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Class Struggle: A Political and Philosophical History
Available for the first time in English, this book examines and reinterprets class struggle within Marx and Engels’ thought. As Losurdo argues, class struggle is often misunderstood as exclusively the struggle of the poor against the rich, of the humble against the powerful. It is an interpretation that is dear to populism, one that supposes a binary logic that closes its eyes to complexity and inclines towards the celebration of poverty as a place of moral excellence. This book, however, shows the theory of class struggle is a general theory of social conflict. Each time, the most adverse social conflicts are intertwined in different ways. A historical situation always emerges with specific and unique characteristics that necessitate serious examination, free of schematic and biased analysis. Only if it breaks away from populism can Marxism develop the ability to interpret and change the world.
363 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 26, 2013
51 people are currently reading
1559 people want to read
About the author
Domenico Losurdo
66 books342 followersDomenico Losurdo (14 November 1941 – 28 June 2018) was an Italian Marxist philosopher and historian better known for his critique of anti-communism, colonialism, imperialism, the European tradition of liberalism and the concept of totalitarianism.
He was director of the Institute of Philosophical and Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Urbino, where he taught history of philosophy as Dean at the Faculty of Educational Sciences. Since 1988, Losurdo was president of the Hegelian International Association Hegel-Marx for Dialectical Thought. He was also a member of the Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin (an association in the tradition of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Prussian Academy of Sciences) as well as director of the Marx XXI political-cultural association.
From communist militancy to the condemnation of American imperialism and the study of the African-American and Native American question, Losurdo was also a participant in national and international politics.
He was director of the Institute of Philosophical and Pedagogical Sciences at the University of Urbino, where he taught history of philosophy as Dean at the Faculty of Educational Sciences. Since 1988, Losurdo was president of the Hegelian International Association Hegel-Marx for Dialectical Thought. He was also a member of the Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin (an association in the tradition of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Prussian Academy of Sciences) as well as director of the Marx XXI political-cultural association.
From communist militancy to the condemnation of American imperialism and the study of the African-American and Native American question, Losurdo was also a participant in national and international politics.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
July 31, 2023
This is THE history of class struggle. I'm constantly blown away by the integrity and commitment to dialectics that Losurdo has a hold of. By using his method for class struggle, and connecting it to the national question, the quest for recognition, women's struggles and more, Losurdo is able to piece together a history that makes sense. One of the things I am struck with is his insistence that Soviet resistance to Nazi barbarism was in fact a class struggle. At first glance I wasn't too sure, but in typical Losurdo fashion, he lays out the full scope of conditions and history in the proper context, and I was immediately on board (he repeats this several times and at one point uses it as a means to critique some of David Harvey's work). The breadth of topics - British colonialism, Ireland, the US civil war, the Haitian revolution, US wars against Vietnam, Korea, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, labor struggles around the world, the Paris commune, WWI and WWII, the Bolshevik revolution, and so so many more - are indicative of the power his analysis holds. It's just one of those books that will radically change the way I engage with history, and I look forward to returning to this soon.
April 5, 2023
Reading Losurdo is always such a joy! His breadth of historical and philosophical knowledge is absolutely staggering, the number of different sources he pulls from, and across their entire careers, is incredible. He could have just as easily called this book Dialectical Materialism, as it's one of the best examples of the practice I've read.
Countering the triumphalist proponents of the ideology of capitalism, Losurdo lays out the ways that class struggleS (plural) have truly been the motor of history, even when they did not necessarily fit into the narrow binary view of history made by many reductionists. While the struggle between the working class and the bosses is ever present in capitalist society, each national context changes the specific concrete and historical conditions of each fight in vitally important ways. Losurdo deftly demonstrates how ultraleft critics of socialist projects tend to essentialize the poor, investing morality in a state of poverty itself and rejecting any attempts by the oppressed to use state power to eliminate poverty entirely.
As with all his other works, this text is very challenging. But it's also extremely clarifying and a fantastic look at how to take a rigorously Marxist (materialist) view of history with an eye to a concrete analysis of our current conjuncture.
Countering the triumphalist proponents of the ideology of capitalism, Losurdo lays out the ways that class struggleS (plural) have truly been the motor of history, even when they did not necessarily fit into the narrow binary view of history made by many reductionists. While the struggle between the working class and the bosses is ever present in capitalist society, each national context changes the specific concrete and historical conditions of each fight in vitally important ways. Losurdo deftly demonstrates how ultraleft critics of socialist projects tend to essentialize the poor, investing morality in a state of poverty itself and rejecting any attempts by the oppressed to use state power to eliminate poverty entirely.
