews

[hayatem · Rating 3 out of 5]

…في الماركسيّة هناك الجدل الماديّ الذي هو منهجيّة التفكير في الواقع، والذي يقوم على الفهم الماديّ للتاريخ. الجدل الماديّ هو جوهر (ومركز) الماركسيّة، هو الإضافة الجوهريّة التي تبلورت مع ماركس وإنجلز، وحقّقتْ نقلة نوعيّة في الوعي البشريّ بعد منطق أرسطو (المنطق الصّوَري).*

ماهي المادية التاريخية :

-المادية التاريخية هي المقاربة المنهجية للتأريخ الماركسي الذي يركز على المجتمعات البشرية وتطورها مع مرور الوقت، ويدعي بأنها تتبع عدة ميول قابلة للملاحظة، وقد تم التعبير عن هذا الأمر لأول مرة من قبل كارل ماركس (1818-1883) باعتباره التصور المادي للتاريخ.*

-المادية التاريخية matérialisme historique مذهب فلسفي يعنى بدراسة الظواهر الاجتماعية والإنسانية في ضوء مبادئ التحليل الماركسي marxisme بصورة عامة، ومبادئ المادية الجدلية matérialisme dialectique المعنية بظواهر الكون والطبيعة بصورة خاصة، فهي تستمد من المادية الجدلية مبادئها في تحليل الظواهر والوقائع الاجتماعية، إذ تعتمد اعتماداً أساسياً على المقولات الثلاث الأساسية المتمثلة بأن عمليات التراكم الكمية تؤدي إلى تغيرات كيفية، وأن التناقض بين مكونات الأشياء يعد الأساس في حركتها- وما من شيء في الطبيعة والحياة الاجتماعية إلا ويحمل في مكوناته قدراً من التناقض ينتج صراعاً مستمراً بينها- وأن الصراع بين المكونات يؤدي باستمرار إلى ما يعرف بنفي النفي، فكل مرحلة من مراحل التطور تنفي بالضرورة المراحل السابقة، ولا يمكن أن تتعايش المراحل مع بعضها إلا لفترات مؤقتة توصف بالتناقض، ولايمكن أن يكون بينها أي وفاق أو استقرار. المادية التاريخية هي نتاج تطبيق المنطق الجدلي على التطور التاريخي للمجتمع.*

…مع هيمنة ستالين و«أدلجته» الماركسيّة ساد منظور «تخصّصيّ» قسّم الماركسيّة إلى أربعة فروع «علميّة»: الأوّل هو الماديّة الديالكتيكيّة، والثّاني هو الماديّة التاريخيّة، والثّالث هو الاقتصاد السياسيّ، والرّابع هو الاشتراكيّة العلميّة. لكنّ موت ستالين فرض «إعادة نظر»، ومحاولةً لتجاوز «الماركسيّة السوفياتيّة بالعودة إلى ماركس». هذا ما أدّى إلى «اكتشاف» نصوص لماركس جرت التغطية عليها، منها ما يتعلّق بـ«نمط الإنتاج الآسيويّ»، الذي حظي بتنظير وبحث ونقاش طيلة خمسينيّات القرن العشرين وستّينيّاته. لكنّ الأهمّ هنا هو «نقد الديامات» (والديامات هي الشكل الذي اتخذه المفهوم المادي للديالكتيك في الاتحاد السوفيتي خلال الفترة الستالينية) التي «غرزها» المنظّرون السوفيات في الماركسيّة استناداً إلى إنجلز، وكان القصد يتعلّق بالجدل. هذا ما أنتج النظريّة الماديّة التاريخيّة التي أصبحت سمة الماركسيّة الغربيّة.*

يقدم الكتاب خريطة للنقد المعاصر للمادية التاريخية في أمريكا الشمالية وأوروبا الغربية.
كما أنه يسائل بقراءة التاريخ أو بتحليل نظرية الفكر في تفسير التاريخ مآل الفلسفة الماركسية اليوم.

المحتوى صعب ومعقد بعض الشيء لغير المتخصص أو المتعمق في الفكر الماركسي او المطلع او الملم ب الفكر السياسي الغربي.
مشروع بيري أندرسن الفكري في التحليل التاريخي – السوسيولوجي المنحى، شائك بعض الشيء.
لغته التاريخية-العلمية فريدة، وغنية بالمصطلحات التي تبدو غير سهلة للقارئ غير الملم. بصفة عامة عقليته في تقصي الأفكار وتحليلها -المتأتية من مدرسة الماديّة التاريخيّة، وأسلوب التحليل الماركسي-و طرق ربطها معاً ثم تقديمها في قالب نقدي لا تخلو من التعقيد، ذلك تبعاً لحساسية الحقل الفلسفي الذي يشتغل ويبحث فيه، علاوة على تميزه بالتحليل التاريخي الدقيق.
يطرح بيري أندرسن ويساءل بجدل، وينتقد العديد من الأفكار النظرية، ك البنيوية الماركسية والتي ارتبطت بالفيلسوف الفرنسي لوي ألتوسير وطلابه؛ الذي قام بقراءة جديدة لرأس المال؛ فقد اشتهر بنظريته عن القطيعة الابستمولوجية في فكر ماركس و التي تعرضت لانتقادات شديدة لاحقا. أبرز من عمل ضمن اطارها وعمل على تطويرها: فريديناند دي سوسير و كلود ليفي شتراوس. وما بعدها أو ما بعد البنيوية "فوكو ودريدا"مروراً بالحركة النسوية ومآلاتها التاريخية. النسوية الماركسية نموذجاً (Marxist Feminism) توجه ونظرية نسوية مُستمدة من النظرية الماركسية الكلاسيكية، تحديدًا النظريات الماركسية خلال القرن التاسع عشر، والتي تشمل على نظريات كارل ماركس وفريدريك أنجلس وفلاديمير لينين. وترى النسويات الماركسيات أن الطبقية هي أساس اضطهاد النساء، وليس التمييز الجنسي، وبالتالي يرون أن الطريقة الوحيدة لتحرير النساء تكمن في تغيير جذري للاقتصاد الرأسمالي الحالي، واستبداله بأنظمة اشتراكية يتمتع فيها النساء والرجال بأجور عادلة لعملهم. وتُركز على قضايا العمل والنساء، وتحلل الطرق التي يتم بها اضطهاد النساء عن طريق الرأسمالية والملكيات الخاصة. ومن أبرز النسويات الماركسيات هن: أنجيلا ديفيس وألكسندرا كولونتاي.*

