Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution

by Shlomo Avineri

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a new exploration of Karl Marx's life through his intellectual contributions to modern thought

"A perceptive and fair-minded corrective to superficial treatments of the man."—Jonathan Rose, Wall Street Journal

Karl Marx (1818–1883)—philosopher, historian, sociologist, economist, current affairs journalist, and editor—was one of the most influential and revolutionary thinkers of modern history, but he is rarely thought of as a Jewish thinker, and his Jewish background is either overlooked or misrepresented. Here, distinguished scholar Shlomo Avineri argues that Marx’s Jewish origins did leave a significant impression on his work. Marx was born in Trier, then part of Prussia, and his family had enjoyed equal rights and emancipation under earlier French control of the area. But then its annexation to Prussia deprived the Jewish population of its equal rights. These developments led to the reluctant conversion of Marx’s father, and similar tribulations radicalized many young intellectuals of that time who came from a Jewish background.

Avineri puts Marx’s Jewish background in its proper and balanced perspective, and traces Marx’s intellectual development in light of the historical, intellectual, and political contexts in which he lived.

About Jewish

Jewish Lives is a prizewinning series of interpretative biography designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Individual volumes illuminate the imprint of Jewish figures upon literature, religion, philosophy, politics, cultural and economic life, and the arts and sciences. Subjects are paired with authors to elicit lively, deeply informed books that explore the range and depth of the Jewish experience from antiquity to the present.

In 2014, the Jewish Book Council named Jewish Lives the winner of its Jewish Book of the Year Award, the first series ever to receive this award.

More praise for Jewish

“Excellent.” – New York times

“Exemplary.” – Wall St. Journal

“Distinguished.” – New Yorker

“Superb.” – The Guardian

Genres: Biography, Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Jewish, Audiobook

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Shlomo Avineri (Hebrew: שלמה אבינרי;‎ born Jerzy Wiener) was an Israeli political scientist. He was a professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He also served as a recurring visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest, and as a fellow at Munich-based academic think tank Centrum für angewandte Politikforschung, offering advice to politicians.

Reviews

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can't read about Karl Marx without finding him fascinating. He was the first to have that hyphenated description so common today among the woke. He was a philosopher, a political theorist, a journalist, and so on. What he excelled at really was self-promotion. He had no visible means of support, and dropped out of law school to study philosophy. Interestingly enough, during that time Jews had to convert to Christianity to serve as lawyers or college professors. He never converted even though he had family who had made that choice. Instead he lived off his inheritance and married well, and had generous friends like Frederic Engel who supported him until he was able to make money as a political journalist, which is a field he pretty much invented. Much like Walter Benjamin, he was brilliant intellectually, but socially awkward as he lost many friends by turning his caustic comments towards their accomplishments. Marx coined the term proletariat and inspired many of the musicians I grew up listening to including Woody Guthrie, John Lennon, Gil Scott-Heron, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, and Pete Seeger.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant biography, but it adds little to what has already been said. The only USP of this book is the focus on Marx’s ethnoreligious background and his relationship with thinkers who became forerunners for Zionism. Avineri’s Marx is a Marx aware of his background but isn’t self-hating about it. Avineri’s Marx is also dripping with Hegelianism, a continental Marx of the late 60s and early 70s…

[David Pulliam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very positive discussion of Marx and his thought, very little criticism and critical reflection of him. I appreciated this since my own education of Marx has been very negative.

I was surprised how open he was about Marx’s impact on higher ed, that Marx influences almost every discipline.

I was also surprised by how much of connection he had with the Russian Revolution and that there was a break between him and the some communists.

Lastly, I was surprised that Marx believed that the fundamental relationship between people is a material one. This is contrary to the Christian view, and a point for Christians who like Marx and Communism to work through. Also, it’s a fundamental reason why I reject his, I believe humans are fundamentally non-material.

[Rock · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent analysis of Marx's thought, providing detailed contextualization that illuminates the intellectual development and evolution of Marx along an intertwined continuum of biography (his work, domestic life, and brief activism), history (post-Napoleonic Restoration, 1848 revolutions, Franco-Prussian War), and philosophy (Hegel, Feuerbach). While no hagiography, the book spends some time rescuing Marx from the knee-jerk critics from the right, by convincingly dismantling arguments of any lineage to Soviet communism. Avineri also does not shy from Marx's faults, personal foibles, and theoretical ambivalences. Overall, this book is an insightful and nuanced elucidation of Marx's philosophy, and presents a particular focus on Marx's Jewish background and its possible influence on his philosophy.

A footling objection: Avineri's nuance is not equally distributed to all parties. For instance, a less careful reader might conclude by the book's slip of conflation that all anarchists are terrorists, or that all Russians, whether on the left or right, are inherently authoritarian, and that a direct despotic line can be drawn from the czars to Bakunin to Stalin and then, by inevitable force of teleology, to Putin.

On this second count against Russians, Avineri seems to be in some peril of essentializing an entire people with specific traits that then assure certain outcomes. One might be forgiven if this were understood to be Russophobia (which appears to enjoy something of a contemporary vogue for reasons most curious but not accidental). Avineri's discourse on Russia also bears more than a faint resemblance to historian A.J.P. Taylor's similar fear and questionable conclusion (albeit about Germans) of that people's inevitable destiny or "Special Way" toward totalitarianism.

