History and Class Consciousness
Cover of the first edition
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| Author | György Lukács |
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| Original title | Geschichte und Klassenbewußtsein: Studien über marxistische Dialektik |
| Translator | Rodney Livingstone |
| Country | Hungary |
| Language | German |
| Subject | Karl Marx, Marxism |
| Published |
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| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 356 (English edition) |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | 70-146824 |
History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (German: Geschichte und Klassenbewußtsein: Studien über marxistische Dialektik) is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács, in which Lukács re-emphasizes Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on Karl Marx, analyses the concept of class consciousness, and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism. History and Class Consciousness, which helped to create Western Marxism, is the book for which Lukács is best known, and some of his pronouncements have become famous. Nevertheless, History and Class Consciousness was condemned in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Lukács later repudiated its ideas, and came to believe that in it he had confused Hegel's concept of alienation with that of Marx. It has been suggested that the concept of reification as employed in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) shows the strong influence of History and Class Consciousness, though such a relationship remains disputed.
Lukács attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism, stressing the distinction between actual class consciousness and "ascribed" class consciousness, the attitudes the proletariat would have if they were aware of all of the facts. Marx's idea of class consciousness is seen as a thought which directly intervenes into social being. Claiming to return to Marx's methodology, Lukács re-emphasizes Hegel's influence on Marx, emphasizes dialectics over materialism, makes concepts such as alienation and reification central to his theory, and argues for the primacy of the concept of totality. Lukács speaks of Marx as an eschatological thinker. He makes the case that his Hegelian Marxism is the correct version, opposing the Soviet version of Marxism based on a dialectics of nature inspired by Friedrich Engels.
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