امتناني ل المترجم يزن الحاج على هذا الجهد الجميل.

[Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro funciona tanto como un breve recuento histórico de los destinos de las tendencias marxistas occidentales, especialmente de las década de los 60 y 70; como una propuesta de los caminos por los cuales deberían transitar la tradición socialista en los años venideros.

Increíblemente se plantean un par de discusiones que, con mayores o menores matices, pueden resultar muy actuales. En primer lugar, la crítica a los estructuralismos y posestructuralismos, éstos últimos representados especialmente por pensadores como Foucault y Derrida, aun bastante leídos en las universidades, que a su vez, han tenido impacto en pensadores como Laclau, el cual ha sido muy influyente en partidos y movimientos políticos de los últimos años (Podemos de España, por ejemplo). La segunda discusión, es la relación entre el socialismo y otros movimientos políticos y sociales, tales como el feminismo y ambientalismo.

En general, creo que es un muy buen libro para alguien interesado en el marxismo. También podría ser atractivo para quienes buscan argumentos contra aquello que se ha llamado posmodernidad. Estaría tentado en recomendar este libro a esa gente que habla del "marxismo cultural" y leen a Laje y le encuentran la razón; pero también creo que los mismos son, como se dice en latin chileno, terrible de aweonados , y dudo que entenderían algo.

[Sina Mousavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Perry Anderson, a materialist par excellence, locating the historical conditions that shaped it is crucial for understanding the decline in influence of Western Marxism as an intellectual tradition in the late 20th century. Western Marxism was fundamentally a product of the defeat of the Western European labour movement in the inter-war period. It is only in the light of this fact that key features of it, such as its overly abstract and philosophical nature and its aversion to serious political strategizing and study of economics, become intelligible.

The nature of this [Western] Marxism could not but bear the impress of the disasters that accompanied and surrounded it. Above all, it was marked by the sundering of the bonds that should have linked it to a popular movement for revolutionary socialism. These had existed at the outset, as the careers of its trio of founding fathers show — Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci, each an active leader and organizer in the communist movement in his own country […] As these pioneers ended in exile or prison, theory and practice drifted fatally apart [..] The sites of Marxism as a discourse gradually became displaced from trade unions and political parties to research institutes and university departments. Inaugurated with the rise of the Frankfurt School […] the change was virtually absolute by the period of the High Cold War in the fifties, when there was scarcely a Marxist theoretician of any weight who was not the holder of a chair in the academy, rather than a post in the class struggle.

The most interesting portion of the book is the second chapter, which deals with French (post)-structuralism – Western Marxism’s main rival school of thought. The two traditions share the same problématique, namely the relationship between structure and subjectivity. Anderson’s critique of thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and Deleuze is scathing. The opening move of structuralism is modeling all aspects of human life (e.g. economics, culture, and history) on the analogy of language; more specifically, the relation between langue and parole in Saussurian linguistics. Human beings create sentences that accord to linguistic laws, without necessarily being self-conscious about the laws that regulate their speech. But this analogy, he argues, is highly misleading for various reasons, among them being the exceptionally low mobility of linguistic structures, in contrast with highly volatile social and political structures. One of the many pernicious implications of this analytical move is “the randomization of history” and the erosion of any pretense to causal explanation. As

once the linguistic model becomes a general paradigm in the human sciences, the notion of ascertainable cause starts to undergo a critical weakening. The reason lies in the very nature of the relationship between langue and parole […] The supremacy of langue as a system is the cornerstone of the Saussurian legacy: parole is the subsequent activation of certain of its resources by the speaking subject […] An individual speech-act can only execute certain general linguistic laws, if it is to be communication at all. But at the same time, the laws can never explain the act. An unbridgeable gulf exists between the general rules of syntax and the utterance of particular sentences — whose shape or occasion can never be deduced from the sum of grammar, vocabulary or phonetics.

Ironically, by downplaying the role of subjectivity to the point of it being a mere mirage, they in effect rendered any structure illusory. Not recognizing the crucial interdependencies between structure and subject and solely emphasizing the former, taken to its logical conclusion, would land one in the hinterland of unbridled subjectivity; hence the seamless transition of figures such as Foucault from orthodox structuralism in the 60s to post-structuralism in the 70s.