As with all his other works, this text is very challenging. But it's also extremely clarifying and a fantastic look at how to take a rigorously Marxist (materialist) view of history with an eye to a concrete analysis of our current conjuncture.
December 20, 2018
What it says on the tin. The late Losurdo unpacks the notion of class struggle, progress and the construction of socialism in a way that demonstrates their full complexity. This complexity is not the result of a "contemporary" update, as if the marxist method requires the input of other philosophies to fill in gaps, but arises spontaneously by applying it consistently and rigorously - no matter whether the object of analysis is the axis Great Britain - Ireland - India, the Civil Rights Movement or warring nations. Especially astute is the opposition Class Struggle sets up between marxism and populism, in which the latter is set up as a "honest" reponse to objective conditions that might at some stages aid the progressive struggle, but ultimately needs to be rectified. Populist patterns, one comes to the conclusion, are extremely frequently applied to any and all considerations of historical Actually Existing Socialisms from the West - hence learning to recognise and turn back from them is a practical boon to all socialists.
May 3, 2022
Yet another great book by the late Domenico Losurdo.
Here he tackles Class Struggle and examines the topic from quite a few different angles. This time it took me almost two months to read the book, so I won't even try to make this a concise review. Suffice it to say, this book is full with insight and thoughtful deconstructions of other thinkers' views on the nature or relevancy of class struggle (e.g. Arendt, Weil, Zizek, and Harvey among others). It discusses the revolutionary periods in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the NEP, AES (China in particular), the forms that class struggle takes, Marxism vs Populism and a few more subjects as well. As always with Losurdo, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book to anybody with an inkling of interest in revolutionary theory and history.
Here he tackles Class Struggle and examines the topic from quite a few different angles. This time it took me almost two months to read the book, so I won't even try to make this a concise review. Suffice it to say, this book is full with insight and thoughtful deconstructions of other thinkers' views on the nature or relevancy of class struggle (e.g. Arendt, Weil, Zizek, and Harvey among others). It discusses the revolutionary periods in the late 18th and 19th centuries, the NEP, AES (China in particular), the forms that class struggle takes, Marxism vs Populism and a few more subjects as well. As always with Losurdo, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book to anybody with an inkling of interest in revolutionary theory and history.
May 30, 2024
Probably the best of Losurdo's books, hands down.
May 30, 2025
Losurdo’s rather contentious reputation notwithstanding, I struggle to see how this text is anything less than the gold standard for marxist scholarship. Careful, sincere engagement with an incredible diversity of sources; Losurdo lets the evidence lead his argument where it may. His curiosity takes him down exceptionally stimulating paths, injecting much-needed vigour into the senescent discourses on class struggle and demystifying the perilous ambiguity in which it is often mired. Required reading for all leftists of all stripes and creeds.
May 13, 2022
Critical to an understanding of class struggle is the twofold model of inequality. Inequality within countries and inequality between them corresponding to an international division of labour. China for instance has done more for the latter than perhaps any country in history. But what of the uneven development that has privileged the coastal regions at the expense of the interior? Is this new inequality evidence of capitalist restoration? No. Certainly China was a more egalitarian before Deng Xiaoping's innovations, but it can be best described as a collectivised penury but this was not socialism.
Western Marxists often have a worldview poisoned by a Christian idealisation of poverty that has ended up absolutizing it. Socialism as painstakingly pointed out by Marx is a mode of production that succeeds Capitalism because it is more able to grow the forces of production, it is more efficient at providing for the needs of the people. We can now understand China's development;
We can now understand Deng Xiaoping's turn: Marxists should finally realize 'that poverty is not socialism, that socialism means eliminating poverty. Unless you are developing the productive forces and raising people's living standards you cannot say you are building socialism'.
Western Marxists must abandon a utopian Christian socialism, and avoid the temptation of a demented neo-luddism.
Perhaps we should stop the ironic references to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and instead focus our critique on Marxism with Western Chauvinistic Characteristics.
