Subject and Revolution: The Evolution and Development of Western Marxist Theoretical Themes

Based on the different social realities and historical tasks they confront, Marxist theory exhibits distinct research themes in the East and the West. The practice of Eastern socialist states emphasizes objective laws, historical inevitability, and the scientific character of Marxism, whereas Marxist theory in Western capitalist countries stresses subjective agency, social critique, and the humanistic dimension of Marxism. Although Marx called on the proletariat of the world to unite and carry out proletarian revolution, Western Marxists, faced with the reality that proletarian revolution had not occurred in the advanced capitalist countries of the West, have re-examined modern capitalist society and undertaken new explorations of the revolutionary path and the question of liberation. Focusing on the themes of subject and revolution, Western Marxism has gradually formed a trajectory from awakening absent class consciousness, to critiquing the ideological state apparatus, to reshaping a new revolutionary subject.

基于面对的不同社会现实和历史任务，马克思主义理论在东西方呈现出不同的研究主题。东方社会主义国家的实践强调客观规律性、历史必然性、马克思主义的科学性，而西方资本主义国家的马克思主义理论则强调主体能动性、社会批判性、马克思主义的人文性。虽然马克思提出全世界无产者联合起来进行无产阶级革命，但西方马克思主义者面对无产阶级革命在西方发达资本主义国家未能发生的现实状况，对现代资本主义社会加以重新审视，并对革命道路和解放问题进行新的探索。聚焦主体与革命主题，西方马克思主义逐渐形成一条从唤醒缺失的阶级意识到批判意识形态国家机器再到重塑新的革命主体的脉络。

The Historical Emergence and Real Dilemma of Proletarian Revolution

无产阶级革命的历史出场与现实困境

In the era of early capitalism, the relationship between capital and labor was the axis of the entire social system, and the exploitative relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was the most typical and conspicuous social relation. Only by violently overthrowing all existing social institutions, “overthrowing all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, contemptible being,” could the proletariat build a new order and achieve freedom and liberation. This necessarily required the proletariat of the whole world to unite, “to form the proletariat into a class, to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie, and for the proletariat to seize political power.”

在早期资本主义时代，资本和劳动的关系是整个社会体系的轴心，资产阶级和无产阶级之间剥削与被剥削的关系是最典型、最显著的社会关系。无产者只有用暴力推翻全部现存的社会制度，“推翻使人成为被侮辱、被奴役、被遗弃和被蔑视的东西的一切关系”，才能构建新秩序，获得自由与解放。这必然要求全世界无产者联合起来，“使无产阶级形成为阶级，推翻资产阶级的统治，由无产阶级夺取政权”。

Social Sciences in China Press, 2023-06-27. However, in the stage of state monopoly capitalism, capitalism not only did not perish but flourished, while the socialist Soviet Union collapsed. In this context, Western liberal democratic systems, in a “triumphant posture,” proclaimed to the world the “end of ideology,” the “end of history,” and “farewell to the proletariat,” and for a time humanity seemed to have lost its revolutionary dimension. In fact, the regulation and domination of Western capitalist countries represented by the United States have never left us; revolution appears to have withdrawn, yet it remains embedded in the problems of the new era. As Žižek says, do not ask stupid questions like “Is contemporary revolution still meaningful?”; one should ask the opposite question: What is our predicament today?

中国社会科学报 2023-06-27然而，在国家垄断资本主义阶段，资本主义不仅没有灭亡反而繁荣发达，社会主义苏联却遭遇解体。在此情景下，西方自由民主制度以“胜利的姿态”向全世界宣告“意识形态终结”“历史终结”“告别无产阶级”，一时间人类仿佛失去了革命性向度。事实上，以美国为代表的西方资本主义国家的监管与统治从未离我们远去，革命看似退场，却依然蕴含在新的时代问题之中。正如齐泽克所言，不要问“当代革命还有意义吗”这样愚蠢的问题，应当问相反的问题：我们今天的困境是什么？

Philosophical Reflection and Re-planning of the Revolutionary Path

革命道路的哲学反思与重新筹划

As mentioned above, after Marx, Western Marxists, faced with the situation where proletarian revolution had not occurred, re-examined modern capitalist society and attempted to find a new, practically feasible path different from traditional Marxism. Accordingly, Western Marxists opened up a path from awakening absent class consciousness to critiquing the ideological state apparatus.