[A L]

He does to postwar intellectual history what Alexander did to the gordian knot

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perry Anderson's existence is probably the best argument for the provision of private schools

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a snooze fest. The writing/speeches feel very dated in terms of style.

[James Wentworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a nutshell, the marxists, after the 1960s, retreated into the colleges and universities. Their obsession - amazingly, to me - was aesthetics. It's a slim volume if you like European intellectual history.

[Kristofer D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written as a follow up to his previous work Considerations on Western Marxism, In the Tracks of Historical Materialism can also be viewed as the second volume in a triptych along with its successor volume, The Origins of Postmodernity. All 3 works are of roughly equal length and although there is some allusion to politics, they are fundamentally works of philosophy. Simplifying a great deal, Considerations on Western Marxism is a work of metaphilosophy - all at once it establishes the contours of the canon of Western Marxism, critiques it on its own terms, and then signals its exhaustion. Western Marxism is, as Anderson tells it, an aesthetic and epistemological discourse. There is an absence of concrete analysis of economics or politics or history, not to speak of a near complete absence of the strategic debates which preoccupied Lenin, Trotsky, and Luxemburg (Gramsci is something like a transitional figure from the heroic age of classical Marxism to defeated/defeatist “Western Marxism.”)

As a sequel to Considerations on Western Marxism, In the Tracks of Historical Materialism provides a balance sheet of the renaissance of concrete Marxist analysis of economics, politics, and history that Anderson believed was in process during the 1970s, while also despairing of the failure of any renewed revolutionary strategic discussion of merit. It also points to the general failure of Trotskyism to rise to the occasion of Western Marxism’s exhaustion.

The first chapter, “Prediction and Performance” serves two purposes, to broadly survey the then-current state of historical materialism, and to keep a scorecard of predictions made by Anderson in his previous essay. For the most part, this chapter is effectively a bibliography of what Anderson considers to be the most significant Marxist scholarship of the decade, and notes that the center of gravity for Marxist scholarship has shifted dramatically over the course of the decade from continental Europe to England and America.

Anderson notes that the era of Western Marxism is over and its major surviving luminaries are unlikely to produce any new significant work, a prediction which Anderson later qualifies in the 1990s when he asserts that Fredric Jameson’s work on postmodernism is, in fact, the crowning achievement of Western Marxism. Anderson thus completes his triptych on Western Marxism with a full monograph dedicated to Jameson’s treatment of postmodernity.

Anderson notes that Marxism has turned to a concern with the concrete as opposed to the fixation on aesthetics and epistemology in the classics of Western Marxism. He notes the staggering achievement of British Marxist historiography in particular, but also the incredible achievement by G.A. Cohen and renewed Marxist work in economics and political science.

It is here, however, that history has after all not vindicated Anderson at all - the analytic Marxism of G.A. Cohen and John Roemer that Anderson endorses here as one of the emerging currents of Anglophone Marxist renaissance would be more or less over by the end of the decade, its major voices not necessarily abandoning the left, but certainly abandoning Marxism. Analytic Marxism would likewise never capture the imagination of the radical young the way that (a highly distorted reading of) French post-structualism would. How many of the radical young today - Marxist or otherwise - know the name of G.A. Cohen or Adam Przeworski or John Roemer? Surely their apostasy or renegacy from Marxism is no more criminal than that of, say, Michael Foucault, a legendary misogynist who railed against Mitterand’s socialist government from the right.

Anderson also notes that while the turn to the concrete has been a positive development, it has failed to “meet up” with a mass Marxist political practice and, moreover, the truly mass Communist Parties in Italy and France have coexisted with a collapse of their respective national Marxisms. That is, for all the original and important work being done, none of it matches the significant work of political strategy conducted by Lenin, Trotsky, and Luxemburg in a previous era. Curiously, the countries with mass Communist Parties have faced a crisis of Marxism at the exact moment that the opposite trend occurs in England and the USA, an emergent powerful body of theory absent a mass proletarian party.

An interesting development in the decades since Anderson wrote - Ian Steedman’s book on the labor theory of value (published by Verso itself) has been out of print for decades and is nearly impossible to find if one doesn’t have access to a university library. Likewise, G.A. Cohen, whose work is heralded as the pinnacle of Marxist scholarship of the decade, would eventually disaffiliate entirely from Marxism (analytic or otherwise), if not disaffiliate with socialism altogether (a somewhat similar arc, it would seem, to Anderson’s own reflections on William Morris and non-Marxist socialisms).

The second chapter, “Structure and Subject” is a tour de force onslaught against structuralism and its successor -ism, poststructuralism, the couplet which comprises the Anglo-American invention of “French Theory”. Anderson offers one blunt critique of the entire structuralist enterprise after another - starting with the master of structuralism, Anderson points out that langue and parole are uniquely ill-fit as categories by which to understand society (in true Andersonian style, “a peculiarly aberrant compass”). Anderson points to the relatively slow rate of change within language, the relatively vast liberty of parole (although, curiously, he makes no reference here to Chomsky - it isn’t just that parole is tremendously volatile on the individual level. It is literally infinite), and that the subject of speech is individual whereas the stuff of social science in nearly always collective (nations, classes, and so on). Of course, with this final objection Anderson is also implicitly dismissing rational choice and any other paradigm within social sciences which uses the individual as a basic unit of account. (44)

Anderson then moves briskly to a dismissal of the remaining tetrarch of structuralism, as well as Derrida and Foucault in his poststructuralist phase. Following a line of critique common to left- and right-wing critiques of the French masters alike, Anderson faults them for “attenuation of the truth” (45). Having aggrandized language, structuralism then proceeds to attenuate truth itself. Having severed the link between signified and signifier, poststructuralism (and, crucially, Anderson points to antecedent ideas already present in Lévi-Strauss) eventually foreclosed any attempt to show correspondence between theory and reality altogether. Anderson thus arrives at the familiar critique of structuralism/poststructuralism, “it’s all a bunch of nonsense.”

