Critical theory without political practice? An evaluation of the Journal for Social Research
Walter Held
Platypus Review 171 | November 2024
The following is a translation, by Lukas Hedderich and Ethan Linehan, of Walter Held’s “Kritische Theorie ohne politische Praxis? Eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung” (1939).[1]
COMPARED TO THE DULL GRAYNESS of the émigré press — as seen from Thomas and Heinrich Mann to Brecht and Feuchtwanger, from Georg Bernhard to Hart and Hiller, as well as from Stampfer to Walcher, Münzenberg and Pieck[2] — which is just an expression of general intellectual stagnation and rottenness, the Journal for Social Research, edited by Max Horkheimer and commissioned by the Institute for Social Research, compares favorably. The contributions to the Journal, except for a few which will be discussed later, all excel in academic quality and accuracy. Horkheimer’s own articles are of particular interest. He is eager to oppose reactionary philosophical movements — irrationalism, neo-empiricism, neo-humanism — equipped with the tools of dialectical materialism, which he also terms “critical theory.”
Philosophy and politics
However — and this is where our critique begins — this educated philosopher and expert in Marxist doctrine always remains at the level of abstract philosophizing. This is especially concerning because often he explicitly confronts in others what are his own shortcomings. For example, in his excellent critique of “the philosopher of the Popular Front” Siegfried Marck,[3] he states that “philosophy, which calls itself political, has long since turned into the critique of political economy,”[4] a paraphrase of Marx’s famous words, according to which the philosophers have already sufficiently interpreted the world, whereas now the point is to change it and to realize philosophy. The Institute, however, is far from any practice that would correspond with this insight. If radical philosophy has transformed into the critique of political economy and the realm of abstract philosophizing is left to sophisticated imitators, then it follows that the radical politician is the true inheritor of radical philosophy, which is sublated and preserved in him. But it is exactly this step that Horkheimer is unwilling to take, insofar as he holds onto the need for a separate existence of the philosopher. In the aforementioned polemic against Marck, he states that “The fear of isolation, which in certain phases of action may understandably determine the politician’s actions, should not concern the philosopher.”[5] In an earlier essay,[6] he tries more fundamentally to differentiate between the tasks of the politician on the one hand, and the philosopher, or “critical theorist,” on the other. In the following, we will show how Horkheimer correctly articulates the theoretical point of departure but draws the wrong conclusions from it. We begin by identifying the common ground.
Theory and class consciousness
But it must be added that even the situation of the proletariat is, in this society, no guarantee of correct knowledge. The proletariat may indeed have experience of meaninglessness in the form of continuing and increasing wretchedness and injustice in its own life. Yet this awareness is prevented from becoming a social force by the differentiation of social structure which is still imposed on the proletariat from above and by the opposition between personal class interests which is transcended only at very special moments. Even to the proletariat the world superficially seems quite different than it really is. Even an outlook which could grasp that no opposition really exists between the proletariat’s own true interests and those of society as a whole, and would therefore derive its principles of action from the thoughts and feelings of the masses, would fall into slavish dependence on the status quo. The intellectual is satisfied to proclaim with reverent admiration the creative strength of the proletariat and finds satisfaction in adapting himself to it and in canonizing it. He fails to see that such an evasion of theoretical effort (which the passivity of his own thinking spares him) and of temporary opposition to the masses (which active theoretical effort on his part might force upon him) only makes the masses blinder and weaker than they need be. His own thinking should in fact be a critical, promotive factor in the development of the masses. When he wholly accepts the present psychological state of that class which, objectively considered, embodies the power to change society, he has the happy feeling of being linked with an immense force and enjoys a professional optimism. When the optimism is shattered in periods of crushing defeat, many intellectuals risk falling into a pessimism about society and a nihilism which are just as ungrounded as their exaggerated optimism had been. They cannot bear the thought that the kind of thinking which is most topical, which has the deepest grasp of the historical situation, and is most pregnant with the future, must at certain times isolate its subject and throw him back upon himself.[7]
That is all excellent and completely true. However, the historically unavoidable, temporary isolation of thought from the masses — of thought that is most acute at grasping the historical situation most adequately — is not opposed to the most strictly organized centralization and cooperation of the bearers of thought, but on the contrary makes exactly such organization absolutely necessary. At times, defeat can go so deep that even the most advanced party can fall apart, and individual bearers of revolutionary thought are left to fend for themselves. This, however, does not allow them to abandon the concept of the party. From the first moment of isolation, they must put all their efforts into re-establishing the party anew in its most advanced form and do all that is necessary to achieve this goal. In Horkheimer’s case, however, there seems to be a necessary, permanent contradiction between the avant-garde thinker and the vanguard party.[8]