Concerning anarchism, it has been something of a Marxist pastime since the First International to ping rhetorical billiard balls off the heads of anarchists, and Avineri proves to be an able if not entirely fair participant of this venerable tradition. His special opprobrium is reserved for Bakunin, who lies on that unfortunate intersection of Avineri's twin abominating vectors, being both Russian and anarchist. While Bakunin certainly flirted with strange bedfellows and harbored unresolved inconsistencies, it seems a bit unjust to toss this champion of liberty into the same dictatorial sty along with Stalin and Putin; more importantly however, Bakunin's main objection to Marx's position is entirely principled and stemmed from Marx's faith in concentrating power to the state. As Bakunin wrote, “Either one destroys the State or one must accept the vilest and most fearful lie of our century: the red bureaucracy", further adding that "socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality." Given that the 20th century's examples of statist-communist dungeons might serve as some testimony, perhaps Bakunin's prescience is not insignificant, though evidently lost to some Marxists both past and present. (It is perhaps telling that while Avineri anathematizes anarchists as advocates of violence tout court, he omits to mention those with pacifist beliefs; Leo Tolstoy immediately comes to mind; but then again, he's Russian. For a balanced and informative assessment of anarchists, the books of Paul Avrich are a good place to start.)

Excepting these two idiosyncratic instances, Avineri's book is both a welcome appraisal of Marx and a useful machete for cutting deep into the jungles of historical and philosophical context that makes reading Marx unaided today such a daunting, difficult, and often unlovely affair.

[Madhab Dwibedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

such a beautiful book

[Kamran syed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had heard alot about Marxism or Leninism but knew nothing about the person. Karl Marx was a remarkable person who laid the foundation of something very intricate but at the same time, very intrinsic to human society. Marx had left an incredible mark on the human politics & economics both directly and indirectly. He was born as Charles Heinrich Marx in 1818 as a jew in the Prussian Rhineland; Marx never had a home country of his own. Despite his tendency of criticising and mocking his own colleagues, Marx was able to live a happily married life and had few but trustworthy friends who helped him throughout hos economic woes. What's left of Marx in terms of written books or essays; would not have been possible without the Industrialist but yet ardent socialist; Friedrich Engels.
Marx got fame through the "Communist Manifasto" which he wrote together with Engels for the IWA. Later on "Das Kapital" became his masterpiece. He had numerous other works out which, some were published after his death in 1893. Marx never advocated for violence for political goals. Though he was anti capitalist and believed that the system would one day collapsed (which though never happened), he always advocated legal political means.
He is the first one to introduce "Proletarianism" and Politics & economic as inseparable.
The modern working conditions owes much to the theories of Marx. He had influenced some great minds.
His theories were later on used by Lenin and Stallin used it to his advantage. Today, inany communist/ socialist republics like Russia & China etc, Marx is worshipped like a God. Americans were humbled by socialists in Vietnam and the legacy of Karl Marx continues till today.

[Magnus Bernhardsen]

I like the book so far, but I at one point I thought Avineri had mixed up a date, and I just found that it is noted in a review of the book:
"Although Avineri argues convincingly that Marx endorsed the political emancipation of Jews throughout his life despite exhibiting an inexcusable prejudice towards Judaism, he mistakenly misdates a letter that Marx wrote to Arnold Ruge, endorsing the Jewish delegation’s petition for equal rights. The letter in question was actually written in 1843, and not in 1848, as suggested by Avineri (53-54).This difference in date is important because Marx’s underappreciated letter provides a context for interpreting his subsequent refutation of Bruno Bauer’s opposition to the political emancipation of Jews, as well as his own positive defence of Jewish emancipation in On the Jewish Question – an insight that has eluded far too many Marx commentators."
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/revi...

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine, if unexceptional biography of Marx. Avineri takes the usual route of assessing Marx's life through his main publications. This means that with the exception of the very beginning, biography plays second fiddle to analysis of Marx's oeuvre--especially Marx's politics, which is Avineri's specialisation, of course. Perhaps, considering that the book is part of a series of Jewish thinkers, I expected a bit more discussion about his heritage its impact. Avineri gives the reader a couple of glimpses not considered in the standard biographies, which tend to gloss over the whole question, but none of it changes the view that Marx research has. The narrative aligns with that of Lichtheim et al., emphasising how Marx dropped his revolutionary ideals towards the end of his life--and thus making a clean break from Lenin, who is hardly considered a Marxist at all here. The book ends in an unfortunate Zionist(ish) contemplation, which is unfortunate, but otherwise the book is not a bad specimen of the genre.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun, short read. It highlights the Jewish influences and aspects of Marx and brings a fresh take on his work. As the author himself makes clear, the intent was to examin Marx detached from the political attachments that have clung to him for over 100 years. The author did a good job of acheiving that goal.

[M. C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt a bit too abridged, almost condescendingly so; the Jewish theme never coheres because there is so little to draw on there; nevertheless a useful background. At its most interesting when recounting Marx’s engagement w political struggles of his time

[LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at Marx via his Jewish roots. Well done.

[Kamran syed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marx was a

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. I used to understand Marxism so differently. In order to really criticize him you need to read him.