Western Marxists often have a worldview poisoned by a Christian idealisation of poverty that has ended up absolutizing it. Socialism as painstakingly pointed out by Marx is a mode of production that succeeds Capitalism because it is more able to grow the forces of production, it is more efficient at providing for the needs of the people. We can now understand China's development;
We can now understand Deng Xiaoping's turn: Marxists should finally realize 'that poverty is not socialism, that socialism means eliminating poverty. Unless you are developing the productive forces and raising people's living standards you cannot say you are building socialism'.
Western Marxists must abandon a utopian Christian socialism, and avoid the temptation of a demented neo-luddism.
Perhaps we should stop the ironic references to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, and instead focus our critique on Marxism with Western Chauvinistic Characteristics.
January 25, 2025
“Class struggle is an exoteric macro-history, not an esoteric-micro history to which it is often reduced”
A towering work here. I can see why Losurdo has so many critics, because he situates Marxism as an often misunderstood tool and methodology where those who have mishandled it have actually defied what Marxism actually is.
His assertion that binary logic is a misstep, and that social relations/forces must be keenly observed in all critique of situations of class struggle is not only well proven via his scholarship on Marx and his interlocutors, but how he pieces that multiplicity and recognition is essential to Marxist analysis.
A main point for Losurdo is that we MUST see national liberation struggles are also class struggles. And once the nation that was once a former colony and or once a site terrorized by imperialism that class struggle for them still continues as long as the imperial West still is a major global actor. It is impossible to look at China, Palestine and even the former Soviet Union without keeping these facts in mind. Class struggle is a theory of social conflict, not a binary logic. Binary logic only leads to populism.
There is so much here. One of my favorite reads on how to interpret Marx and the social history of Marxism.
A towering work here. I can see why Losurdo has so many critics, because he situates Marxism as an often misunderstood tool and methodology where those who have mishandled it have actually defied what Marxism actually is.
His assertion that binary logic is a misstep, and that social relations/forces must be keenly observed in all critique of situations of class struggle is not only well proven via his scholarship on Marx and his interlocutors, but how he pieces that multiplicity and recognition is essential to Marxist analysis.
A main point for Losurdo is that we MUST see national liberation struggles are also class struggles. And once the nation that was once a former colony and or once a site terrorized by imperialism that class struggle for them still continues as long as the imperial West still is a major global actor. It is impossible to look at China, Palestine and even the former Soviet Union without keeping these facts in mind. Class struggle is a theory of social conflict, not a binary logic. Binary logic only leads to populism.
There is so much here. One of my favorite reads on how to interpret Marx and the social history of Marxism.
July 18, 2017
losurdos bizarre full-throated defenses of productivism + statism have been relegated to like, single sentences in conclusion chapters of his other books, which was tolerable, but they make up like a fourth of this book. weird thing being how little he develops the defense, he just kinda takes the dengists at their word when they rhetorically equate chinese market socialism with the NEP and presents the argument as if it's a novelty. it's literally that shallow. he doesnt feel ridiculous doing this i guess because hes responding to critiques of like, western marxists, but in doing so he totally ignores the anti-revisionist critique, which engages directly w/ that argument.
September 23, 2025
A masterful and lyrical work on one of the central tenets of Marxism, class struggle. Losurdo comprehensively explains the intricacies of the theory, but the actual practice and political history of class struggle is much richer and complex.
An underlying theme throughout the book is a critique of (left-wing) populism and Western Marxism. Both have a tendency to adopt toxic and contrarian positions that effectively impede the construction of emancipatory socialist projects in the Global South.
An underlying theme throughout the book is a critique of (left-wing) populism and Western Marxism. Both have a tendency to adopt toxic and contrarian positions that effectively impede the construction of emancipatory socialist projects in the Global South.
October 24, 2018
Recuperare la lotta, anzi, le lotte di classe significa innanzitutto recuperare uno strumento di analisi della Storia e una modalità di azione politica che ha contribuito in modo determinante all'emancipazione femminile, ai diritti dei lavoratori, al riscatto dei popoli e delle nazionalità oppresse.
Qui la recensione completa > https://medium.com/@deidesk/le-lotte-...
Qui la recensione completa > https://medium.com/@deidesk/le-lotte-...
April 8, 2021
Uma análise brilhante sobre evolução das lutas de classes ao longo da história, desde que Marx a cunhou como matriz definidora da evolução humana. A questão colonial, direito ao reconhecimento, a luta antiracista, a emancipação da mulher e o imperialismo são correlacionados de forma magistral. Leitura obrigatória para compreender a visão marxista na modernidade.