如前所述，马克思之后，西方马克思主义者面对无产阶级革命未能发生的局面，重新审视现代资本主义社会，试图寻找一条不同于传统马克思主义的现实可行的新道路。据此，西方马克思主义者开辟出一条从唤醒缺失的阶级意识到批判意识形态国家机器的路径。

After the October Revolution in Russia, European Marxists believed that the reason why proletarian revolution had been delayed in Europe was not that the historical process was immature, the material conditions for revolution were lacking, or the revolutionary subject of the proletariat was absent, but rather that the proletariat lacked revolutionary consciousness. Lukács, with his theory of “reification,” opened the logical entry point for awakening the class consciousness of the proletariat. He distinguished class consciousness into “psychological class consciousness” and “imputed class consciousness.” The former is an unconscious class consciousness: “Class consciousness—abstractly and formally considered—is at the same time a consciousness, conditioned by class, of one’s own social, historical, and economic position that is unconscious.” In a state of unconsciousness, even if the bourgeoisie and proletariat actually exist, they cannot fundamentally achieve a high degree of self-awareness of class consciousness. He believed that the latter is the class consciousness that truly needs to be awakened. So, how to awaken the true class consciousness of the proletariat, i.e., imputed class consciousness? Lukács argued that within the reified structure and reified system of capitalist society, only by fully becoming aware of the existing reified structure could the class consciousness of the proletariat be awakened. Only by achieving theoretical self-awareness of the reification of existing society, only when society has consciousness, could the proletariat lead society. He emphasized that proletarian revolution is “not only in the realm of political power, but also simultaneously in this struggle for social consciousness.”

俄国十月革命后，欧洲的马克思主义者认为，无产阶级革命之所以迟迟未在欧洲爆发，其根源并非历史进程不成熟、革命的物质条件不具备、无产阶级革命主体不在场，而在于无产阶级缺少革命意识。卢卡奇以“物化”理论开启了唤醒无产阶级的阶级意识的逻辑入口。他把阶级意识区分为“心理的阶级意识” （psychological class consciousness）和“归属的阶级意识”（imputed class consciousness）。前者是一种无意识的阶级意识，“阶级意识——抽象地、形式地来看——同时也就是一种受阶级制约的人们对自己的社会的、历史的经济地位的无意识”。在无意识的情形下，即使资产阶级和无产阶级实际存在着，也无法从根本上达到对阶级意识的高度自觉。他认为，后者才是真正需要唤醒的阶级意识。那么，如何唤醒无产阶级真正的阶级意识即归属的阶级意识呢？卢卡奇认为，在资本主义社会的物化结构和物化体系中，只有充分意识到现存的物化结构，才能唤醒无产阶级的阶级意识。只有达到对现存社会物化的理论自觉，只有社会有了意识，无产阶级领导社会才有可能。他强调，无产阶级革命“不仅在政权领域，而且同时在这一为社会意识的斗争中”。

Gramsci also believed that the key to the proletarian revolutionary struggle lay in winning ideological hegemony. However, facing the Fordist production system, he proposed a line of thought different from Lukács’s theory of total reification in capitalist society, instead continuing Marx’s distinction between productive forces and relations of production, separating industrialism from capitalism. Industrialism belongs to the category of civil society within the state: “In real life, civil society and the state are one and the same; it must be recognized that laissez-faire is also a ‘regulation’ imposed and protected by the state through legislation and coercive means.” This is not merely economic activity but “a policy with a clear purpose and deliberate consideration.” “State = political society + civil society”: the former is the state’s coercive apparatus or political-legal institutions, i.e., political society; the latter is the state’s cultural apparatus or ideological institutions, i.e., civil society. Political society held absolute dominance in pre-capitalist states; civil society possesses great power in contemporary capitalist states. Gramsci hoped to take a path of “positional warfare” by gradually seizing ideological hegemony, a Western European revolutionary path different from the October Revolution in Russia.

