Main Currents of Marxism
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Cover of the first edition of volume two
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| Author | Leszek Kołakowski |
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| Original title | Główne nurty marksizmu. Powstanie, rozwój, rozkład |
| Translator | P. S. Falla |
| Country | France |
| Language | Polish |
| Subject | Karl Marx, Marxism |
| Published |
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| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 434 (English ed., vol. 1) 542 (English ed., vol. 2) 548 (English ed., vol. 3) 1284 (one volume edition) |
| ISBN | (vol. 1) 0-19-285108-X (vol. 2) 0-19-285109-8 (vol. 3) 978-0393329438 (one volume edition) |
Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution (Polish: Główne nurty marksizmu. Powstanie, rozwój, rozkład) is a work about Marxism by political philosopher Leszek Kołakowski. Its three volumes in English are: 1: The Founders, II: The Golden Age, and III: The Breakdown. It was first published in Polish in Paris in 1976, with the English translation appearing in 1978. In 2005, Main Currents of Marxism was republished in a one volume edition, with a new preface and epilogue by Kołakowski.
Kołakowski's work has received both praise and criticism from scholars and academics.
According to Kołakowski, Main Currents of Marxism was written in Polish between 1968 and 1976, at a time when it was impossible to publish the work in Poland. A Polish edition was published in France between 1976 and 1978, and then copied by underground Polish publishers. Translations in English, German, Dutch, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Spanish subsequently appeared. Another Polish edition was published in Great Britain in 1988 by the publishing house Aneks. The work was first published legally in Poland in 2000. Kołakowski writes that only the first two volumes appeared in French translation, and speculates that the reason for this is that "the third volume would provoke such an outrage among French Leftists that the publishers were afraid to risk it."
Kołakowski provides an analysis of the origins, philosophical roots, golden age and breakdown of Marxism. He describes Marxism as "the greatest fantasy of the twentieth century", a dream of a perfect society which became a foundation for "a monstrous edifice of lies, exploitation and oppression." He argues that the Leninist and Stalinist versions of communist ideology are not a distortion or degenerate form of Marxism, but one of its possible interpretations. Kołakowski writes that, despite his rejection of Marxism, his interpretation of Marx is influenced more by György Lukács than by other commentators. His first volume contains a discussion of the intellectual background of Marxism, examining the contributions of such figures as Plotinus, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, Jakob Böhme, Angelus Silesius, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, as well as an analysis of the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Though Kołakowski does not accept that Hegel was an apologist for totalitarianism, he says of Hegel that, "the practical application of his doctrine means that in any case where the state apparatus and the individual are in conflict, is the former which must prevail."
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