January 7, 2023
Lo empecé creyendo que era un punto menor en la extensa obra de Losurdo, pero aproximadamente a la mitad me di cuenta de que era el mejor libro jamás escrito. Por quien sea. Básicamente explica de manera sencilla, racional y sobre todo materialista, el concepto clave de la lucha de clases en el pensamiento marxista, y realiza un estudio de lo que esto significa en el contexto que tiene dentro del entendimiento maduro que debemos de tener de la historia como un todo: Si la dinámica general de la historia es la lucha de clases, la dinámica general de esa lucha (o esas luchas) es la persistencia de múltiples contradicciones. Esta idea es central aquí, pero evidentemente el autor la desarrolla de una forma que no se puede expresar aquí, con su característico rigor histórico y su inigualable elocuencia.
Desde antes ya pensaba que Domenico Losurdo era más o menos el mayor pensador de la historia (definitivamente es el mejor de 'nuestros' tiempos) y esto solo me hace confirmarlo. Este puede ser su libro definitivo.
Desde antes ya pensaba que Domenico Losurdo era más o menos el mayor pensador de la historia (definitivamente es el mejor de 'nuestros' tiempos) y esto solo me hace confirmarlo. Este puede ser su libro definitivo.
September 15, 2021
"La lucha de clases no es sólo un conflicto entre la clase propietaria y los trabajadores que dependen de ella. También lo es 'la explotación de una nación por otra', como denunció Marx, y 'la opresión de la mujer por el macho', como escribió Engels. Así pues, estamos en presencia de tres diferentes formas de lucha de clases, dirigidas a cambiar radicalmente la división del trabajo y las relaciones de explotación y opresión que existen a nivel internacional, o en un solo país, o en el seno de la familia. (...) La teoría de la lucha de clases es hoy más necesaria que nunca, a condición de que no derive en un populismo fácil que lo reduzca todo a un choque entre 'humildes' y 'poderosos', haciendo caso omiso de la multiplicidad de las formas del conflicto social".
He tardado más meses de los que me hubiera gustado tardar en leer este libro. Es un libro de los de sentarse pausadamente a leer, tomar notas y reflexionar sobre ello; la lectura en el transporte público no es muy aplicable aquí si realmente te quieres enterar de algo. Tiene un buen hilo conductor, está bien redactado, pero el *namedropping* es una cosa que a veces es un poco insoportable.
He tardado más meses de los que me hubiera gustado tardar en leer este libro. Es un libro de los de sentarse pausadamente a leer, tomar notas y reflexionar sobre ello; la lectura en el transporte público no es muy aplicable aquí si realmente te quieres enterar de algo. Tiene un buen hilo conductor, está bien redactado, pero el *namedropping* es una cosa que a veces es un poco insoportable.
November 13, 2025
So freaking good. Losurdo is a gem.
Clear headed, realist, uncompromising assessment of class struggle(s).
Losurdo's refusal to fall into the nihilism of the western left is a much needed glimmer of hope in today's environment.
Why be nihilistic if the east is still red?
Considering we may be experiencing the conclusion of the Columbian Epoch, this is not the time for despair!
Clear headed, realist, uncompromising assessment of class struggle(s).
Losurdo's refusal to fall into the nihilism of the western left is a much needed glimmer of hope in today's environment.
Why be nihilistic if the east is still red?
Considering we may be experiencing the conclusion of the Columbian Epoch, this is not the time for despair!
January 29, 2022
Losurdo é o filosofo marxista mais importante do nosso período histórico pós-Guerra Fria.
August 11, 2024
Fantastic, anyone who uses the term ‘identity politics’ sincerely should be force fed this book, which makes a powerful argument that struggles for women’s liberation and national liberation should be understood as forms of class struggle, and indeed that history (and the present day) is illegible if they are not read as such.
