A Dialogue on the Relationship between Western Marxism and Imperialism

I. “Western Marxism” and “Marxism in the West”

一、“西方马克思主义”与“西方的马克思主义”

Gabriel Rockhill: At the outset of our discussion, I would like to clarify a common misunderstanding concerning Western Marxism. Western Marxism is not equivalent to Marxism in the West; it is essentially a specific theoretical formation rooted in the imperialist core countries, where there exists an ideological pressure to compel Marxist theoretical forms to submit to the logic of imperialist hegemony. Western Marxism observes the living conditions of laborers in the imperialist core countries and extends from this to global capitalist countries, but it has not strictly influenced Marxist academic research and organizational work in these countries. The most direct evidence is this: although we are Marxists situated in the West, we do not consider ourselves Western Marxists, a view shared with the Italian philosopher Domenico Losurdo. His book *Western Marxism* has recently been published by Monthly Review Press. How do you view the relationship between “Western Marxism” and “Marxism in the West”?

加布里埃尔·罗克希尔(Gabriel Rockhill):讨论伊始，我想澄清一个大家共同关心的关于西方马克思主义的误解。西方马克思主义并不等同于在西方的马克思主义，它实质上是一种根植于帝国主义核心国家的特殊理论形态，这些国家存在着迫使马克思主义理论形态屈从于帝国主义霸权逻辑的意识形态压力。西方马克思主义观察帝国主义核心国家中劳动者的生存境遇，并由此延伸至全球资本主义国家，但它并没有严格地影响这些国家的马克思主义学术研究和组织工作。最直接的例证是：尽管我们是身处西方的马克思主义者，但我们并不认为自己是西方马克思主义者，这与意大利哲学家多米尼克·洛苏尔多(Domenico Losurdo)的观点一样。他所写的《西方马克思主义》一书近来已由每月评论出版社出版。您如何看待“西方马克思主义”与“西方的马克思主义”之间的关系?

John Bellamy Foster: I do not much like the term Western Marxism. This term is used by certain scholars as a self-identifying label; they not only reject Soviet Marxism but are also completely severed from the classical Marxist tradition inaugurated by Marx and Engels and from Marxist practice in the “Global South.” At the same time, the materialism, political economy, and historical analysis of Marxism in the West are often excluded from the category of Western Marxism. Moreover, the latter attempts to monopolize the right to interpret Marxism. Usually, when theoretically exploring the issue of Western Marxism, I believe we are confronting a specific philosophical tradition. This tradition begins with Maurice Merleau-Ponty, rather than the commonly assumed Georg Lukács, and its core characteristic lies in discarding the concept of the dialectics of nature associated with Engels (and also with Marx). This means that Western Marxism has broken away from the ontological materialist foundation of Marxism and turned toward an idealism that diverges from the dialectics of nature.

约翰·贝拉米·福斯特(John Bellamy Foster):我不太喜欢西方马克思主义这一术语。该术语被某些学者用作自我认同的标签，他们不仅拒斥苏联马克思主义，更与马克思恩格斯开创的经典马克思主义传统以及“全球南方”的马克思主义实践完全割裂。同时，西方的马克思主义的唯物主义、政治经济学和历史分析等内容往往被排除在西方马克思主义范畴之外。此外，后者还试图垄断马克思主义的解释权。通常，在从理论上探讨西方马克思主义的问题时，我认为我们所面对的是一个特定的哲学传统。这一传统始于莫里斯·梅洛-庞蒂(Maurice Merleau-Ponty),而非通常认为的格奥尔格·卢卡奇(Georg Lukács),其核心特征在于摒弃了与恩格斯(也包括马克思)有关的自然辩证法的概念。这意味着西方马克思主义脱离了马克思主义的本体论唯物主义基础，转向与自然辩证法相背离的唯心主义。

Furthermore, Losurdo has exposed issues such as Western Marxism’s avoidance of the critique of imperialism and its indifference to revolutionary struggles in the “Global South.” In this dimension, theorists who style themselves as Western Marxists often fall into a Eurocentric cognitive framework, habitually denying the importance of the theory of imperialism. Therefore, we can call them Western Eurocentric Marxism.

此外，洛苏尔多揭露了西方马克思主义对帝国主义批判的回避，以及对“全球南方”革命斗争的漠视等问题。在此维度上，自命为西方马克思主义者的理论家往往陷入欧洲中心主义认知框架，惯于否定帝国主义理论的重要性，因此我们可将他们称为西方欧洲中心主义的马克思主义。

Based on the above analysis, I tend to emphasize the following two aspects. (1) The philosophical tradition of Western Marxism is to discard the dialectics of nature and ontological materialism, thereby parting ways with the classical Marxism of Marx and Engels. (2) Western Eurocentric Marxism denies the concept of the imperialist stage (and monopoly capitalism) of capitalism and downplays the importance of Third World revolutionary struggles and the new revolutionary ideas they generate. This turns Marxism into a purely scholastic philosophy focused on the cycle of reification or “subjectless structures,” which is a fundamental deviation from the philosophy of practice.

基于上述分析，我倾向于强调以下两个方面。(1)西方马克思主义的哲学传统是摒弃自然辩证法和本体论唯物主义，从而与马克思恩格斯的经典马克思主义分道扬镳。(2)西方欧洲中心主义的马克思主义否定资本主义的帝国主义阶段(和垄断资本主义)的概念，并且淡化第三世界革命斗争及其产生的新的革命思想的重要性。这使得马克思主义变成一种纯粹关注物化循环或“无主体结构”的经院哲学，这是对实践哲学的根本背离。

Rockhill: Indeed, these are all salient features of so-called Western Marxism, and I also believe this expression is easily misleading. This is why, in my view, dialectics is crucial: it allows us to attend to the difference between simplified concepts and the complexity of material reality, and through the refinement and elaboration of conceptual categories and theoretical analysis, to incorporate material complexity into the theoretical framework as much as possible. In addition to the two features you mentioned, I would like to add two other tendencies of Western Marxism (especially the Frankfurt School representatives, and post-war French and British Marxist theory): first, a departure from political economy and a turn toward cultural analysis; second, a negative stance toward most socialism in the real world.

罗克希尔:的确，这些都是所谓西方马克思主义的显著特征，我也认为这种表述很容易引起误解。这就是为什么在我看来辩证法至关重要：它能让我们关注到简化概念与物质现实复杂性之间的差异，通过对概念范畴和理论分析的细化和提炼，尽可能地将物质的复杂性纳入理论框架。除了您提到的两个特征外，我还想补充西方马克思主义(尤其是法兰克福学派代表人物、战后法国与英国马克思主义理论)的另外两个倾向：一是背离政治经济学，转向文化分析；二是对现实世界中的大多数社会主义持否定立场。

When attempting to define the theoretical form of Western Marxism and its internal dynamics as precisely as possible, I think it is important to situate its unique form of knowledge production within a broader set of theoretical relations of production, which are themselves embedded in wider social relations of production. In other words, the analysis of Western Marxism requires, to some extent, engaging with the political economy of the production, circulation, and consumption of knowledge. This allows us to attend to the socio-economic forces operating behind this specific ideological orientation, while also recognizing the relative autonomy of ideology.