Similarly, a systematic presentation of the contents of proletarian consciousness cannot provide a true picture of proletarian existence and interests. It would yield only an application of traditional theory to a specific problem, and not the intellectual side of the historical process of proletarian emancipation. The same would be true if one were to limit oneself to appraising and making known the ideas not of the proletariat in general but of some more advanced sector of the proletariat, for example a party or its leadership. The real task set here would be the registering and classifying of facts with the help of the most suitable conceptual apparatus, and the theoretician’s ultimate goal would be the prediction of future socio-psychological phenomena. Thought and the formation of theory would be one thing and its object, the proletariat, another. If, however, the theoretician and his specific object are seen as forming a dynamic unity with the oppressed class, so that his presentation of societal contradictions is not merely an expression of the concrete historical situation but also a force within it to stimulate change, then his real function emerges. The course of the conflict between the advanced sectors of the class and the individuals who speak out the truth concerning it, as well as of the conflict between the most advanced sectors with their theoreticians and the rest of the class, is to be understood as a process of interactions in which consciousness comes to flower along with its liberating but also its aggressive forces which incite while also requiring discipline. The sharpness of the conflict shows in the ever-present possibility of tension between the theoretician and the class which his thinking is to serve. The unity of the social forces which promise liberation is at the same time their distinction (in Hegel’s sense); it exists only as a conflict which continually threatens the subjects caught up in it. This truth becomes clearly evident in the person of the theoretician; he exercises an aggressive critique not only against the conscious defenders of the status quo but also against distracting, conformist, or utopian tendencies within his own household.[9]
Theory and praxis for Marx and Engels
Even so brilliantly formulated, the cited passage clearly shows that, despite recognizing its limits, Horkheimer upholds a historically outdated Western European concept of the workers’ party. The workers’ party in this traditional sense, which limited itself to a systematic presentation of the contents of the consciousness in the advanced industrial proletariat, probably found its highest historical expression in the party of Bebel. That conception has collapsed without a future in the tremendous crises of our epoch. Horkheimer’s formulation of the interrelationship between theorist, party, and class evidently has in mind the historical position that Marx and Engels took towards Bebel’s social democracy. Bebel and Liebknecht were tasked with the problems of political practice and the organizational leadership of the party, while Marx and Engels were in London devoting themselves to the development of theory. But it never occurred to Marx and Engels to idealize this situation the way Horkheimer does, as it was forced upon them. They never understood themselves as theorists with their heads in the clouds, serving the workers’ movement only from the high vantage point of theory and leaving the mundane organizational tasks to the philistines. This can be proven by looking at their practical involvement in the Revolution of 1848 and their participation in the General Council of the First International. But even during their forced isolation after the collapse of the First International, they remained in constant connection with the workers’ movement on the Continent, and especially with the German party. They always tried, albeit only rarely with success, to influence the politics of the party and enlighten its practice with their theory. They were always ready to pause their theoretical work if the situation allowed or required them to jump with both feet into practical politics.
For Kautsky
Marx and Engels could not both actively participate in the class struggle and assume a position of leadership at the head of the party. So, the former was left to the “pragmatists,”[10] which in their second generation — as Horkheimer rightly says — already considered Marxist theory to be a mere quirk. The legacy of theory fell to Kautsky, who in this respect, as in all others, was a poor disciple. Instead of establishing the unity of theory and practice in a higher form as would have been necessary with the beginning of the new phase of the imperialist epoch, instead of elevating practice to the level of theory, he degraded theory to the level of exiting vulgar practice. He played the same role that August Thalheimer later did in the Communist Party.[11] Thalheimer was just an even weaker disciple of Kautsky.
For Lenin
The task that Kautsky and the entire German movement, including Luxemburg and Liebknecht, failed to recognize and address was recognized and addressed by Lenin. Already at the dawn of the century, he opposed a critical conception of the party to the traditional one. The practice of the party must accord with revolutionary theory, and the place of the theorist is at the head of the revolutionary party. The task of the party is not to systematically present the contents of the consciousness of the proletariat, but to transform them using revolutionary theory. The radical theorist without political organization remains powerless; a political organization without revolutionary theory necessarily perishes. The unity of both is required for victory.
