Crisis of Marxism

rdf:langString Crisis of Marxism

rdf:langString Crisis of Marxism (aka “crisis in Marxism”) was a term first employed in the 1890s after the unexpected revival of global capitalist expansion became evident after the Great Depression of Europe from 1873-1896, which eventually precipitated a crisis in Marxist theory. The crisis resulted in a series of theoretical debates over the significance of economic recovery for the strategy of the socialist movement, leading to ideological fragmentation and increasingly sectarian debates. By the 1890s, orthodox Marxists came to believe that capitalism was on the “verge of breakdown,” while the socialist movement was on the “verge of revolutionary triumph,” but due to a renewed burst of capitalist and industrial activity such interpretations could no longer be maintained in Western Europe. The first person to introduce the notion of a crisis amid Marxism has been attributed to Thomas Masaryk, who declared in 1898 that he was observing a “crisis within Marxism”. Recognizing a potential problem, Masaryk professed that socialism would be strengthened considerably “if its leaders will frankly criticize its fundamentals to overcome their defects.” Contemporaries treat these controversies within the Marxist ranks as a “crisis in Marxism,” a “crisis of Marxism”, or sometimes designating it as a “revisionist crisis.” Considered the father of revisionism, Eduard Bernstein is regarded the main proponent in precipitating one of the greatest crises in the consciousness of the Marxist proletarian movement, and therefore initiating the “revisionist controversy.” The October 1898 Stuttgart Party Conference brought this theoretical crisis into the open, entrenched the main battle lines, and established the principal elements of the Revisionist position.