Anderson does, however, suggest a more interesting critique, one the right-wing critics leave out altogether: the structuralist/poststructuralist discourse is incapable of accounting for the conditions of its own emergence, in stark contrast to the tradition of historical materialism. Indeed, the “immanent critique” of historical materialism from within is one of its most significant assets. Structuralism offers nothing like this and, indeed, the when discussing their own shifting understanding of the signifier, Foucault and Barthes both allude to the events of 1968 - external events simply happen. That structuralism was apparently incapable of surviving falsification by reality is all well and good - but rather than meaningfully theorize why, the underlying theoretical commitments of structuralism were simply modified to untether it from any claim to truth whatsoever. Thus structuralism/poststructuralism are incapable of accounting not just for the conditions of their own emergence, but also for the emergence of any change whatsoever. Instead of “genuine explanation, structuralist analysis constantly tends to tilt towards classification” (49). (A critique of structuralism which Anderson shares with Chomsky.) We are led, once again, to the foundational sin of structuralism, its focus on the static. As it can never meaningfully demonstrate causality, its pretensions to science can only derive from esoteric procedures that demonstrate homology between systems or structures.

Anderson’s critique is powerful, even if it is conducted at such a high level of abstraction that it necessarily glides over some of the theological subtleties within structuralism/poststructuralism (which Anderson himself was aware of, advising the reader to take note of Peter Dews’ then-forthcoming Logics of Disintegration). But Anderson curiously - as is often the case with the many reversals in his oeuvre - does not discuss his own pivotal role in the creation of “French Theory.” Perhaps a case of modesty? Under his editorial guidance, the New Left Review was, of course, at the forefront of publication for several of the luminaries of structuralist/post-structuralist thought. Their role in popularizing Althusser to an Anglo-American audience is most significant, but the NLR also translated important works by Lévi-Strauss and Lacan (the journal was never quite so sympathetic to Foucault, Derrida, or Deleuze). Having correctly excoriated structuralism’s inability to account for its own existence as a knowledge, Anderson seems to have a smidge of historical amnesia when it comes to his own priors.

Although Anderson dedicates a few pages to the vogue for Althusser in the decade 1965-1975, he does not mention his own previous enthusiasm for the Marxist variant of structuralism (37-39). While Anderson is under no obligation to divulge his biography, it is odd he provides so little insight here as to what could have made the structural problematique compelling in the first place, and, perhaps more specifically, why it should have gone into eclipse in its native land at the exact moment it began its meteoric ascent in the American academy. Anderson here refers primarily to the internal coherence and tensions of the structuralist problematique, it seems odd, given his own critique of structuralism’s weaknesses, not to also account for the broader social-historical conditions which obtained as Althusserianism met its timely end by the mid 1970s. Why should it be the case that “incoherent” Althusserianism would die on the vine while poststructuralism should “take off”? Why should the weakness in argumentation of the one led to its demise, but not the other?

The final chapter and the concluding postscript are the most powerful - and interesting - sections of the book, now that the dust of the structuralism/poststructuralism dust up that takes center in the first two chapters has settled. Although Anderson still cannot resist offering a series of capsule reviews along the way, he powerfully grapples with the nature and history of the relationship between nature and history. This is Anderson at his most reflective thus far - having speedran through the varieties of Marxism in the preceding two decades, he now concludes that Marxism isn’t, after all, the only game in town. This the moment of rapprochement with both Utopian socialism and feminism. Anderson, however, makes an important connection often neglected in discussions of materialist feminism - the great Utopian socialists that Marx criticized so fiercely in “The Communist Manifesto” were more attuned to “the woman question” than anything to be found in their own writings. And yet, as Anderson makes clear, any rapprochement with utopian or non-Marxist socialism through the route of feminism does not entail a rejection of the baseline of Marx’s scientific critique. However, anticipating Anderson’s later assessment of Fukuyama after the fall of Communism, we might wonder whether Marx’s critique of the Utopians has so much force to it after all. Further, we might puzzle over the omission of the ideology that would ultimately enjoy tremendous vogue of the left for the two decades directly after 1989: anarchism. The anarchist revival, after all, often involved an odd pairing of two superficially unlikely bedfellows, the classical anarchism of Goldman, Berkman, and Malatesta alongside the poststructural libertarianism of Deleuze, Guattari, and Foucault.