葛兰西也认为，无产阶级革命斗争的关键在于争取意识形态的领导权。但面对福特主义生产体系，他提出了不同于卢卡奇资本主义社会全面物化理论的思路，而是延续马克思对生产力和生产关系的划分，将工业主义和资本主义区别开来。工业主义属于市民社会的国家范畴，“在现实生活中，市民社会与国家是同一个东西，必须认清自由放任也是国家通过立法和强制手段加以推行和保护的‘调节’”，这不仅仅是经济活动，而且是“一种目的明确、深思熟虑的政策”。“国家=政治社会+市民社会”，一个是国家暴力机构或政治法律机构即政治社会；一个是国家文化机构或意识形态机构即市民社会。政治社会在前资本主义国家中占据绝对优势；市民社会在当代资本主义国家中具有强大力量。葛兰西希望以逐渐掌握意识形态领导权的“阵地战”方式，走出一条不同于俄国十月革命的西欧革命之路。

In the 1930s, with the implementation of the New Deal in the United States and the rise of the Nazis in Germany, capitalism entered a new stage. The state apparatus, with its powerful logic of homogenization, fundamentally controlled everything. Ideology, as a powerful force of the state apparatus, obscured and stifled class consciousness, and proletarian revolution was temporarily shelved. Under the comprehensive domination of capitalism, European Marxists no longer enthusiastically pursued proletarian revolution and exhibited a mood of revolutionary pessimism. The Frankfurt School, however, stood out, maintaining its revolutionary character with its sharp-edged “critical theory.” In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno critiqued the culture industry and mass culture of capitalist society. They revealed that the essence of the culture industry is identical to the essence of popular music, both belonging to the mechanized reproduction model under the control of the ideological state apparatus. “The culture industry reveals the secret of style, which is obedience to the social hierarchy.” Faced with everything provided by the culture industry in the age of mechanical reproduction, the masses are powerless to refuse and incapable of avoiding the control of the culture industry. It can be said that it is precisely the culture industry and mass culture promoted by capitalist society that have stripped people of their subjective consciousness and creative capacity.

20世纪30年代，随着美国“新政”实施和德国纳粹上台，资本主义进入新的阶段，国家机器以强大的同一化逻辑从根本上操控着一切，意识形态作为国家机器的强大力量，遮蔽并扼杀了阶级意识，无产阶级革命暂时被束之高阁。在资本主义的全面统治下，欧洲马克思主义者不再热衷于无产阶级革命，并呈现出革命的悲观情绪。而法兰克福学派独树一帜，以锋芒毕露的“批判理论”保持着革命性。在《启蒙辩证法》中，霍克海默和阿多诺对资本主义社会的文化工业、大众文化进行批判。他们揭示出文化工业的实质与通俗音乐的实质如出一辙，都属于意识形态国家机器控制下的机械化复制模式。“文化工业戳穿了风格的秘密，即对社会等级秩序的遵从。”面对机械复制时代文化工业提供的一切，大众既无力拒绝，也没有能力避免文化工业的控制。可以说，正是资本主义社会所推崇的文化工业和大众文化褫夺了人们的主体意识和创造能力。

Marcuse launched a challenge to the capitalist ideological state apparatus from the perspective of a critique of science and technology. He argued that science and technology, as politicized instruments of domination, perform an ideological function, creating a “one-dimensionality of thought.” In contrast, Habermas believed that the technological-mechanical system is “neutral”; faced with the tendency toward the colonization of the lifeworld, humanity still has the potential to break free from its shackles and achieve liberation. The slogan “science and technology are the primary productive forces” releases a signal: science and technology may become a potential for liberation. Habermas argued that the “language” medium of the “cultural reproduction” of the lifeworld possesses agency, reflexivity, and coordination. He thus proposed “discourse ethics,” making it possible for people to escape the domination of the “system’s” “material reproduction” and its media.

马尔库塞从科学技术批判的视域发起对资本主义意识形态国家机器的挑战。他认为，科学技术作为政治化了的统治工具，发挥着意识形态的功能，造成了“思想的单向度”。与此不同，哈贝马斯则认为，技术机械体系是“中立”的，面对生活世界殖民化的倾向，人类仍然有挣脱枷锁、获得解放的潜力。“科学技术是第一生产力”的口号释放出一个信号：科学技术有可能成为解放的潜力。哈贝马斯认为，生活世界“文化再生产”的“语言”媒介具有能动性、反思性、协调性，他进而提出“商谈伦理学”，从而使人们摆脱“系统”的“物质再生产”及其媒介的宰制成为可能。

However, whether it is the negative critical theory of Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse, or the constructive discourse theory of Habermas, neither can fundamentally shake the ideological state apparatus. The root cause is that cultural critique or ideological critique lacks the realistic power to shake capitalist society. Therefore, the theoretical theme of revolution shifts from critiquing the ideological state apparatus to reshaping a new revolutionary subject, finding new realistic forces to support revolution.