在尝试尽可能精确地界定西方马克思主义的理论形态及其内在动因时，我认为重要的是将其独特的知识生产形式置于更宏观的理论生产关系中，而理论生产关系本身又嵌套于更广泛的社会生产关系之中。换言之，对西方马克思主义的分析，在某种程度上需要涉及知识生产、流通和消费的政治经济学。这使我们得以关注到在这种特定意识形态取向背后起作用的社会经济力量，同时也让我们认识到意识形态的相对自主性。

Based on the theoretical writings of Marx and Engels, Lenin pointed out sharply: “This stratum of workers who have become bourgeois, the ‘aristocracy of labour’… are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, the real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a considerable number of them inevitably side with the bourgeoisie.” [1]1 V. I. Lenin, *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*, in *Collected Works*, vol. 22 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), p. 192. The English phrase “labour lieutenants of the capitalist class” is Lenin’s own formulation. It suddenly occurred to me that if we are to trace the root of the problem, we must apply this analytical framework to understanding Western Marxism’s fundamental revision of Marxism, as well as its tendency to belittle and even reject the revolutionary Marxism of the “Global South.” It must be understood that the latter not only bears the theoretical mission of interpreting the world but also fundamentally changed the world by breaking the chains of imperialism. Are Western Marxists not what we might call a kind of “intellectual labour aristocracy”? Compared to other theoretical workers, they enjoy the best material conditions for theoretical production in the world. For instance, compared to Mao Zedong, who rose from the Chinese countryside, Ho Chi Minh, who was mired in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, and Che Guevara, who fought in the Sierra Maestra mountains, do not Western Marxists, like the labour aristocracy in a broad sense, draw nourishment from the crumbs that fall from the imperialist table of the ruling class? Does this material reality not influence their views?

基于马克思恩格斯的理论著述，列宁一针见血地指出：“这个资产阶级化了的工人阶层即‘工人贵族’阶层……是资产阶级在工人运动中的真正代理人，是资本家阶级的工人帮办(labor lieutenants of the capitalist class),是改良主义和沙文主义的真正传播者。在无产阶级同资产阶级的国内战争中，他们有不少人必然会站在资产阶级方面”。我突然意识到，如果要追溯问题的根源，就必须将这一分析框架运用于理解西方马克思主义对马克思主义的根本性修正，以及其贬低乃至拒斥“全球南方”革命马克思主义的理论倾向中。须知，后者不仅承担着解释世界的理论使命，更通过打破帝国主义锁链而从根本上改变了世界。西方马克思主义者难道不是我们所谓的某种“知识工人贵族”吗?相较于其他理论工作者，他们享有全世界最优质的理论生产物质条件。譬如，相较于崛起于中国农村的毛泽东，身处越战泥潭中的胡志明(Ho Chi Minh),转战马埃斯特拉山区的切·格瓦拉(Che Guevara)等人，西方马克思主义者难道不正如广义上的工人贵族那样，从统治阶级帝国主义餐桌上掉落的残羹冷炙中汲取养分吗?这种物质现实难道不会影响他们的观点吗?

II. The “Fourfold Departure” of Western Marxists

二、西方马克思主义者的“四重背离”

Foster: The widespread tendency within Western Marxism to “detach from political economy” is indeed worthy of in-depth exploration. I entered graduate school at York University in Toronto in the mid-1970s, having already systematically studied neoclassical economics and Marxist political economy, as well as being interested in critical theory and Hegelian studies. In those years, the Union for Radical Political Economics in the United States sparked a theoretical revolution within the economics discipline. In philosophy, I not only studied Marx’s works but also delved deeply into Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit*, most of Herbert Marcuse’s writings, István Mészáros’s *Marx’s Theory of Alienation*, and many other works in critical philosophy. I entered graduate school with the academic ambition of studying both Marx’s political economy and critical theory simultaneously. I had visited York University in 1975, when the Social and Political Thought program still maintained the integrity of theoretical research, but when I formally enrolled in 1976, I found the academic community within the program had become severely divided—with “political economists” adhering to classical Marxism and “critical theorists” embracing new theories forming opposing camps. This split was directly linked to the wave of English translations of Frankfurt School works: Alfred Schmidt’s *The Concept of Nature in Marx* was translated into English in 1971, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno’s *Dialectic of Enlightenment* in 1972, and Adorno’s *Negative Dialectics* in 1973. These English translations not only promoted internal debates within Marxist scholarship but also constituted, in many respects, a rupture with and critique of classical Marxism. In critical theory classes, the first prohibition I encountered was that “the dialectics of nature is unacceptable.” Marx’s early “anthropological” discussions of the interaction between humans and nature were also summarily dismissed. Courses on Hegel were limited to Alexandre Kojève’s interpretation, which was embraced by the French left and, unexpectedly, also favored by certain conservative thinkers. In such an academic atmosphere, I chose to focus my research on Marxist political economy.

福斯特:西方马克思主义普遍存在的“脱离政治经济学”的倾向确实值得深入探讨。我在1970年代中期进入多伦多约克大学攻读研究生学位，此前已系统地学习过新古典经济学和马克思主义政治经济学，也对批判理论和黑格尔研究感兴趣。在那几年里，美国“激进政治经济学联盟”在经济学界掀起了理论革命。在哲学领域，我不仅研读了马克思的著作，还深入地研究了黑格尔的《精神现象学》、赫伯特·马尔库塞(Herbert Marcuse)的大部分著作、伊斯特万·梅萨罗斯(István Mészáros)的《马克思的异化理论》以及批判哲学领域的许多其他著作。我怀着同时研究马克思政治经济学和批判理论的学术抱负进入了研究生阶段。我曾在1975年访问过约克大学，当时的社会政治思想项目尚保持着理论研究的整体性，但当我于1976年正式入学时，却发现该项目的学术共同体已发生严重分裂——坚持经典马克思主义的“政治经济学家”与拥抱新理论的“批判理论家”形成了对立的阵营。这种分裂与法兰克福学派著作的英译热潮存在着直接的关联：阿尔弗雷德·施密特(Alfred Schmidt)的《马克思的自然概念》于1971年被译成英文，马克斯·霍克海默(Max Horkheimer)和西奥多·阿多诺(Theodor W.Adorno)的《启蒙辩证法》于1972年被译成英文，阿多诺的《否定的辩证法》于1973年被译成英文。这些英译本不仅促进了马克思主义学界的内部讨论，也在很多方面构成了对经典马克思主义的决裂式批判。在批判理论的课堂上，我首先遭遇的禁令是“自然辩证法不可接受”。马克思早期关于人与自然互动的“人类学”讨论也被草率否定。在关于黑格尔的课程上仅限于讲授亚历山大·科耶夫(Alexandre Kojève)式的解读，这种解读既受到法国左翼的追捧，也意外获得了某些保守思想家的青睐。在这样的学术氛围中，我选择聚焦马克思主义政治经济学研究。

In my first year at York University, I studied with a liberal professor who specialized in Chinese affairs. He confessed to being perplexed by the developmental trajectory of Marxist theory and handed me Perry Anderson’s book *Considerations on Western Marxism*, instructing me to study it and then explain its main points. After carefully reading this work, I was deeply shocked. Anderson, through selective narration, deliberately emphasized the turn of Marxist theory toward philosophy and culture. Although this assertion did not correspond to the facts, it was mutually corroborated by the group of thinkers he deliberately promoted. In this way, within Anderson’s theoretical framework, Western Marxism effectively excluded the theoretical persistence of political economists and historians, constructing a lineage of thought severed from the classical Marxism founded by Marx and Engels. Although Anderson could not entirely deny the existence of Marxist political economists and historians in his exposition, the intention behind this selective exclusion was already quite evident.