Anderson considers - and dismisses - the non-Marxist naturalism of Chomsky and Barrington Moore. He considers Sebastiano Timpanaro’s Marxist naturalism to be more powerful. Here Anderson considers that this naturalism is, ultimately, in service of an ethics, which ultimately is absent within the canon of historical materialism. Anderson concludes his reflections on the problem of a socialist ethics thus:

Edward Thompson and Régis Debray - two very contrasted thinkers, yet each once of committed Marxist background - have recently converged in proposing a virtually ontological dialectic of Self and Other, transhistorically inherent in collective human bonding as such, as the ultimate explanation of the multiplying national hatreds and escalating international arms race of the post-war world. All such notions will have to be very carefully, and coolly, examined. What they tell us, however, is that if the relations between structure and subject are the province par excellence of socialist strategy, the relations between nature and history bring us to the long overdue moment of socialist morality. Marxism will not complete its vocation as a critical theory unless and until it can adequately meet it. (84)

In the Tracks of Historical Materialism was published after G.A. Cohen’s foundational work of analytical Marxism, but still before the rush of future classics in the latter half of the decade, including John Roemer’s epochal edited volume on the subject. Curiously, Anderson never meaningfully engaged with analytical Marxism after this. Although the New Left Review published a handful of articles by Przeworski and Cohen, its final assessment of analytical Marxism was condemnation. Whereas in the last 15 years Anderson has published conciliatory articles on figures from his earlier career - Lévi-Strauss, Althusser, Timpanaro - he never again discussed what he had previously considered the Marxist classic of its decade.

Curiously, Anderson also did not, after In the Tracks of Historical Materialism, appear to treat any of these subjects with much depth himself in the following decades, instead of engaging in the kind of original work on ethics he himself had called for, his subsequent output was dedicated primarily, though not exclusively, to intellectual history and European politics. Anderson also takes time to correct what he considers to be the major intellectual oversight of Considerations on Western Marxism, its neglect of Jürgen Habermas, whom he now considers to be a powerful final representative of the tradition (an assessment later amended in Origins of Postmodernity, where Fredric Jameson is instead crowned as the pinnacle of the tradition).

Having explored new avenues for Marxist research in the final chapter and postscript, Anderson concludes with an encomium for feminism and for a non-Marxist socialism.

Precisely because it sought to deliver the human race ‘all at once’ from bondage, it could explore issues of sex as much as, or more than, issues of class; but for the same reason it had no way of locating the lines of division within humanity capable of bringing about the new civilization. Its irenic universalism - the gospel of a secular religion as its founders formulated it - precluded social conflict as a central principle of political change: hence its necessary resort to moral conversion as a substitute for it. (94)

Anderson earlier in the book notes that Western Marxism often relied on supplements from without - Althusser had structuralism and pre-critical philosophy, the Frankfurt School had Weber and Freud, and so on. Now Anderson calls for resources of a different nature, emerging either before or outside of Marxism but equally at a distance from the bourgeois academy. Curiously, Anderson’s own subsequent trajectory would continue the trope of Western Marxism itself - how often does Anderson engage with bourgeois social science and philosophy as opposed to the steady flurry of less learnéd radical pamphlets produced entirely outside the halls of the academy? There is perhaps something to be learned from anarchism, a milieu historically more concerned with how to act and how to live in the hic et nunc, and less concerned with critique on behalf of a future that may never arrive.

[Bassam Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب للماركسي وأستاذ التاريخ البريطاني بيري أندرسن، بعنوان In the Tracks of Historical Materialism
الصادر سنة ١٩٨٣، وقد عني يزن الحاج بنقله إلى العربية بترجمة جيدة جدا بعنوان "إقتفاء خطى المادية التاريخية".

يتضمن الكتاب محاضرات ألقى أندرسن معظمها في السلسلة السنوية الثانية لمحاضرات مكتبة ويلك في إرفين بكاليفورنيا، في مايو من سنة ١٩٨٢، محاضرات ضمنت في فصول الكتاب (التكهن والتحقيق، البنية والذات والطبيعة والتاريخ) اضافة الى ملحق يتناول فيه المؤلف محاولة تشخيص وضع الماركسية اليوم من باب تبيان علاقتها بالاشتراكية وتحليل الواقع السياسي تحليلا ديالكتيكيا.

يستكمل أندرسن في كتابه هذا عملا كان قد بدأه في كتاب سابق له بعنوان Consideration on Westren Marxism  أو النظر في الماركسية الغربية، بسرد يبين مراحل تطور الماركسية الغربية (ماركسية أوروبا الغربية)، خصوصا في الحقبة التي تلت انتصار الحلفاء في الحرب العالمية الثانية (١٩٣٩-١٩٤٥)، في خمسييات، ستينيات وسبعينيات القرن العشرين، والتي كانت مفعمة بالحيوية، الانتاج الفكر والاشتباك الجدلي مع الأفكار، خصوصا في أوروبا اللاتينية (ايطاليا، فرنسا واسبانيا - الجنوب الأوروبي)، التطور الذي أثرى الفكر الأوروبي في العموم والماركسي على وجه الخصوص، في مجالي السياسة والثقافة، حقبة تخللتها الحرب الباردة بين المعسكرين الشرقي والغربي الأول بقيادة الاتحاد السوفياتي، والثاني - الامبريالي العدائي - بقيادة والولايات المتحدة الأمريكية وأوروبا الغربية، الأمر الذي أدى في بداية الأمر الى انزياح الماركسية من الواقع السياسي إلى أزقة الأكاديميا والحقول الفلسفية والانسانية، اضافة الى انقلاب العديد ممن عرفوا أنفسهم على أنهم ماركسيون، إلى ليبرالين واصطفافهم مع البرجوازيات الرجعية؛ صروح ثقافية كمدسة فرانكفورت أخذت شيئا من هذا اللون وهذا التحول على سبيل المثال، لا الحصر، وهنا يستشهد المؤلف بأطروحات هابرماس ومشروعه الفلسفي في عزل الماركسية عن الواقع السياسي والاقتصادي، وحصرها في الجانب الفلسفي مطعمة بمنخى فرويدي ومثاليات التجريد والقيم الفردانية الليبرالية.

