Korsch, Karl

KORSCH, KARL (1866-1961). A decrier of both Social Democracy and Leninism, Karl Korsch was one of the first Marxist critics of what he perceived as the distortions of Marxian socialism in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Despite his many critiques of various forms of orthodox Marxism and analysis of the crisis of Marxism in the twentieth century, Korsch continued to his death to identify himself as a Marxist and to seek a radical politics that would unify Marxist theory and practice.

Korsch was born in Tostedt, Germany, near Hamburg, and attended universities in Munich, Berlin, Geneva, and Jena, receiving a law degree at the latter in 1910. Between 1912 and 1914, he studied in London, where he joined the Fabian society. In Germany, following the abortive German revolution of 1918, Korsch became a political activist and theorist, developing a Hegelian and critical version of Marxism, which was an important current of “Western Marxism” that emerged in Europe in the 1920s following the success of the Russian revolution and failure of most other European socialist revolutions. He developed into a clear and often provocative interpreter of Marx and made many contributions to Marxian theory and practice.

In Marxism and Philosophy (1923), Korsch argued that Marxism was a critical and dialectical theory, providing tools to criticize bourgeois theory and society and the forces to transform it. For Korsch, the unity of theory and practice was the criterion for authentic Marxism. Interpreting Marxism as the revolutionary theory of the working-class movement, he advanced a concept of “practical socialism.”

Marxism and Philosophy contains an original interpretation of the stages of development of Marxian theory and is one of the first attempts to apply the theory of historical materialism to Marxism itself. In his later work, Karl Marx (1938), Korsch asserted that the principle of historical specificity was a key criterion of Marxian theory, maintaining that Marxism provided a historically specific critique of capitalist society and alternatives to it. Karl Marx, written in exile from his native Germany and while living in the United States (1936-1961), clearly presents Marxian theories of society, political economy, and history.

In retrospect, Korsch's chief contributions to Marxian theory include his theory of workers' councils as the authentic organ of socialist society; his critiques of Social Democratic revisionism and Leninism; his analysis of the crisis of Marxism; his theory of fascism and counterrevolution; his proposals for new working-class political strategies and new models of socialism; his recognition of the so-called "Third World" as a likely site of revolutionary politics advocated by Marxists; and his interpretations of Marxism and meta-theoretical reflections on the mixture of science and dialectics, theory and practice, which in his view constitutes the specificity of the Marxian theory.

Korsch's strong activist tendencies were frustrated by the course of history:his failure to develop a revolutionary version of Marxism for his time is bound up with the failure of the European and American working classes to develop successful socialist-revolutionary movements. Yet despite a string of defeats of the working-class and revolutionary movements that he lived through, Karl Korsch continued to develop revolutionary theory and tried to reconstitute Marxism as a theory and practice of revolution for the contemporary era.

Korsch, Karl. Revolutionary Theory, edited by Douglas Kellner. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977.

________. Three Essays on Marxism, introduction by Paul Breines. New York:Monthly Review Press, 1971.

Karl Korsch, 1886-1961. Biography & Writings. Marxists Internet Archives. https://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/