在约克大学的第一年，我跟随一位研究中国问题的自由派教授学习，他坦言对马克思主义理论发展脉络感到困惑，遂将佩里·安德森(Perry Anderson)的著作《西方马克思主义探讨》递予我，嘱咐我研读后阐释其要旨。仔细研读这部著作后，我深感震惊。安德森通过选择性叙事刻意强调了马克思主义理论向哲学和文化领域的转向，这种论断虽不符合事实，却与其刻意推崇的思想家群体形成互证。如此一来，在安德森的理论框架下，西方马克思主义实质上排除了政治经济学家和历史学家的理论坚持，被建构为与马克思恩格斯所奠基的经典马克思主义相割裂的学说谱系。尽管安德森在论述中无法全然否定马克思主义政治经济学家和历史学家的存在，但这种选择性排除的意图已非常明显。

Setting aside the specific manner in which political economists were negated, the index alone reveals the essence of Anderson’s theoretical demarcation: philosophers and cultural theorists occupy a prominent position in the Western Marxist lineage he constructed. In *Considerations on Western Marxism*, Louis Althusser is mentioned on 34 pages. The number of pages on which other scholars are mentioned is as follows: Lukács 31 pages, Jean-Paul Sartre 28 pages, Marcuse 25 pages, Adorno 24 pages, Galvano Della-Volpe 19 pages, Lucio Colletti 18 pages, Horkheimer and Henri Lefebvre 12 pages each, Walter Benjamin 11 pages, Lucien Goldmann 8 pages, Merleau-Ponty 3 pages, Bertolt Brecht 2 pages, and Fredric Jameson 1 page. In contrast, the situation for contemporary Marxist political economists and historians is entirely different: Isaac Deutscher and Paul M. Sweezy are each mentioned on 4 pages in *Considerations on Western Marxism*. The number of pages on which other scholars are mentioned is also small: Ernest Mandel 2 pages, while Paul A. Baran, Michał Kalecki, Nicos Poulantzas, Piero Sraffa, and Raymond Williams are each mentioned on only 1 page.

撇开政治经济学家被否定的具体方式不谈，仅从索引便可知安德森进行理论划界的实质：哲学家和文化理论家在其构建的西方马克思主义谱系中占据突出地位。在《西方马克思主义探讨》一书中，共有34页提及了路易·阿尔都塞(Louis Althusser)。其他学者被提及的页数如下：卢卡奇31页，让-保罗·萨特(Jean-Paul Sartre)28页，马尔库塞25页，阿多诺24页，加尔瓦诺·德拉-沃尔佩(Galvano Della-Volpe)19页，卢西奥·科莱蒂(Lucio Colletti)18页，霍克海默和亨利·列斐伏尔(Henri Lefebvre)各12页，瓦尔特·本雅明(Walter Benjamin)11页，吕西安·戈德曼(Lucien Goldmann)8页，梅洛-庞蒂3页，贝托尔特·布莱希特(Bertolt Brecht)2页，弗雷德里克·詹姆逊(Fredric Jameson)1页。反观同期的马克思主义政治经济学家和历史学家，景象则截然不同：艾萨克·多伊彻(Isaac Deutscher)和保罗·斯威齐(Paul M.Sweezy)在《西方马克思主义探讨》一书中各被提及4页。其他学者被提及的页数也不多：欧内斯特·曼德尔(Ernest Mandel)2页，保罗·巴兰(Paul A.Baran)、米哈尔·卡莱茨基(Michał Kalecki)、尼科斯·普兰查斯(Nicos Poulantzas)、皮耶罗·斯拉法(Piero Sraffa)和雷蒙德·威廉斯(Raymond Williams)仅各1页。

As for Marxist scientists, they are completely absent from *Considerations on Western Marxism*. Moreover, those Marxists who held dominant positions in Western intellectual circles, merely because they chose to live on the other side of the so-called “Iron Curtain”—such as Brecht, mentioned on only 2 pages, and Ernst Bloch, entirely absent from the index—were classified by Anderson as belonging to the “Eastern” rather than the “Western” camp.

至于马克思主义科学家，在《西方马克思主义探讨》一书中则完全未被提及。而那些在西方思想界具有主导地位的马克思主义者，仅因选择生活在所谓“铁幕”的另一侧——如仅被提及2页的布莱希特，以及在索引中踪迹全无的恩斯特·布洛赫(Ernst Bloch)——便被安德森归入“东方”而非“西方”阵营。

For me, Anderson’s definition of Western Marxism seemed strange from the outset. Although any thinker has the right to choose objects of study that fit their analytical framework, Anderson’s criteria for selecting Western Marxists, anchored in the fields of philosophy and culture, had already produced a fundamental rupture with the classical Marxist tradition, the method of political economy, the theory of class struggle, and the critique of imperialism. The Western Marxism he depicted effectively constituted a double negation of both classical Marxism and Soviet Marxism. We need not entirely blame Anderson for this; he did indeed capture some existing reality, but this reality precisely reflected the immense distance between his theoretical construction and classical Marxism.

对我而言，安德森对西方马克思主义的界定从一开始便显怪异。尽管任何思想家都有权选择与其分析框架契合的研究对象，但安德森将西方马克思主义者的遴选标准锚定在哲学和文化场域已然与经典马克思主义传统、政治经济学方法、阶级斗争学说及帝国主义批判产生了根本性割裂。其笔下的西方马克思主义实质上构成了对经典马克思主义和苏联马克思主义的双重否定。对此，我们不必全然苛责安德森，他的确捕捉到了某种现实存在，但此种现实恰恰体现了其理论建构与经典马克思主义的巨大疏离。

Clearly, according to Anderson’s definition, or based on the theoretical boundaries he established by discarding the dialectics of nature, even if it explored issues such as the dialectics of reification more deeply, Western Marxism had indeed stripped away many core elements of Marxism’s original critical spirit. Western Marxism not only abandoned the materialist foundation but also increasingly distanced itself from class analysis, the critique of imperialism, and the idea of revolutionary struggle. What it ultimately produced was the kind of closed academic circle satirized by Lukács as the “Grand Hotel Abyss”—a group of thinkers increasingly alienated from the conception of revolutionary practice. More precisely, these thinkers were elites within the bourgeois academic system, occupying chairs and winning laurels; they could hardly be considered genuine Marxists, let alone having any connection to the working class. Overall, their living conditions were far more comfortable than those of Marxists who adhered to the classical tradition.