كما أن انغماس الغرب في علم اللغويات والمحاولة المستميتة لاسقاطه على تاريخ وحاضر التطور الإجتماعي، الغوص في المجرد وفي البنيوية وما بعد البنيوية، محاولة اعادة احياء أطروحات الأممية الثانية البائدة، أو انقلابات اليساريين تحت ضغط الرساميل والدعاية الرسمية، إلى مواقع اليمين الرجعي نتيجة مساعي الإمبربالية الأمريكية لتحجيم وتسطيح طبيعة الصراع الطبقي، الواقع، وطابع العوامل التي تحدد الانحيازات الاجتماعية-السياسية.

ومن منطلق هذا التحليل يعرف لنا المؤلف جوهر المادية التاريخية وطبيعة النقد الموجه لها. اضافة إلى تشديده على أن الماركسية التي تراجعت كثيرا في جنوب أوروبا وجدت ضالتها، ووجدت لها موضع قدم "فكري" في الدول الأنجلوسكسونية (كبريطانيا والولايات المتحدة) التي أخذت - (على مستوى الأكاديميا) - تنتشر بين الشباب بطرق مختلفة ويقاربها الشباب الغربي في تلك الدول -بحسب المؤلف- بمقاربة اشتباكية فيها شيء من التقدم.

عاب طرح المؤلف برأيي هوسه واعتداده بالمركزية الغربية (الاوروبية) بالمجمل والتجربة الماركسية على وجه الخصوص فيه، ومن هنا نراه ما فتأ يهاجم الإتحاد السوفياتي وصين ماو، على أنها نماذج فاشلة لم تفهم كنه الماركسية كما يفهمه الغرب، الأمر الذي يكرس مركزية الغرب وهيمنته على فكر المؤلف وطرحه، بينما على الجانب الآخر هناك المفكر العربي الكبير سمير أمين الذي قدم نظريته عن "التبعية" والاقتصاد العالمي، وتحليله الماركسي انطلاقا من ما يسميه الغرب "دول العالم الثالث" استعلاءا، ليصل الى استنتاجات مغايرة، وبرأيي أراها أكثر دقة.

كما عابه شيء من التكرار واختزال الماركسية في جانبها الفلسفي، لا الواقع الاقتصادي والإجتماعي والسياسي، أو التحليل النابع من الفحص العلمي للمجتمع (بأدوات التحليل الماركسي)، لقوى انتاجه وأدوات الانتاج وعلائق الانتاج الأمر الذي أشار له المؤلف بال "ماركسية الكلاسيكية" ورأى أنه يجب تجاوزها، في طرح لا يخلوا من الاصلاحية، الطوباوية والليبرالية.

كل هذا السرد والتلاقح الفكري أو المواجهات الفكرية التي أوردها المؤلف تأتي في سياق توضيح "ماهية المادية التاريخية" ضمن سياق فكري، تاريخي مدعم ببعض الانعكاسات من الأفكار المعاصرة في زمن نشر الكتاب..

أما الجزء -الملحق - الأخير فحمل خلاصة الحل الذي يطرحه المؤلف لتحجيم الصراع الطبقي وأخذ خطوات جذرية في التعامل السياسي مع مواضيع مثل: حقوق المرأة والمساواة الجندرية، السلام العالمي، التحديات البيئية وأخيرا سباق التسلح المحموم والخطر النووي، اذا ما عرفنا أن الكتب كتب في الثمانينات، في العقد الأخير للاتحاد السوفياتي (١٩٢٢-١٩٩٠)، الحرب الباردة وبروباغندا الحروب النووية، المتجسد في تطبيق اشتراكية ديمقراطية عملية (واصلاحية بمكان ما، بمفهوم الاصلاحية عند المؤلف).

الكتاب يعد بمعنى من المعاني كتاب تاريخي وفلسفي مهم لا يخلوا من فائدة فكرية ومعرفية للقارئ. أنصح به.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julio Pino: I remember you bemoaned the absence of British Marxist theory in one of your books.
Perry Anderson: Yes, right before an explosion of theoretical works in English on both sides of the Atlantic!
I prefer the Portuguese-language title for this collection of lectures given at the University of California, THE CRISIS OF THE CRISIS OF MARXISM. The translated title is both more mellifluous and accurate. Back in 1983, a year of both annus mirabilis and annus horribilis in politics, Perry Anderson, with his usual acuity, set out to explain the decline of Marxism in theory and practice, particularly on the Continent, while Marxist scholarship flourished in British and American universities. (Perry was still in the U.K. at the time. He had not yet become an exile on Main Street from Margaret Thatcher.) The phrase "the crisis of Marxism" was on everyone's lips, including my own. The Communist parties of France and Italy had become social democratic outfits, haggling with the capitalists over wages and welfare. The Communist Party of Spain, the champion of the anti-fascist struggle against Franco, was ripped apart, never to return. In Britain and the United States the trade unions, battered by the assaults of Thatcher and Reagan, continued to wither. Never had historical materialism been thus confirmed as a tool of analysis and never had it seemed so useless in practice. In the Land of the Gauls structuralism and post-structuralism---Foucault, Lacan, Lyotard, et al--- had triumphed over Marxism for the allegiance of intellectuals and students. The best and most scathing chapter of THE CRISIS OF THE CRISIS sees Anderson pour scorn over this "retreat of the intellectuals" from political struggles. (As for anti-Marxist intelligentsia, Claude Levi-Strauss pronounced Marxism "a threat even in the animal kingdom".) The one bright spot in this night of the soul was the blossoming of Marxist, or at least materialist, scholarship in Anglo-Saxon universities, including Perry's future UCLA peers Robert Brenner (THE BRENNER DEBATE, on the origins of capitalism) and Carlo Ginzburg (THE NIGHT BATTLES, on the material origins of medieval Christianity and its discontents). Call it IN THE TRACKS OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM or whatever you like this slim volume is a testament to how the left lost the class struggle and took over the history department.