‘Determination of the subject regarded as signatory to the contract or bearer of human rights, or participant in praxis or communicative action, has been at the centre of centuries long struggles against exclusion clauses aimed at colonial peoples, subaltern classes, and women. The cancellation is the exclusion clauses is the result of a painful historical process and a protect struggle for recognition. Social conflict is at the same time a struggle for recognition, the general theory of social conflict is at the same time a general theory of the struggle for recognition’
‘Determination of the subject regarded as signatory to the contract or bearer of human rights, or participant in praxis or communicative action, has been at the centre of centuries long struggles against exclusion clauses aimed at colonial peoples, subaltern classes, and women. The cancellation is the exclusion clauses is the result of a painful historical process and a protect struggle for recognition. Social conflict is at the same time a struggle for recognition, the general theory of social conflict is at the same time a general theory of the struggle for recognition’
September 4, 2022
Brilliant stuff. Losurdo has a way of writing that at first seems incredibly dense but once you get a feel for it gets way easier. (This is after having read two of his other books, though.) Starts with several chapters mostly on Marx and Engels and then sort of turns into a philosophical defense of certain policies under USSR and China. You don't have to agree with everything here but this book will make you think deeply about what class struggle really means !
November 3, 2024
I don't know what I thought this would be, but it definitely wasn't what it ended up being. I probably should have paid more attention to the subtitle before purchasing.
November 7, 2024
This book is great. A call to gather around class struggleS, plurality capitalised. It is a highly pertinent call in an era of "poly crisis" where the world seems to be aflame on so many levels. Inequality, Gaza, neo-Russian empire, black lives matter, climate change, Trump 2.0. The list goes on and keeps expanding as exploitation opens new frontiers of banal horror.
I do have one criticism and it's his exploration of the USSR's fall. If you want a new era of Marxism you have to nail this issue on the head. Losurdo is usually so thorough but the internal elements of the USSR's fall are not explained as well as other elements.
Losurdo explains the fall of the USSR in primarily foreign terms. The satellite states and territories of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union stood in a dialectic against Moscow within the "national question". In the end, the permanent state of emergency in the USSR exhausted itself. I do find this persuasive, but missing from the foreign view are the internal proleteriat and the internal beaucratic caste. I think he's got the periphery nailed, but perhaps not the metrople.
Where is the dialectic within the Soviet Union that was not encompassed by the national question? Losurdo does mention the drive for greater freedoms and democracy against state controls but he does not dwell.
Equation of Gorbachev and Yeltsin to individuals such as Monk in the English Civil War and Telleyrand in Post-Napoleonic France fall short in the end because the fall of the USSR witnessed the obliteration of the working class while the English and French revolutions witnessed a class reconciliation between bourgoisie and aristocracy that eventually paved the way for bourgeoisie control in 1688 and 1871, respectively. These are of course different because the bourgeoisie and aristocracy are competing ruling classes while the proletariat is a subjugated class, yet why make the comparison?
If they were congruous, Gorbachev and Yeltsin would have laid the groundwork for proleterian power beyond democracy; however, a comparison between Gorbachev and these other individuals only works if Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and therefore the Party, are equated with the bourgeoisie, a Maoist analysis that Losurdo explicitly rejects in the text.
Losurdo has a lot right on the creation and maintenance of the USSR; however, his analysis on the causes of its fall are lacking in my opinion. Despite this, he has good points about the fall of the USSR but he doesn't quite hit the nail on the head as per Losurdo's usual amazing style.
I do have one criticism and it's his exploration of the USSR's fall. If you want a new era of Marxism you have to nail this issue on the head. Losurdo is usually so thorough but the internal elements of the USSR's fall are not explained as well as other elements.
Losurdo explains the fall of the USSR in primarily foreign terms. The satellite states and territories of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union stood in a dialectic against Moscow within the "national question". In the end, the permanent state of emergency in the USSR exhausted itself. I do find this persuasive, but missing from the foreign view are the internal proleteriat and the internal beaucratic caste. I think he's got the periphery nailed, but perhaps not the metrople.
Where is the dialectic within the Soviet Union that was not encompassed by the national question? Losurdo does mention the drive for greater freedoms and democracy against state controls but he does not dwell.
Equation of Gorbachev and Yeltsin to individuals such as Monk in the English Civil War and Telleyrand in Post-Napoleonic France fall short in the end because the fall of the USSR witnessed the obliteration of the working class while the English and French revolutions witnessed a class reconciliation between bourgoisie and aristocracy that eventually paved the way for bourgeoisie control in 1688 and 1871, respectively. These are of course different because the bourgeoisie and aristocracy are competing ruling classes while the proletariat is a subjugated class, yet why make the comparison?