For Horkheimer
Unlike Lenin, Horkheimer does not go beyond Marx and Engels, but falls far below them. The task appears as a spontaneous process that can only succeed through the organized effort of the theorists. It is not the isolated theorist but the organized vanguard that can win the fight against the apologists for the status quo, as well as against the distracting, conformist, utopian, or treacherous tendencies in one’s own ranks. Unfortunately, Horkheimer fails to shed the skin of the bourgeois professor. Despite his acceptance and mastery of materialist dialectics, he remains in the clouds of philosophy, where he only fights theory’s sophisticated imitators in respectable but insignificant duels, without daring to return to the earth. While in theory, he affirms the necessity of the unity of theory and practice, he fails to uphold the same in practice. Even the most severe crises of our epoch — the rise to power of National Socialism, the decay of the Soviet Union, the Spanish Civil War — were not enough to prompt Horkheimer to modify his political stance. Strangely enough, since he fully understands the importance of taking a position on such events, as is clear from his essay “The Rationalism Debate in Contemporary Philosophy”:
At present, certain fundamental insights into the essence of society are more decisive for the truth of an overall view than the possession or lack of extensive specialized knowledge. In these fundamental insights themselves, the most apparently trivial shadings are crucial.[12] The boundary that one could draw today between human beings with respect to the weight of their knowledge would thus be oriented less to the extent of their academic training than to certain features of their behavior, in which are expressed their stance toward social struggles.[13]
But if critical theory comes to such deep insights when confronting its enemies, then its first duty should be to define its own position on social struggles and to do so as concretely as possible — since the apparently trivial shadings are so crucial. In his polemical annihilation of the hardly sophisticated philosopher Marck, Horkheimer comes quite close to such a concrete statement on political issues, and it is precisely for this reason that we regard his work with renewed interest. He clearly shows himself as an opponent of the Popular Front, and he rightly points out that, in today’s world, the hope for humanity is to be found more in concentration camps than in any neo-humanist or anti-fascist meetings. And in response to the demand for a “Second Republic,” he states:
Even those who personally have every reason to do so should not wish for a repetition. The worst horrors of today do not originate in 1933, but in 1919 when workers and intellectuals were shot by feudal accomplices of the First Republic. The socialist governments were powerless. Instead of reaching out to their political base, they preferred to remain on the shaky ground of established facts. They did not truly believe that theory was more than a mere quirk. The government made freedom a political philosophy rather than a political practice.[14]
Sentences like this resonate deeply with us, but one would think that an insight like this entails the duty of committing to a specific political program that clearly distinguishes one’s own position from all others and imposes on oneself the duty of combatting those tendencies that have become “a matter of interest only to their own bureaucracy.”[15]
The Journal for Social Research and the Soviet Union
Sadly, the Journal not only fails to develop a consistent political program, but it even sins against its own abstract programmatic guidelines. These the editorial team set for itself in the preface to the sixth volume, where we are promised the maintenance of certain ideas and the development and application of a unified philosophical perspective. But the Journal’s stance on such a significant contemporary phenomenon as the Soviet Union remains very ambiguous. While Horkheimer’s works suggests a profound recognition of the reactionary turn in the Soviet Union, the Journal’s specialist in Soviet Russian literature helplessly confronts the disgusting eclecticism of Soviet jurists like Vyshinsky,[16] whose writings are no more than banal apologies for Stalin’s cynical practices. He fails to see that defending the fervently written work by Pashukanis,[17] The General Theory of Law and Marxism (1924), would be a task for the Journal for Social Research if it wished to stay true to its declared goals. Likewise, the miserable tome by the old Webbs,[18] Soviet Communism (1935), an uncritical compilation of sources from official Russian propaganda without a trace of independent scientific thought, was praised to the skies in the Journal. Should one really value a vague friendship with Stalin more than staying true to certain ideas?
K. A. Wittfogel, Asian society, and the Moscow Trials
One of the contributors to the Journal for Social Research is Karl August Wittfogel,[19] who specializes in the study of Asian society and has published several very interesting papers on this topic for the Journal. Until recently, Wittfogel was a politically active Stalinist. In Germany, he publicly defended both the so-called “theories” of social fascism and of socialism in one country, neither of which is in the spirit of social research, but only of social demagoguery. Both had the effect of weakening the working class and preparing the way for Hitler’s victory. We have no evidence to this day that Wittfogel has in any way disavowed Stalinism. Certainly, the scientific study of Asian society is more honorable than, for example, defending the Moscow Trials and their counterpart, the Popular Front. But the value of such work is no excuse for failing to participate in present struggles. Marx and Engels also found time to leisurely muse over primitive society, matriarchy, and the history of the family and private property, but they always managed to combine such studies with deep analysis of contemporary questions and to lay open the path to the future. Marxism treated as an escape from the present is indeed the most grotesque of all kinds of Marxism yet formulated. But exactly this seems to have found a home in the Institute for Social Research.