[Nico Cornejo · Rating 2 out of 5]

These conferences, in which Anderson continues with the history of Western Marxism, are not a very good addition to an analysis that already had many problems in its original formulation.

It is pretty clear in the text that Anderson thinks that Western Marxism IS Marxism, with the only other option being "eastern Marxism" which he identifies with the Soviet Union.

He never achieves self-awareness of the fact that most of the things he wanted Western Marxism to be already existed elsewhere. In the Cuba of Guevara and Castro (no mentions) or in the Burkina Faso of Sankara. Anderson is constantly looking for a "strategic Marxism". The real existing Marxism focused on revolution in the global south is invisible, one would imagine because such... unsophisticated ideas could not be applied to the "advanced capitalist countries".

And, lest I be acused of caricaturing his position, he describes Maoism as "little more than a truculent Oriental Khrushchevism". There is some irony here, because Krushchev was already part of "Eastern Marxism", so Maoism is kind of an Oriental Orientalism.

Another interesting detail of the appearance of Maoism in the text is that the reason for its inclusion is that many western Marxists had adopted ideas of the Cultural Revolution. But Anderson does not deal with the CR in a theoretical level, that would be absurd I guess.

What became exceedingly clear as I kept reading was that the real dilemma that Anderson avoided again and again is why Western Marxism became such a hollow, academic, technical movement, while the rest of the world kept producing revolutionaries that combined Marxism with their local conditions. How could that be explained? and, Why is that not an issue for Anderson?

On the bright side, at least he recognized more or less that he had been wrong in supporting Althusser and criticizing EP Thompson. A little bit late, but better late than ever.

Despite the selective blindness that plagues the text, Anderson remains an engaging writer, and he provides interesting critiques of structuralism and post-structuralism. The post-script talking about feminism and ecology did not age so well, but he can be commended for trying to keep up with the times.

[ernst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Das ist so die Fortsetzung von Considerations on Western Marxism. Anderson überprüft seine Vorhersagen aus seinem älteren Buch und findet sich größtenteils bestätigt. Er präzisiert seine Periodisierung (Habermas wird breit nachreichend behandelt) und führt sie weiter über die 70er bis in die frühen 80er. Da gibt’s einen Erklärungsversuch für den Aufstieg von Strukturalismus und Poststrukturalismus sowie Kritik derselben und für die Krise des Marxismus in den 70ern. Am Ende versucht er sich noch mal an neuen Vorhersagen, haut aber ordentlich daneben. Er unterschätzt die Beständigkeit des Poststrukturalismus und seiner Metastasierung ins Elend der postmodernen Philosophie. Stattdessen spekuliert er auf einen Aufstieg des Naturalismus - das gabs zum Teil, aber wahrlich nicht als neue Hegemonie innerhalb der Philosophie.

Das Buch krankt ansonsten am fehlenden politischen Sinn Andersons und bestimmten Widersprüchen (er sagt beispielsweise, dass der westliche Marxismus nie dem Reformismus verfallen sei, beschreibt den Reformismus dieser Leute dann aber später selbst im Buch) und Spannungen zwischen Anspruch (doppelte Analyse der wirklichen gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung und Analyse der immanenten Theorieentwicklung) und Wirklichkeit (es bleibt im wesentlichen Geistesgeschichte mit einer dünnen Skizze der gesellschaftlichen Grundierung). Am Ende feiert er noch irgendein marktsozialistisches Blödsinnsbuch ab.

Die geistesgeschichtlichen Analysen sind aber durchaus nützlich und scharfsinnig, wenn sie auch unter dem fehlenden politischen Sinn des Autors leiden. Das ist sicherlich das wertvollste am Buch und rechtfertigt dessen Lektüre.

Eins noch: hier hat er eine sehr läppische Darstellung des Eurokommunismus. Die macht er durch seine Hasstirade in The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci wett.

[Nevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ever wonder “How has Marxism been doing since he died?” This book has an answer for you: dying.

Written in 1975, this book presents a history of materialism and how it has failed Marx’s project. It not only presenting the things Marx missed, but showing how the very tools he crafted left the working class and entered the hands of colleges to be an intellectual theory sold in capitalist settings.

This book is a history of the political lefts deterministic frame work unraveling itself through the isolation of the working class, and becoming an intellectual theory that excavates the causes of the current political environment-leaving the subject for a structure.

To try and tell you Marxism has died seems far-fetched, it’s theories are still present, but that is all it can present. As the last antithesis and critique system of capitalism available- it has become fossilized and exhibited.