显然，依照安德森的定义，或基于他通过抛弃自然辩证法所确立的理论边界，即便其对物化辩证法等议题进行了更为深入的探索，西方马克思主义也确已剥离了马克思主义原初批判精神的诸多核心要素。西方马克思主义不仅摒弃了唯物主义根基，更与阶级分析、帝国主义批判和革命斗争理念渐行渐远。其最终造就的是卢卡奇所讽喻的“深渊大饭店”式的封闭的学术团体——那些日益疏离革命实践构想的思想家群体。更确切地说，这些思想家是资产阶级学术体制中的精英，他们占据讲席、荣膺桂冠，既难被视为真正的马克思主义者，更与工人阶级毫无瓜葛。总体而言，其生存境遇较之坚守经典传统的马克思主义者优渥得多。

Rockhill: In his two related works, Anderson provides a self-interpretation of Western Marxism from the standpoint of Western Marxists. This mode of interpretation precisely constitutes the duality of his methodology: it possesses specific advantages while also containing unavoidable defects. On the one hand, he accurately captures the theoretical deviations of Western Marxists, including their tendency to detach from practical politics and turn toward pure theoretical construction, as well as the political defeatism embedded within them. On the other hand, he never touches the core of the issue, namely, that he does not situate the Western Marxism he understands within the context of global social relations of production and international class struggle. What he ultimately offers us is not a strictly materialist interpretation, because it does not seriously study the political economy of knowledge production, dissemination, and consumption, nor does it place imperialism at the center of its analysis.

罗克希尔:安德森在其两部相关论著中，以西方马克思主义者的立场对西方马克思主义进行自我阐释。这种阐释方式恰恰构成了其方法论的双重性：既具有特定优势，又蕴含无法规避的缺陷。一方面，他精准地捕捉到了西方马克思主义者的理论背离，包括其脱离实践政治并转向纯理论建构的倾向，以及其蕴含的政治失败主义情绪。另一方面，他从未触及问题的核心，即没有将他所理解的西方马克思主义置于全球社会生产关系和国际阶级斗争的背景中。他最终提供给我们的阐释并非严格唯物主义的，因为它没有认真研究知识生产、传播和消费的政治经济学，也没有将帝国主义置于其分析的核心位置。

Marxism holds that what drives historical development is never ideas but material forces. Therefore, the history of thought needs to be explicitly linked to these forces. Of course, this does not deny that ideology possesses a relative autonomy vis-à-vis the socioeconomic base. European Marxist intellectuals from the late 19th to the early 20th century were often situated outside the academic system, or participated in social practice as political organizers or journalists, maintaining a more organic connection with various forms of class struggle practice. When the First World War led to the split of the socialist movement, some intellectuals abandoned the international proletariat, consciously or unconsciously merging with their own national bourgeoisie. Others identified with Lenin’s view: that only international class struggle, exemplified by the Russian Revolution, was a war worth supporting. It is precisely for this reason that Losurdo constructed his critique of Western Marxism, far superior to Anderson’s: Western Marxism is a product of social chauvinism within the European Marxist tradition, adopting an arrogant posture toward anti-colonial revolutions outside Europe. As Lenin decisively pointed out, this stems not simply from the theoretical errors of Western Marxist intellectuals, but from the material forces influencing their ideological tendencies: as members of the labor aristocracy in the core capitalist regions, they have a vested interest in maintaining the imperialist world order.

马克思主义认为，驱动历史发展的从来不是观念而是物质力量。因此，思想史需要明确地与这些力量联系起来。当然，这并不否认意识形态具有相对于社会经济基础的相对自主性。19世纪末至20世纪初的欧洲马克思主义知识分子往往身处学院体制之外，或者以政治组织者、新闻记者的身份参与社会实践，与各类阶级斗争实践保持着更为有机的联系。当第一次世界大战导致社会主义运动分裂时，部分知识分子背弃国际无产阶级，或有意或无意地与本民族的资产阶级合流。而另一些人则认同列宁的观点：唯有以俄国革命为典范的国际阶级斗争才是值得支持的战争。正因如此，洛苏尔多以此建构了其远胜于安德森的西方马克思主义批判理论：西方马克思主义是欧洲马克思主义传统中社会沙文主义的产物，对欧洲之外的反殖民革命报以傲慢姿态。正如列宁果断地指出的那样，这绝非单纯源于西方马克思主义知识分子的理论谬误，而是因为存在物质力量影响着他们的意识形态倾向：作为资本主义核心地区的工人贵族成员，他们在维护帝国主义世界秩序方面有着既得利益。

As interimperialist competition from the First World War continued into the Second World War, it ultimately led to a global stalemate: the victor of the imperialist camp (the United States) stood opposed to a growing socialist camp led by a state (the Soviet Union) that had played a decisive role in defeating fascism and supporting many anti-colonial revolutions around the world. This split gradually evolved into a great divide. Against this backdrop, Western Marxists increasingly degenerated into a professoriate ensconced in Western universities, often skeptical of Marxist practical developments in the “Global South” and undertaking major theoretical revisions to the classical Marxism of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Based on extremely real material motives, their anti-communist revisionist tendencies often enhanced their status within the Western academic system.

随着第一次世界大战中帝国主义之间的竞争一直持续到第二次世界大战，并最终导致了一种全球范围的僵持局面，即帝国主义阵营的胜利者(美国)与由在击败法西斯主义和支持世界各地许多反殖民革命中发挥了决定性作用的国家(苏联)所领导的日益壮大的社会主义阵营相对立。这种分裂逐渐演变成了巨大的分歧。在此背景下，西方马克思主义者日益蜕变为栖身西方高校的教授群体，他们往往对“全球南方”马克思主义实践发展持怀疑态度，并对马克思恩格斯和列宁的经典马克思主义进行了重大的理论修正。基于极其现实的物质动因，他们的反共修正主义倾向往往能提升其在西方学术体系中的地位。

Major representatives of the Frankfurt School, such as Adorno and Horkheimer, were people who held a dogmatic anti-communist critical attitude toward actually existing socialism, and they received funding and support from the capitalist ruling class and major imperialist states for propagating these views. Sartre, although he formed his subjectivist Marxism during the Second World War and supported certain aspects of the global communist movement after the war, displayed skepticism as the Cold War deepened. Althusser, while siding with the post-war French Communist Party, simultaneously embraced the anti-dialectical trend of structuralist theory—especially the Lacanian psychoanalytic turn.

