Marxism and Freedom: Apropos of Raya Dunayevskaya’s Book

The anti-fascist and socialist humanist Rodolfo Mondolfo’s chapter, originally published in 1963 as a review essay on the Italian edition of Dunayevskaya’s Marxism and Freedom, appears here in English for the first time. Mondolfo places Dunayevskaya’s humanist reading of Marx in the context of other Marxist humanist writers of the early 1960s like Erich Fromm. He expresses a strong affinity with Dunayevskaya’s uncovering of the Hegelian roots and the humanism of both the young Marx and the “mature” Marx of Capital. At the same time, he differs with Dunayevskaya by seeing Marx as in basic continuity with Rousseau, among others. Mondolfo also engages critically her sharp critique of reformist social democracy and her deep appreciation of Lenin as both dialectician and revolutionary. At the same time, Mondolfo identifies strongly with her scathing portrait of the Stalinist system and her central concern with the quest for human freedom that enlivened the major revolts of the time—from the workers’ insurrection in East Germany in June 1953 to the larger one in Hungary as part of the 1956 revolution. Mondolfo also engages Dunayevskaya’s critique of the alienated labor of the modern factory worker in the age of automation.