The books most accurate prediction is the return of naturalism, the belief that things are inherently biological, as the new framework of deterministic history. Everyone, from left and right sides of the political spectrum, are articulating poltical structures as reflections of man himself. Naturalism has become the “Abomination of desolation” of Plato’s “Republic”.

This is a reminder of the intellectual failings of determinism as the center of the human experience. It’s ghostly presence is still looming over humanity, looking for a new host to inhabit and has left the comatose body of the political left. The political right is the host apparent as accessibility of the deterministic nature of naturalism makes recruitment easy for the rights cause. Leaving the left stuck crawling out of the dust bin of history.

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Breve compendio de tres conferencias y un epílogo, todos del mismo autor.

Por dónde empezar.

Creo que este libro es un ejemplo perfecto de por qué no hay que guiarse por los títulos a la hora de leer un libro. Sorpende también la contraportada, más de la mitad del texto de la misma es un párrafo del propio libro y la otra mitad ni siquiera describe de forma fehaciente el libro.

Anderson centra más de la mitad del libro en hablarnos de todo, menos de materialismo histórico: de hecho, la segunda conferencia es un monográfico sobre estructuralismo y post-estructuralismo en el que con suerte encontramos al marxismo y al materialismo histórico mencionados por encima dos o tres veces. La única parte que pudieta hacer más justicia al título del libro comienza en la segunda mitad de la tercera conferencia y en el epílogo, en el que sigue una retahíla de descripciones anti-soviéticas, anti-Stalin y anti-Mao bastante curiosas mientras se deja sentir, por todo el libro, un curioso elogio al marxismo occidental y la tibia conclusión, casi como un acto de fe, de que el materialismo histórico siempre va a estar ahí, le vaya bien o le vaya tan mal como le iba en los ochenta del pasado siglo.

Una pérdida de tiempo.

[Juan Amaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me pareció un ensayo en gran parte sencillo. Profundo en aspectos del debate filosófico alrededor del marxismo y corrientes estructuralistas y posestructuralistas. Me sirvió para rastrear una parte del camino del marxismo moderno (el libro, igual, es del 86).
Excelente el autor. Resalta la necesidad de la praxis sobre la teoría, pero la necesidad de esta segunda en la construcción contrahegemónica. Me hace cuestionarme cuál es el papel del marxismo en la izquierda actual y hacía donde se dirige en este momento de crisis mundial.

[Fernando Alonso Lakkis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pasando revista al eje de los procesos causales que, llegado el estructuralismo, comienzan a operar como condiciones de suficiencia sobre las cuáles se mueve la "diferencia", el texto descubre el punto ciego de la dinámica histórica que llevó a Engels al anquilosamiento por un lado, y que llevo al superávit de "significantes" por el otro. En cuanto al naturalismo - y el problema de la ascedencia de la física sobre la biología y últimamente sobre las ideas - se dicen, a mi juicio, cosas que no son claras.

[Sergio Corchete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy pertinente la crítica al estructuralismo y el post estructuralismo, muy buena capacidad de proyección y autocrítica. Muy interesantes las referencias y la conjugación de los socialismos utopistas con los reclamos de profundización institucionalista. Hacen falta esta clase de repasos con tono militante y estratégico, una gozada. Un muy buen ejercicio de entendimiento del marxismo como teoría crítica y autofiscalizatoria, con sus pros y sus contras.

[عهود المخيني]

بدأت قراءة أندرسن إبان ترجمتي الماركسية والأدب، إلى جانب الكتب الأخرى التي تناولت المواضيع المتعلقة بالمجال نفسه وإن تفاوتت المسافات بينها. هذا النوع من الكتب المرجعية الذي لا أمانع العودة إلى قراءته مرارًا. دسم وإحالاته التاريخية كثيرة إلا إنه مستساغٌ وجميل. غالبًا ما تكون لغة الدراسات المتقصيَّة المقتفيَة على خطٍّ واحد ورتيب إلا أن للترجمة نصيبًا في تييسر الخطى ووتيرتها. هذا العمل جميل ومهم.

[Luis Agustín Txanpongile Münasteriotar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Está muy bien, ojalá lo hubiese leído antes, sobre todo por el segundo capítulo donde hace una critica al estructuralismo y al posestructuralismo. Y es muy corto, qué más se puede pedir.
Supongo que poco más.

[Frank Keizer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously dated, obviously somewhat one-sided, but I found this a very useful and succinct intellectual history of the postwar era nonetheless.

[Tiarnán · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main section and highlight is the elegant dissection of the vapidity of French structuralist/post-structuralist thought, and its transrhenane cousin, Habermas' discursive neo-idealism.

[Nathan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good stuff, mate.

[Wyatt Browdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This essay, along with Bill Sewell’s Logics of History, are the most important works for moving beyond the cultural turn and putting historical materialism back on its feet

[Pau G.V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un estudi que repassa l'evolució del marxisme a la segona meitat del XX. Escrit als 80's segueix sent útil avui per entendre les complicades derives de l'esquerra en el seu gir identitari, culturalista o com se li vulgui dir, que ja es començava a formar en aquells temps i que avui és cabdal. El diàleg amb l'estructuralisme i derivats francesos ocupa bona part del llibre, i les crítiques, en tots dos sentits, assenyades. Un dels mèrits principals és el d'assenyalar fa 40 anys que qualsevol moviment anticapitalista ha d'incorporar el feminisme i l'ecologisme, i, atenció, també a la inversa.