法兰克福学派的主要代表人物，如阿多诺和霍克海默，是对现实存在的社会主义持教条式反共批判态度的人，他们因宣扬这些观点而得到了资本主义统治阶级和主要帝国主义国家的资助和支持。萨特虽然在二战期间形成了其主观主义的马克思主义，并在战后支持了全球共产主义运动的某些方面，但却随着冷战的深化而表现出怀疑的态度。阿尔都塞虽然站在战后的法国共产党一边，却也同时拥抱了反辩证法的结构主义理论风潮——尤其是拉康主义的精神分析转向。

We must take these contradictions seriously, while also recognizing a certain inevitability in the trajectory of historical development. For example, a Sartre-Althusserian like Alain Badiou has become the most famous current Western Marxist in France. Waving the theoretical red flag, he declares himself “the only communist left,” asserting that “socialist states, national liberation struggles, and the workers’ movement no longer constitute historical references, which might otherwise have guaranteed the concrete universality of Marxism.” Therefore, “Marxism has now … been historically destroyed,” and what remains is only Badiou’s new “communist idea,” tossed out from within the core academic halls of Western imperialism. Badiou shamelessly combines messianism with opportunistic self-promotion; the implicit propaganda slogan of his works resembles a Christological distortion of Marx’s revolutionary discourse: “Marxism is dead; long live my communist idea!” Yet, amid the clamor of theoretical resurrection, Badiou deliberately evades a fact: his so-called new idea is, in practice, essentially nothing but the old illusion that Engels long ago thoroughly criticized—utopian socialism.

我们必须认真对待这些矛盾，同时也要认识到历史发展轨迹的某种必然性。例如，像阿兰·巴迪欧(Alain Badiou)这样的萨特—阿尔都塞主义者成为了当前法国最著名的西方马克思主义者。他挥舞着理论红旗，宣称自己是“仅存的共产主义者”,断言“社会主义国家、民族解放斗争以及工人运动都不再构成历史参照，而这些原本或许能够保证马克思主义的具体普遍性”。因此，“马克思主义如今……已遭历史性摧毁”,残存的唯有巴迪欧从西方帝国主义核心学术殿堂内抛出的新“共产主义理念”。巴迪欧厚颜无耻地将弥赛亚主义与机会主义的自我推销结合起来，其著作隐含的宣传口号宛如对马克思的革命论述的基督论式歪曲：“马克思主义已死，吾之共产主义理念永存!”然而，在热衷理论复活的喧嚣中，巴迪欧刻意回避了一个事实：其所谓的新理念在实践中本质上不过是恩格斯早已彻底批判过的陈旧幻象——空想社会主义。

This is one reason why a dialectical evaluation of Western Marxism is so important. It allows us to conduct differentiated analyses of individual thinkers and currents: revealing both where and when they converge with the mainstream ideology of Western Marxism, and analyzing how they may deviate in specific dimensions or at historical junctures. This dialectical method must be thoroughly materialist, grounded in an analysis of the social relations of knowledge production.

这就是为什么对西方马克思主义进行辩证评价如此重要的原因之一。它使我们得以对个别思想家及思潮展开差异化分析：既揭示其何时何地与西方马克思主义主流意识形态合流，也剖析他们可能在特定维度或历史节点产生的背离。这种辩证方法必须是彻底唯物主义的，要以对知识生产的社会关系的分析为基础。

The integration of Marxism into bourgeois academic institutions has subjected it to many major changes. In the core capitalist countries, there are no academic institutions capable of systematically cultivating Marxists and transmitting Marxism as a holistic science encompassing nature and society. Instead, what exists is a knowledge-Taylorist system [3]3 Knowledge Taylorism: A term referring to the application of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s principles of scientific management—specialization, fragmentation, and hierarchical control of labor—to the production of knowledge within the academic division of labor. based on the disciplinary division of labor among the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. This system, as part of the superstructure, is ultimately driven by capitalist interests. In this regard, Marxism has been largely marginalized or rejected as a framework for bourgeois natural science, and is often reduced in many bourgeois social sciences to an incorrect or inadequate explanatory paradigm. Many prominent Western Marxists teach in humanities departments or social science departments close to the humanities, practicing theoretical eclecticism and deliberately combining Marxist theory with bourgeois theoretical trends.

马克思主义融入资产阶级学术机构，使其经历了许多重大变化。在资本主义核心国家，并不存在能够系统培养马克思主义者、并将其作为统摄自然和社会领域的整体科学加以传授的学术机构。取而代之的是建立在自然科学、社会科学与人文学科等学科分工基础上的知识泰勒制体系。这个体系作为上层建筑的一部分，最终是由资本主义利益驱动的。在这方面，马克思主义在很大程度上被边缘化或被拒绝作为资产阶级自然科学的框架，并且常常在许多资产阶级社会科学中被简化为一种不正确或不充分的解释范式。许多著名的西方马克思主义者在人文学科或与人文学科相近的社会科学系任教，他们奉行理论折衷主义，有意将马克思主义理论与资产阶级的理论潮流相结合。

It is hardly surprising that Western Marxists tend to reject materialist science, abandon the in-depth study of political economy and materialist history, and indulge in theory for its own sake and in bourgeois cultural analysis. For Western Marxists like Slavoj Žižek, the essence of Marxist theory lies not in changing the capitalist world that cultivates them as theoretical stars, but in seeking career advancement within the imperial academic system and cultural apparatus through specific interpretive strategies. They often lack a self-critical and dialectical materialist examination of the conditions of their own knowledge production—a lack partly stemming from the ideological discipline imposed by the system on which their advancement depends. They are the Marxist theoreticians of imperialism.

西方马克思主义者倾向于拒斥唯物主义科学，放弃对政治经济学和唯物主义历史的深入研究，并且为了理论本身和资产阶级文化分析而沉溺其中，也就不足为奇了。对于斯拉沃热·齐泽克(Slavoj Žižek)这类西方马克思主义者而言，马克思主义理论的要义不在于改变将其培育为理论明星的资本主义世界，而在于通过特定阐释策略谋求在帝国学术体制和文化体系内的职业晋升。他们往往缺乏对自身知识生产条件的自我批判和辩证唯物主义审视——这种缺失部分源于其赖以晋升的体制所实施的意识形态规训。他们是帝国主义的马克思主义理论家。

Foster: What you are presenting here is a classic historical materialist critique, focusing on the class basis of the ideology associated with the Western Marxist tradition. As Karl Mannheim elaborated in *Ideology and Utopia*, the origin of ideology critique can be traced back to Marx. But Mannheim argued that Marxism, by rigidly adhering to the standpoint of the revolutionary proletariat, failed to develop the self-criticism necessary for a genuine sociology of knowledge. In contrast, as Mészáros argued, it is precisely this self-criticism, together with the actual revolutions in the “Global South,” that explains the continued theoretical vitality of Marxist theory—a self-criticism that obviously cannot be realized unless its very foundations are completely overturned.