然而，无论是霍克海默、阿多诺、马尔库塞的否定性的批判理论，还是哈贝马斯的建构性的商谈理论，都无法从根本上撼动意识形态的国家机器。其根源在于，文化批判或意识形态批判缺乏撼动资本主义社会的现实性力量。因此，革命的理论主题从批判意识形态的国家机器转向重塑新的革命主体，找到支撑革命的新的现实性力量。

Multidimensional Perspectives on and Contemporary Reshaping of the Revolutionary Subject

革命主体的多维透视与当代重塑

In the wave of post-industrialization, the Western radical left, building on the research methods of traditional Marxism and the theoretical frameworks of earlier Western Marxism, has made new judgments about the changing new situation and opened up a new intellectual landscape. Radical thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt, Paolo Virno, Slavoj Žižek, Giorgio Agamben, and Kojin Karatani, in the era of late capitalism, emphasize micro-radical politics, consciously transcending “the theoretical horizon of cultural critique, and from the perspective of political philosophy, re-centering the question of revolution as the core issue.” The central question of revolution shifts from inquiring into the absence of proletarian class consciousness and its roots to the question of how to reshape a new revolutionary subject or political subject. If the early capitalist working class was the subject that transformed the capitalist order, then what force in the contemporary era can become a new subject capable of shaking the existing order? Contemporary leftist scholars’ reshaping of the new subject primarily manifests in four directions.

在后工业化浪潮中，西方激进左翼在继承传统马克思主义的研究方法和以往西方马克思主义理论构架的基础上，对变化着的新形势作出新的判断，打开了新的思想格局。巴迪欧、奈格里、哈特、维尔诺、齐泽克、阿甘本、柄谷行人等激进思想家，在晚期资本主义时代强调微观激进政治学，自觉超越“文化批判的理论视野，从政治哲学的角度重新把革命的问题作为核心问题”。革命的中心问题从追问无产阶级阶级意识缺失及其根源的问题转向如何重塑新的革命主体或政治主体的问题。如果说早期资本主义工人阶级是变革资本主义秩序的主体，那么在当代什么力量能够成为撼动既有秩序的新主体呢？当代左翼学者对新主体的重塑主要呈现出四重路向。

First, focusing on the sphere of production. Negri and Hardt, in *Commonwealth*, and Virno, in *A Grammar of the Multitude*, all champion the autonomous subject — the “Multitude” — and explore a revolutionary path of autonomy and exodus. They argue that in the post-Fordist capitalist era, small-scale, flexible operations dominated by immaterial production will gradually replace machine-based mass production dominated by material production. This change highlights the non-quantifiable, immaterial affective dimension of life, which possesses a quality of commonality. However, capital, embedded in the political sphere and colluding with political power and legal rights, jointly constitutes a social order with powerful identity — the “Republic of Property.” [11]11 “Republic of Property” (财产共和国) is a term used by Negri and Hardt to describe the contemporary capitalist order, where property rights and state sovereignty are fused to create a unified system of social control. Capital’s identity will corrode affective commonality. Only the Multitude, characterized by extreme difference or singularity, can possibly resist capital’s project of identity, exit from the identity-based social order constructed by capital, and realize the autonomy and creation of the living subject.

第一，聚焦生产领域。奈格里、哈特在《大同世界》以及维尔诺在《诸众的语法》中都推崇自治主体——“诸众”（Multitude），并探索出一条自治与出离的革命路径。他们认为，在后福特制资本主义时代，以非物质生产为主导的小规模灵活作业将逐渐取代以物质生产为主导的机器化大生产。这一变化凸显出生命中不可被量化的非物质性的情感向度，它具有共同性特质。然而，资本嵌入政治领域与政治权力和法权相媾和，共同构成了具有强大同一性的社会秩序——“财产共和国”。资本同一性将腐蚀情感共同性，只有极具差异性或奇异性特质的诸众才有可能对抗资本的同一性筹划，从资本所构筑的同一性社会秩序中出离，实现生命主体的自治与创生。

Second, focusing on the sphere of consumption. Kojin Karatani, in *Transcritique* and *The Structure of World History*, advocates a “consumers’ union movement,” using the freedom to refuse purchase to oppose capitalism. From the perspective of modes of exchange, he points out the asymmetrical relationship between commodities and money: money can be freely exchanged for commodities, but commodities cannot be freely exchanged for money. He further points out that the worker holding a commodity is passive, but holding money is active. As long as consumers refuse to buy, the capital circuit will be broken, meaning consumers regain the freedom lost in the sphere of production, reassert their initiative, and obtain the possibility of ending capital. Compared with strikes, boycotts seem more effective; compared with producers, consumers seem more capable of resistance. To this end, he calls on consumers worldwide to unite against capitalism.

