Georg Lukács, The Young Hegel, Studies in the Relations between Dialectics and Economics [Book Review]

Der Junge Hegel, a book of great scholarship and penetrating insight, was written as long ago as 1938, but the Second World War prevented its appearance until ten years later. In 1938 Lukács was a member of the Soviet Academy and he had, in an earlier work, maintained the thesis that many of the most important and crucial ideas in Marx’s philosophy were traceable back to Hegel. This contention brought upon him the disapproval of Soviet officialdom which declared his book to be deviationist. As he had himself maintained that the constant duty of a true Communist was to accept the decision of the Party leadership, which was to be viewed as the authentic voice of the Proletariat, Lukács renounced his own published views. Not long after, the discovery of Marx’s early Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts proved that Lukács was right, too late to vindicate him officially. In effect, then, Der Junge Hegel is a reaffirmation and a new demonstration of the truth of the original thesis, now put forward with greater confidence and more secure evidence.