If they were congruous, Gorbachev and Yeltsin would have laid the groundwork for proleterian power beyond democracy; however, a comparison between Gorbachev and these other individuals only works if Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and therefore the Party, are equated with the bourgeoisie, a Maoist analysis that Losurdo explicitly rejects in the text.
Losurdo has a lot right on the creation and maintenance of the USSR; however, his analysis on the causes of its fall are lacking in my opinion. Despite this, he has good points about the fall of the USSR but he doesn't quite hit the nail on the head as per Losurdo's usual amazing style.
July 26, 2022
Eu começo esse comentário com um conselho: se você não tem nenhum tipo de leitura anterior para entender marxismo e luta de classes você pode ficar perdido, como eu. Recomendo leituras prévias do Manifesto Comunista e outras que deem embasamento histórico e filosófico. Assim você ficará menos perdido. rs
Depois do alerta devo dizer que a leitura de A luta de classes me deu muitas repostas e me gerou outras dúvidas. O que para mim já transforma a leitura extramente significante. Losurdo vai fazer um panorama desde o momento em que o Marx e Engles escrevem o Manifesto e até os dias atuais, mas com enfoque principalmente URSS e outro tanto na China.
Losurdo alerta sobre acertos e erros do movimento, interpretações erradas de conceitos. As diferenças entre o socialismo utópico, o realista, a práxis. Analisa o que foi feito depois da revolução de 1917. Como a minha leitura antes de começar Losurdo era extremamente básica, a leitura foi engrandecedora. Não consigo explicar muito aqui, mas acho que é uma leitura importante.
Fica a recomendação para quem quer entender mais da luta de classes e do movimento marxista.
Depois do alerta devo dizer que a leitura de A luta de classes me deu muitas repostas e me gerou outras dúvidas. O que para mim já transforma a leitura extramente significante. Losurdo vai fazer um panorama desde o momento em que o Marx e Engles escrevem o Manifesto e até os dias atuais, mas com enfoque principalmente URSS e outro tanto na China.
Losurdo alerta sobre acertos e erros do movimento, interpretações erradas de conceitos. As diferenças entre o socialismo utópico, o realista, a práxis. Analisa o que foi feito depois da revolução de 1917. Como a minha leitura antes de começar Losurdo era extremamente básica, a leitura foi engrandecedora. Não consigo explicar muito aqui, mas acho que é uma leitura importante.
Fica a recomendação para quem quer entender mais da luta de classes e do movimento marxista.
March 30, 2018
A genuinely interesting book. But not without some faults... He seems to overemphasize (for example) the "development of productive forces" side of marxism, to the detriment of the utopian (or "messianic" or what he calls "populist") element of marxism. It's understandable, to some extent, but I think he goes a bit too far in that respect.
(Also he argues that the notion of the state "withering away" is idealist, which seems a bit strange to me. idk.)
(Also he argues that the notion of the state "withering away" is idealist, which seems a bit strange to me. idk.)
August 1, 2020
Every Domenico Losurdo book is a masterpiece and should be recommended reading starting with people on the left. We will only be better for it
Many a famous leftists have been taken to task for their popular opinions but not in any vindictive or patronizing way.
Highly recommend.
Many a famous leftists have been taken to task for their popular opinions but not in any vindictive or patronizing way.
Highly recommend.
March 11, 2020
Losurdo é sensacional!
July 18, 2020
Ótima ideia e visão do marxismo e a história da luta de classes, um de meus filósofos favoritos atuais
January 29, 2025
‘Class Struggle’ is a wide ranging and monumental work that may be one of Domenico Losurdo’s best books. Mainstream academics and some marxist theorists maintain a narrow view of class struggle, that it is primarily a struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie over economic and political rights. Going back to the ‘Communist Manifesto’, Domenico Losurdo challenges this narrow view of class struggle and expands class struggle to include the emancipation of women in the family and the struggles for national liberation carried out by colonized peoples.