福斯特:你在这里提出的是一种经典的历史唯物主义批判，聚焦于与西方马克思主义传统相关的意识形态的阶级基础。正如卡尔·曼海姆(Karl Mannheim)在《意识形态与乌托邦》一书中所阐述的那样，意识形态批判的源头可以追溯至马克思。但曼海姆认为马克思主义因固守革命无产阶级立场而未能发展出真正的知识社会学所需的自我批判。与此相反，正如梅萨罗斯所论，正是这种自我批判连同“全球南方”实际发生的革命，共同解释了马克思主义理论持续的理论生命力，这种自我批判显然无法实现，除非彻底颠覆其存在根基。

It is no accident that when Lukács directed his critique of irrationalism at the Western left and its infatuation with Martin Heidegger’s anti-humanism, he provoked the most intense polemics from Western Marxists. In the philosophical tradition of Western Marxism, all affirmative ontology and historical analysis have been discarded; what remains is only a castrated dialectics—reduced to a logical game of signifier and signified, and a complete severance from materialist ontology, class struggle, and even historical change. Humanism (including Marxist humanism) has become the enemy. After abandoning all substantive content, self-proclaimed Western Marxists have facilitated a discursive turn that ultimately converges with post-Marxism, post-structuralism, postmodernism, post-humanism, post-colonialism, and post-capitalism. Here, the “post” often signifies theoretical regression rather than progress.

当卢卡奇将非理性主义批判的矛头指向西方左翼及其对马丁·海德格尔(Martin Heidegger)反人道主义的迷恋时，招致西方马克思主义者最激烈的论战就不是偶然了。在西方马克思主义哲学传统中，所有肯定性本体论和历史分析均遭摒弃，残留的仅是被阉割的辩证法——沦为能指和所指的逻辑游戏，以及与唯物主义本体论、阶级斗争乃至历史变革的彻底割裂，人道主义(包括马克思主义的人道主义)竟成为敌人。在抛弃所有实质内容后，自诩的西方马克思主义者助推了话语转向，最终使其与后马克思主义、后结构主义、后现代主义、后人类主义、后殖民主义和后资本主义合流。此处的“后”往往意味着理论的倒退而非进步。

In short, although the Western Marxist tradition offers rich critical insights, it is deeply mired in a “fourfold departure”: a departure from class analysis, a departure from the critique of imperialism, a departure from nature/materialism/science, and a departure from reason. When affirmative ontology has completely vanished, the postmodern and post-Marxist left retains only an empty discursive world, which provides a basis for deconstructing reality but cannot nurture any emancipatory project.

总之，尽管西方马克思主义传统提供了丰富的批判性见解，但却深陷“四重背离”的泥潭，即对阶级分析的背离，对帝国主义批判的背离，对自然/唯物主义/科学的背离，对理性的背离。当肯定性本体论消逝殆尽，后现代主义和后马克思主义左翼仅存空洞的话语世界，这为解构现实提供了基础，却无法孕育任何解放性方案。

The urgent task today is to reconstruct historical materialism as revolutionary theory and practice in the context of global crisis. Max Weber once said that historical materialism is not a cab that one can board at will. To this, one might respond that the mission of classical Marxism is not to carry humanity to any arbitrary destination, but toward complete socialism—one of substantive equality and ecological sustainability.

当下的要务是在全球性危机的背景下重建作为革命理论和实践的历史唯物主义。马克斯·韦伯(Max Weber)曾言，历史唯物主义非可任意驰骋之车。对此，人们或许会回应说，经典马克思主义的使命并非载着人类驶向任意远方，而是通往实质平等和生态可持续的完全的社会主义(complete socialism)。

Rockhill: This “fourfold departure” constitutes a comprehensive retreat from material reality into the realm of discourse and ideas, essentially an inversion of classical Marxist ideology. This theoretical tendency not only abandons the complex historical task of building socialism but also forsakes Marxism’s primary practical mission—transforming the world rather than merely interpreting it.

罗克希尔:这“四重背离”构成了从物质现实向话语和观念领域的全面撤退，实质上是对经典马克思主义意识形态的一种倒置。这种理论倾向不但放弃了建设社会主义这一复杂的历史任务，也放弃了马克思主义的首要实践任务——改造世界而非单纯地解释世界。

The “fourfold departure” and its wholesale abandonment of real socialism are not a dogma that mechanically determines all Western Marxist discourse. Rather, the so-called “fourfold departure” characterizes a broad ideological field that can be mapped with a Venn diagram. Each specific element occupies a different coordinate within this field: at one extreme are superstitious idealist discourses, completely detached from any materialist analysis, indulging in extremely regressive “post-” orientations such as post-Marxism, post-structuralism, and postmodernism; at the other extreme exist discourses that claim to be staunchly Marxist, which, while engaging to some extent with rationalist class analysis, misjudge the class dynamics of imperialist operations, characterize real socialism as a state-building project opposed to imperialism, and instead embrace variants of socialism tinged with utopian, populist, or anarchist-rebellious traits.

“四重背离”及其对现实社会主义的全面放弃，并非是机械决定所有西方马克思主义话语的教条。更确切地说，所谓的“四重背离”是一个广泛的意识形态领域的特征，可以用维恩图来描绘。每个具体要件在该场域中占据着不同坐标：一端是迷信的唯心主义论述，完全脱离了各类唯物主义分析，沉溺于后马克思主义、后结构主义、后现代主义等极其倒退的“后”学取向；另一端则存在着声称是坚定的马克思主义的话语，虽然在某种程度上介入了理性主义的阶级分析，但却误判了帝国主义运行的阶级动力，将现实社会主义定性为反对帝国主义的国家建构工程，转而拥抱带有乌托邦色彩、民粹主义倾向或无政府主义反叛特质的社会主义变体。

Western Marxism, due to its analysis of institutional power and its superficial “allegiance” to historical materialism, is often more deceptive in theoretical struggles. Therefore, in undertaking the task of revitalizing dialectical historical materialism as revolutionary theory and practice, it is necessary to resolutely engage in theoretical confrontation with self-proclaimed Marxists who distort imperialism and the global anti-imperialist struggle. Your recent related essays published in *Monthly Review* are essential reading, as they directly address the core proposition of the contemporary field of class struggle theory: how to understand imperialism.

西方马克思主义因其对制度性权力的分析和对历史唯物主义的表面“效忠”,在理论斗争中往往更具迷惑性。因此，在承担振兴作为革命理论和实践的辩证历史唯物主义这一重任时，必须坚决与那些曲解帝国主义及全球反帝斗争的自诩的马克思主义者进行理论交锋。您近期发表于《每月评论》杂志的相关论文实属必读文献，因其直指当代阶级斗争理论场域的核心命题——如何认识帝国主义。

III. Western Marxism and Imperialism

三、西方马克思主义与帝国主义

Foster: The relationship between Western Marxism and imperialism is extremely complex. We must first analyze the Eurocentrism inherent in Western culture. Martin Bernal, in *Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization*, points out that the Aryan myth about ancient Greece constituted the true beginning of Eurocentrism, emerging at the end of the 18th century when Napoleon invaded Egypt—although certain traces must have existed before. With the rise of the imperialist stage of capitalism from the late 19th to the early 20th century, Eurocentrism was further reinforced, marked by the great powers’ partition of Africa.

