The Revolutionary Travels of Marxism and Freedom

Marxism and Freedom: From 1776 until Today by Raya Dunayevskaya (1910–1987) was published in 1958 in hardback by Bookman, New York, with a preface by Herbert Marcuse. The first part of what follows briefly surveys the book’s reception among European intellectuals. The second part charts Dunayevskaya’s travels in Europe, following the book’s publication, in which she sought to find publishers for new editions, give university lectures, and meet other Leftists in person to seek out organizational cooperation. The third part addresses the “unfinished business” left by the book: (1) Lenin’s “ambivalence” on philosophical questions and his shortcomings regarding the role of the “vanguard party”; (2) Dunayevskaya’s interpretation of Hegel’s philosophical “absolutes” as a call to unify theory and practice; and (3) her interpretation of “absolute negativity” as the “revolution in permanence” needed to uproot the capitalist value-form and liberate the human foundations for socialism.