Devoting a large portion of the book to the great national liberation struggles, Domenico Losurdo takes readers on a journey through history that is counter to what is taught in the West. In what was the greatest anti-colonial war in history, the USSR successfully resisted and destroyed the Nazi invasion, Losurdo examines this war in the context of a class struggle. The Nazis sought to defuse the threat of economic conflict and class struggle through colonialism, by conquering Eastern Europe and enslaving the population. Yet what the Nazis attempted was not new, they were merely copying what previously happened in the settler colonies of North America, Losurdo cites one particularly damning passage from ‘Mein Kampf’: “With the North American model in mind, it was necessary to implement a healthy territorial policy through the acquisition of new land in Europe itself”. With this knowledge in mind, it becomes impossible to disconnect the anti-colonial rebellions from Haiti to Algeria from the regime of capital accumulation in West.
Domenico Losurdo’s ‘Class Struggle’ is as relevant as ever. During the American Civil War, English workers refused to handle cotton products from the Confederate States in solidarity with black Americans who were enslaved. The intersection of the domestic class struggle of English workers with the struggle for liberation by black slaves should serve a rallying call for those who believe in a shared future for all humankind. While our societies in the West place countries like Cuba under perpetual siege and commit genocide in Palestine, we should remember that call to arms from the Manifesto so long ago: “Workers of all lands and oppressed peoples of the whole world, unite!”
Devoting a large portion of the book to the great national liberation struggles, Domenico Losurdo takes readers on a journey through history that is counter to what is taught in the West. In what was the greatest anti-colonial war in history, the USSR successfully resisted and destroyed the Nazi invasion, Losurdo examines this war in the context of a class struggle. The Nazis sought to defuse the threat of economic conflict and class struggle through colonialism, by conquering Eastern Europe and enslaving the population. Yet what the Nazis attempted was not new, they were merely copying what previously happened in the settler colonies of North America, Losurdo cites one particularly damning passage from ‘Mein Kampf’: “With the North American model in mind, it was necessary to implement a healthy territorial policy through the acquisition of new land in Europe itself”. With this knowledge in mind, it becomes impossible to disconnect the anti-colonial rebellions from Haiti to Algeria from the regime of capital accumulation in West.
Domenico Losurdo’s ‘Class Struggle’ is as relevant as ever. During the American Civil War, English workers refused to handle cotton products from the Confederate States in solidarity with black Americans who were enslaved. The intersection of the domestic class struggle of English workers with the struggle for liberation by black slaves should serve a rallying call for those who believe in a shared future for all humankind. While our societies in the West place countries like Cuba under perpetual siege and commit genocide in Palestine, we should remember that call to arms from the Manifesto so long ago: “Workers of all lands and oppressed peoples of the whole world, unite!”
January 3, 2025
losurdo outlines three main fronts for the class struggles (plural) that marx and engels studied throughout their working lives: the class struggle in the work place, the home, and the international struggle between oppressed nations and colonizing/imperializing nations. this moves beyond the hegemonic binary interpretation of class struggle as defined only by two classes in a specific period, ie capitalism is prole v bourg, feudalism is serf v landed gentry, etc. now the struggles of entire nations and women take their rightful place alongside the struggles of workers, and the 20th century begins to make much more sense as we saw socialist revolutions prevail when the social question shared an identity with the national and women’s question. the countries that experienced the most acute oppression on the national level were the ones that turned out massive communist movements, some which succeeded, instead of the predicted revolution that was supposed to take hold in the ‘advanced’ (european) countries.
if you want a conception of class struggle that is allergic to the chauvinism of the trotskyist outlook that workers always have revolutionary potential, contra to all of lenin’s post-WW1 writings on colonialism and labor aristocracy, then this is the book for you.
there are also some great insights on populism as a rejection of marx’s conception of the importance of the development of the productive forces, alongside populism’s absolutizations of the nature of oppressed groups in an attempt to uplift them. what this actually does is unscientifically mirror the absolutizations made by misogynists and racists. the act of assigning essential natures prevents clear analyses of where groups actually stand in a revolutionary struggle and how those groups developed historically.
if you want a conception of class struggle that is allergic to the chauvinism of the trotskyist outlook that workers always have revolutionary potential, contra to all of lenin’s post-WW1 writings on colonialism and labor aristocracy, then this is the book for you.
there are also some great insights on populism as a rejection of marx’s conception of the importance of the development of the productive forces, alongside populism’s absolutizations of the nature of oppressed groups in an attempt to uplift them. what this actually does is unscientifically mirror the absolutizations made by misogynists and racists. the act of assigning essential natures prevents clear analyses of where groups actually stand in a revolutionary struggle and how those groups developed historically.