福斯特:西方马克思主义与帝国主义的关系极为复杂。我们首先需要剖析西方文化内在的欧洲中心主义。马丁·伯纳尔(Martin Bernal)在《黑色雅典娜：古典文明的亚非之根》一书中指出，关于古希腊的雅利安神话构成了欧洲中心主义的真正开端，它兴起于18世纪末拿破仑入侵埃及之时——尽管在此之前肯定已经存在一些痕迹。随着资本主义的帝国主义阶段在19世纪末至20世纪初的兴起，欧洲中心主义得到了进一步的强化，其标志是列强对非洲的瓜分。

Eurocentrism should not be regarded merely as ethnocentrism. Its essence is a worldview—sharply commented on by Max Weber in the introduction to his *Collected Essays in the Sociology of Religion*. Weber proposed that European culture is the only universal culture. He argued that, of course, other specific cultures exist in the world (some even highly developed), but to achieve modernization (according to the European model of rationalism and capitalism), these cultures must submit to European universal culture; the development of other countries can only be realized by embracing this universal culture, seen as the cornerstone of modernity. It is this sense of Eurocentrism that Joseph Needham critiques in *Within the Four Seas* and that Samir Amin deconstructs in *Eurocentrism*.

欧洲中心主义不应仅仅被视为一种种族中心主义。其本质是一种世界观——马克斯·韦伯(Max Weber)在《宗教社会学论文集》导言中对此作了尖锐的评述。韦伯提出：欧洲文化是唯一具有普遍性的文化。他认为，世界上当然也存在着其他特定的文化(某些甚至高度发达),但若要实现(按照欧洲理性主义和资本主义模式发展的)现代化，这些文化都必须屈从于欧洲的普遍文化，其他国家的发展唯有通过接纳这种被视为现代性基石的普遍文化方可实现。约瑟夫·尼达姆(Joseph Needham)在《四海之内》中批判的，以及萨米尔·阿明(Samir Amin)在《欧洲中心论批判》中解构的，正是此种意义上的欧洲中心主义。

European thought in the 19th century developed against the backdrop of this emerging Eurocentrism. One can recall the colonialist and racist world model presented by Hegel in his *Philosophy of History*. However, the works of Marx and Engels were not influenced by this Eurocentrism. More notably, from the late 1850s onward, they consistently supported the anti-colonial struggles and revolutions in China, India, Algeria, and South Africa, and praised the tribal system of the Iroquois Confederacy in North America. Compared to other important thinkers of the same era, Marx was the only European who so vehemently condemned the genocide, enslavement, and burial alive in mines of Native Americans, and was the most resolute fighter against capitalist slavery. In fiercely attacking the Anglo-French Opium War against China and exposing how British imperialist policy led to the great famine in India, Marx was the most fearless critic in the European intellectual world. He also proposed that the Russian revolution could leap over the “Caudine Forks.” [4]4 “Caudine Forks” (卡夫丁峡谷) refers to the Caudine Forks, a mountain pass in ancient Italy where the Samnites inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Roman army in 321 BCE. Marx used this metaphor to suggest that Russia might bypass the capitalist stage of development, drawing on the possibility of a non-capitalist path based on the rural commune. Engels was the first to coin the concept of the “labor aristocracy” (later developed by Lenin) to explain the passivity of the British working class and the bleak prospects of its socialist movement. At the end of Volume 3 of *Capital*, Engels mentioned how the finance capital (or stock exchanges) of the major European powers partitioned Africa—this was the real foundation for Lenin’s theory of the imperialist stage of capitalism.

19世纪的欧洲思想正是在这种新兴的欧洲中心主义的背景下发展起来的。人们可以联想到黑格尔在《历史哲学》中呈现的殖民主义和种族主义世界模式。然而，马克思恩格斯的著作却并未受到这种欧洲中心主义的影响。更加值得注意的是，自1850年代末起，他们始终坚定地支持中国、印度、阿尔及利亚和南非的反殖民斗争和革命，并赞许北美易洛魁联盟的部族制度。相较于同一时代其他重要的思想家，马克思是唯一如此强烈地谴责美洲原住民遭受灭绝、奴役和矿坑活埋之灾的欧洲人，亦是反对资本主义奴隶制最坚决的斗士。在猛烈地抨击英法对华鸦片战争、揭露英国帝国主义政策导致印度大饥荒方面，马克思堪称欧洲知识界最无畏的批判者。他还提出了俄国革命可以跨越“卡夫丁峡谷”。恩格斯则首创了“工人贵族”的概念(后经列宁发展),用以解释英国工人阶级的消极性及其社会主义运动的黯淡前景。恩格斯在《资本论》第3卷的结尾处提到了欧洲主要强国的金融资本(或证券交易所)是如何瓜分非洲的——这正是列宁关于资本主义的帝国主义阶段理论的现实基础。

However, it is difficult to say that the next generation of Marxists closely engaged with the issue of imperialism or showed deep sympathy for colonized peoples. During World War I, almost all European socialist parties supported their own imperialist governments. According to Lenin’s analysis, this war was essentially a struggle among the great powers for the right to exploit colonies and semi-colonies. Only Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the Spartacus League, formed by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, rose up to resist imperialism.

但是，很难说下一代马克思主义者的立场与帝国主义问题紧密相关，或者对被殖民人民抱以深切的同情。在第一次世界大战期间，几乎所有的欧洲社会主义政党都支持本国的帝国主义政权。按照列宁的分析，这场战争本质上是列强争夺殖民地与半殖民地剥削权的角力。唯有列宁领导的布尔什维克和罗莎·卢森堡(Rosa Luxemburg)、卡尔·李卜克内西(Karl Liebknecht)等组建的斯巴达克同盟奋起抗争帝国主义。

After the First World War, Lenin’s analysis of imperialism in *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* was accepted and developed by the Communist International. The embryonic form of dependency theory first appeared in Comintern documents; this theory was subsequently further developed in Latin America and elsewhere, expanding into unequal exchange theory and world-systems theory. The revolutionary and decolonization wave in the “Global South” during this period led to a split within the Marxist camp: Western scholars such as Sweezy believed that the main revolutionary force and the focus of Marxist theory had shifted to the “Global South”; while some Western Marxists rigidified Marxism into an intellectual heritage exclusive to the West, either marginalizing or outright denying the phenomenon of imperialism.