Conclusions
The editors and contributors of the Journal for Social Research seem to place greater value on abstract methods than on engaging with the concrete issues of the present. But Marxist philosophy is essentially a guide to action. In one of Horkheimer’s essays, there is the insightful sentence, tested a thousand times by historical experience in recent decades: “Indifference to the idea in theory is the precursor of cynicism in practical life.”[20] But this statement needs a supplement: abstaining from practice leads to sterility in theory. The only criterion for the truth of Marxist theory is its verification in practice. If critical theory does not wish to regress into a mindless distraction for sophisticated imitators, then it must engage in political practice. |P
[1] The text first appeared in Unser Wort 7, no. 6/7 (97/98) (June/July 1939): 5–6. It is also available in Helmut Dahmer, Freud, Trotzki und der Horkheimer-Kreis (Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2019), 480–89. See the translators’ introduction to the text in this issue.
[2] Thomas Mann (1875–1955), Heinrich Mann (1871–1950), Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958), Georg Bernhard (1875–1944), Herbert Arthur Hart (1907–92), Kurt Hiller (1885–1972), Friedrich Stampfer (1874–1957), Jakob Walcher (1887–1970), Willi Münzenberg (1889–1940), and Wilhelm Pieck (1876–1960) were German writers, journalists, and activists in the Popular Front against fascism.
[3] Siegfried Marck (1889–1957), a German philosopher who joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany following WWI. He fled to America as fascism came to power.
[4] Max Horkheimer, “Die Philosophie der absoluten Konzentration,” Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 7, no. 3 (1938): 385 [our translation].
[5] Ibid., 387.
[6] Max Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory” (1937), in Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (New York: Continuum, 1972), 188–243.
[7] Ibid., 213–14. The original German that Held is citing has one more sentence that does not appear in the usual English translation. It is translated here as “They have forgotten the relationship between revolution and independence.”
[8] The German phrase used throughout this passage is “die fortschrittliche Partei.” A plausible translation would be “the progressive party,” but the connotations of “progressive” for the modern reader would miss Held’s point. This passage expresses the idea that the party up to the task of changing the world no longer exists; it needs to be started from scratch. But it must have the most up-to-date consciousness and cannot afford to fall below the threshold in history that had already been reached, which, for Held, was represented by the levels of political and theoretical insight that Lenin achieved in building the Bolshevik Party. We chose to render this as “advanced” and then again as “avant-garde / vanguard” to capture this, in full awareness of the historical baggage that the term “vanguard” has accrued, and with acknowledgement that Held chose to use neither “die Vorhut” nor “die Avantgarde.”
[9] Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” 215–16. The final sentence is underlined by Held.
[10] A reference to a faction in the party during the Revisionist Dispute. The “pragmatists” were anti-theoretical and treated theory as only instrumental for reforms. They later were on Bernstein’s side and were denounced by Luxemburg and others as opportunists. See Manfred B. Steger, The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard Bernstein and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
[11] August Thalheimer (1884–1948), a German Marxist and co-founder of the Communist Party of Germany.
[12] This sentence is underlined by Held.
[13] Max Horkheimer, “The Rationalism Debate in Contemporary Philosophy” (1934), in Between Philosophy and Social Science, trans. G. Frederick Hunter, et al. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 261.
[14] Horkheimer, “Die Philosophie der absoluten Konzentration,” 384.
[15] Horkheimer, “Traditional and Critical Theory,” 218.
[16] Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954), a Soviet politician who served as state prosecutor in Stalin’s Moscow Trials.
[17] Evgeny Pashukanis (1891–1937), a Soviet legal scholar.
[18] Beatrice Webb (1858–1943) and Sidney Webb (1859–1947), British writers and activists who participated in the Fabian Society.
[19] Karl August Wittfogel (1896–1988), a German playwright and sinologist.
[20] Max Horkheimer, “The Latest Attack on Metaphysics” (1937), in Critical Theory: Selected Essays, 165n.