August 28, 2023
This is a sweeping, ambitious argument, meticulously assembled. Briefly, Losurdo argues for understanding class struggle as the struggle for recognition -- requiring both political recognition and economic redistribution. Class struggle is further multiplicative; the primary axes include labour organization with a family (i.e., gender), labour organization within a country (i.e., what is typically considered "social class"), and labour organization between nations (i.e., national liberation, decolonization movements). Taking on a massive range of scholars from all political persuasions -- Hayek, Zizek, Arendt, Mill, Trotsky, dissecting even the highs and lows of Marx and Engels -- Losurdo defends the choices made by socialist countries to use carefully controlled capitalization to close the gap between their own country's level of technological development and that of imperialist capitalist countries. As in his book
Hegel and the Freedom of Moderns
, Losurdo emphasizes the dependence of political freedom on economic security (i.e., the absolute unfreedom of starvation). Efforts to improve living standards for all, even if unevenly, expand freedoms, and recognize the human in its citizens. It's an incredibly important book, and I keep finding myself returning to it again and again.
September 13, 2025
Another banger by Losurdo. If the last book about Hegel was a modern update to the German Ideology, I would have to say this text follows a similar vein in analyzing events as Marx does in the 1800s (as in specific texts on the Paris Commune, etc.) by compiling them into a historical materialist lens, analyzing how the class struggle adapted not only for proletariats, but for the bourgeoisie, who were fighting the war both on a materialist and and ideological level.
What's particularly valuable about this text is the events updated for the modern post-war era, how class struggle wasn't always apparent, because of different nationalist or identity divisions. Particularly for those identities traditionally oppressed by the the ruling class, the bourgeois would use those struggles in the 20th century by adapting them towards bourgeois interests, masking the class character of the actual struggles those identities faced. As this was published in 2013, Losurdo seems like a prophet, already seeing how identity politics was starting to shape immediately after Occupy Wall Street started to bring class struggle and Marxist language back into the mainstream in 2011.
Although I haven't read it, this theme will probably continue into Losurdo's last book, Western Marxism, which is a critique on the failures of the western left and why it failed while China succeeded.
What's particularly valuable about this text is the events updated for the modern post-war era, how class struggle wasn't always apparent, because of different nationalist or identity divisions. Particularly for those identities traditionally oppressed by the the ruling class, the bourgeois would use those struggles in the 20th century by adapting them towards bourgeois interests, masking the class character of the actual struggles those identities faced. As this was published in 2013, Losurdo seems like a prophet, already seeing how identity politics was starting to shape immediately after Occupy Wall Street started to bring class struggle and Marxist language back into the mainstream in 2011.
Although I haven't read it, this theme will probably continue into Losurdo's last book, Western Marxism, which is a critique on the failures of the western left and why it failed while China succeeded.
July 31, 2024
One of the best pieces of Marxist philosophy and political theory from the 21st century I've read thus far.
Enticing the reader to take a second and more close look at the Communist Manifesto Losurdo argues that much of the modern discourse around "class struggle" misses the mark, and that Marx and Engels have developed an analytical and philosophical framework to analyse the entirety of history, through the lens of 'class struggles' (plural).
What follows is a thoroughgoing analysis of Marx, Engels and their contemporaries' view of history through this lens, all the way up to more modern scholars' viewpoints. Battling and combatting failures of Marxists and non-Marxists alike to grapple properly with this theory of class struggle, Losurdo paints a convincing framework that should be adopted by Marxists to analyse and explain both historical conflict and progress, as well as contemporary developments.
I am glad to have read it, and it will leave an indelible mark on the way I view the world.
Enticing the reader to take a second and more close look at the Communist Manifesto Losurdo argues that much of the modern discourse around "class struggle" misses the mark, and that Marx and Engels have developed an analytical and philosophical framework to analyse the entirety of history, through the lens of 'class struggles' (plural).
What follows is a thoroughgoing analysis of Marx, Engels and their contemporaries' view of history through this lens, all the way up to more modern scholars' viewpoints. Battling and combatting failures of Marxists and non-Marxists alike to grapple properly with this theory of class struggle, Losurdo paints a convincing framework that should be adopted by Marxists to analyse and explain both historical conflict and progress, as well as contemporary developments.
I am glad to have read it, and it will leave an indelible mark on the way I view the world.
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