第二，聚焦消费领域。柄谷行人在《跨越性批判》《世界史的构造》中主张“消费者联合运动”，以拒买的自由对抗资本主义。他从交换方式视角指出商品和货币的不对称关系，即货币可随意兑换商品，而商品却不能，进而指出劳动者持有商品是被动的，但持有货币却是主动的。只要消费者拒绝购物，资本循环便会断裂，这意味着消费者拥有在生产领域丧失的自由，重新掌握主动权，获得终结资本的可能。与罢工相比，拒买似乎更有效；与生产者相比，消费者似乎更具反抗力。为此，他主张全世界消费者联合起来共同对抗资本主义。

Third, focusing on the sphere of everyday life. Agamben, in *Homo Sacer* and *State of Exception*, extracts bare life, indicating that we must constantly be vigilant against and resist the arbitrary operations of sovereign power. From the structural perspective of “law — the exception to law,” he identifies the current operating mechanism of sovereign power as the state, by declaring a state of exception that suspends the law, gradually degrading citizens, who have both political and legal protection, into bare life stripped of all political protection. Once degraded to bare life, a person is like a guinea pig, subject to arbitrary killing or appropriation by sovereign power. What is frightening is that this state of exception tends to become normalized. Therefore, in everyday life, we must constantly be vigilant against and resist sovereign power and its declaration of the state of exception.

第三，聚焦日常生活领域。阿甘本在《神圣人》《例外状态》中析出赤裸生命，指明我们要时刻警惕并反抗至高主权的专断操作。他从“法律—法律之例外”的结构性视角出发，指认当下至高主权的运作机制是国家通过宣告例外状态悬置法律，逐步将有政治和法律双重保护的公民降格为丧失任何政治保护的赤裸生命。人一旦降格为赤裸生命，便如豚鼠一般，可被至高权力随意扼杀或征用。可怕的是，这种例外状态却趋向常态化。因此，在日常生活中，我们必须时刻警惕并反抗至高主权及其例外状态的宣告。

Fourth, focusing on the sphere of the political. Badiou, in *Being and Event* and *Logics of Worlds*, proposes that the subject faithful to the event breaks the old model of capitalism and constructs a new model of communism through actual, critical events. In his view, contemporary capitalism is pathological, with material homogenization and spiritual standardization prevalent. Events, characterized by rupture, contingency, singularity, elusiveness, and unknowability, can precisely cause political reality to break with the old situation and turn toward a new one. Only by appearing in and being faithful to a concrete event can the subject possibly establish a new starting point, open a new horizon, and open up a new space for emancipatory politics and communism.

第四，聚焦政治领域。巴迪欧在《存在与事件》《世界的逻辑》中提出，忠实于事件的主体通过实际发生的关键性事件打破资本主义旧模式，构建共产主义新模式。在他看来，当代资本主义是病态的，物质同质化和精神标准化盛行，而具有断裂性、偶然性、独特性、不易把握性和不可知性的事件，正好可以使政治现实与旧有情势相决裂并转向新的情势。主体只有在具体事件中呈现并忠实于事件，才有可能确立新的起点，打开新的视域，敞开解放政治和共产主义的崭新空间。

The construction of the political subject by the contemporary Western radical left aims to use the difference of the subject to oppose the identity of the capitalist social order. In essence, they all focus on independent individuals without domination or center, and are unable to truly realize the enlightenment and awakening, freedom and individuality of the individual. Only by forging the individual into the social whole of humanity, fusing individual freedom into the historical process of the proletariat’s self-emancipation and human emancipation, and on the basis of the unity of individuality and humanity, can it be possible to achieve a reversal of power and the rebirth of the subject, and to find the true force for changing the world.

当代西方激进左翼对政治主体的建构，旨在以主体的差异性来对抗资本主义社会秩序的同一性。实质上，他们都聚焦于无支配无中心的独立个体，无法真正实现个体的启蒙与觉解、自由与个性。只有将个体熔铸于社会性的人类整体之中，把个人的自由熔铸在无产阶级自身解放和人类解放的历史进程之中，在个性与人类性相统一的基础上，才有可能实现权力的翻转和主体的新生，才有可能找到变革世界的真正力量。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心