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Main Currents of Marxism

Leszek Kołakowski

History of Marxism / anti-totalitarian critique

It is the definitive intellectual history and anti-totalitarian critique of the Marxist tradition.

Synopsis

A magisterial three-part history and critique of Marxism, tracing its origins, growth, and dissolution, and arguing its utopian core led toward tyranny.

Core passage idea

Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted work

Marxism's dream of total human liberation contained the seeds of its descent into oppression once put into practice.

It argues that the catastrophe of communist regimes was not a betrayal of Marxism but latent within it.

To avoid a bubble

Pair with Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I.

Reading note

Vast and erudite; read for the overall arc, or use volumes as reference on particular thinkers.

Best paired with

Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I

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