第一次世界大战后，列宁在《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》中对帝国主义的分析被共产国际接受并发展。共产国际文件中首次出现了依附理论的雏形，该理论随后在拉美等地得到了进一步的发展，扩展为不平等交换理论和世界体系理论。这一时期“全球南方”的革命和去殖民化浪潮导致马克思主义阵营出现了分裂：斯威齐等西方学者认为革命主力军和马克思主义理论的焦点已转移至“全球南方”;而一些西方马克思主义者却将马克思主义固化为西方专属的思想遗产，对帝国主义现象或边缘化，或彻底否认。

Revolutions in Third World countries such as Algeria and Vietnam briefly broke this pattern. For example, Marcuse was deeply influenced by the Vietnamese revolution, but this influence ultimately did not penetrate the core of his theoretical framework. Overall, the Western Marxist tradition, which presents itself as abstract academic inquiry, has always maintained an illusion centered on Europe: it both ignores the profound impact of imperialism on Western social structures and dismisses Marxist theorists from outside Europe.

阿尔及利亚、越南等第三世界国家的革命曾短暂地打破了这一态势。例如，马尔库塞就深受越南革命的影响，但这种影响终究未渗透进其理论内核。总体而言，以抽象的学术形态自居的西方马克思主义传统始终维持着以欧洲为中心的幻象：既忽视帝国主义对西方社会结构的深远影响，亦轻视欧洲之外的马克思主义理论家。

John Saul, who focused on the study of liberation struggles in Africa, repeatedly instilled in me the core concept of the “principal contradiction.” [5]5 In Marxist theory, the “principal contradiction” refers to the dominant contradiction that determines the nature and direction of a given historical stage. Lenin identified the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations as the principal contradiction of the monopoly capitalist era. Lenin had already pointed out that the principal contradiction of monopoly capitalism lies in imperialism, a fact repeatedly confirmed by the successive revolutionary waves in the “Global South.” Yet the Western left not only generally shows indifference to this, but increasingly and frantically denies the economic exploitation of the “Global South” by the “Global North,” and refuses to accept that this is the core argument of Lenin’s theory. This is accompanied by frequent attacks on dependency theory, unequal exchange theory, and world-systems theory. For instance, Bill Warren sophistically argued that Marx viewed imperialism as the “pioneer” of capitalism; another example is Robert Brenner, who in an article in *New Left Review* stigmatized Sweezy, Andre Gunder Frank, and Immanuel Wallerstein as “neo-Smithian Marxists,” on the grounds that they, like Adam Smith, criticized the exploitation of the periphery or outer countries of capitalism.

专注于非洲解放斗争研究的约翰·索尔(John Saul)曾向我反复灌输“主要矛盾”这一核心概念。列宁早已指出垄断资本主义的主要矛盾在于帝国主义，“全球南方”此起彼伏的革命浪潮不断印证了这一点。但西方左翼对此不仅普遍漠视，更日益疯狂地否认“全球北方”对“全球南方”的经济剥削，并拒绝接受这是列宁理论的核心观点。这伴随着对依附理论、不平等交换理论和世界体系理论的频繁攻击。例如，比尔·沃伦(Bill Warren)曾诡辩称，马克思视帝国主义为资本主义的“拓荒先锋”;又如，罗伯特·布伦纳(Robert Brenner)在《新左翼评论》杂志上刊文将斯威齐、安德烈·冈德·弗兰克(Andre Gunder Frank)和伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦(Immanuel Wallerstein)污名化为“新斯密式马克思主义者”,理由是他们像亚当·斯密(Adam Smith)那样批判了对资本主义边缘或外围国家的剥削。

In the 1960s, Marxist political economy was once prominent in the United States. Most Marxists at that time were not inspired by left-wing political parties. Therefore, leftists in the 1960s and 1970s mostly turned to historical materialism due to their critique of imperialism and their intense indignation at the Vietnam War. Furthermore, Marxism in the United States has always been deeply influenced by the Black radical movement, which has consistently focused on the relationship among capitalism, imperialism, and race, playing a leading role in understanding these relationships.

1960年代，马克思主义政治经济学在美国曾显赫一时。当时的马克思主义者大都未受左翼政党的感召。因此，1960—1970年代的左翼人士多因对帝国主义的批判和对越南战争的强烈愤慨转向历史唯物主义。此外，美国的马克思主义一直深受黑人激进运动的影响，该运动一直以资本主义、帝国主义与种族之间的关系为核心，在理解这些关系方面发挥了引领作用。

From the late 1970s through the 1980s, influenced by the prevailing trend of Eurocentrism, the critique of imperialism in North American and European academic circles gradually waned. From an opportunistic perspective, overemphasizing imperialism could also lead to exclusion from academia and left-wing movements. In the United States, any attempt to create a left-liberal or social democratic movement faced a harsh reality: to secure a place within the “democratic” political system, one had to avoid an anti-imperialist stance and refrain from supporting overseas revolutionary movements. Even within academia, there were tacit restrictions in this regard.

1970年代末至1980年代，受盛行的欧洲中心主义思潮的影响，北美和欧洲学界对帝国主义的批判渐趋式微。从机会主义的视角来看，过分强调帝国主义还会招致学术界和左翼运动的排斥。在美国，任何试图创建左翼自由派或进行社会民主主义运动的努力都会面临一个残酷的现实：若想在“民主”政治体制内谋得一席之地，就必须规避反帝立场，亦不可声援海外革命运动。即便在学术界，这方面亦存在心照不宣的限制。

Currently, a trend has emerged among intellectuals who call themselves Marxists, openly denying Leninism and the theory of imperialism within the Marxist tradition over the past century. They employ various arguments, including: narrowly defining imperialism as conflict among great powers; replacing imperialism with vague concepts like globalization or transnationalization; denying relations of exploitation between nations; reducing imperialism to a moral category, linked only to authoritarian states and not to “democratic states”; or diluting the concept of imperialism to the point of失效, completely ignoring that today’s G7 countries are precisely the major imperialist powers of monopoly capitalism as defined by Lenin a century ago. This change is tearing the left camp apart—the new Cold War against China (in fact a war to encircle the “Global South”) is driving a large number of leftists to side with the Western powers that claim “democratic superiority” and thus are “less imperialist.”

当前，在自称为马克思主义的知识分子中兴起了一股思潮，公然否定列宁主义以及百余年来马克思主义传统中的帝国主义理论。他们使用了各种论据，包括：将帝国主义狭隘化为列强之间的冲突；用全球化或跨国化这种模糊的概念取代帝国主义；否认国家间的剥削关系；将帝国主义降格为道德范畴，仅与专制国家挂钩而与“民主国家”无涉；或使帝国主义概念泛化至失效，全然无视今日七国集团正是列宁百年前界定的垄断资本主义的主要帝国主义强国。这一变化正在撕裂左翼阵营——这场针对中国的新冷战(实为围剿“全球南方”之战)驱使大批左翼人士倒向自诩“民主优越”因而“帝国主义色彩较淡”的西方列强一边。

All of this brings us back to the discussion of the Eurocentrism thesis. Recently, postcolonial theorists have accused Marxism of having pro-imperialist or Eurocentric tendencies. Attempting to attribute these views to Marx, Engels, and Lenin is easily refuted on factual grounds. As Baruch Spinoza said: ignorance is not an argument. But when postcolonial theorists use the cultural-philosophical concepts of Western Marxism as the standard for judging Marxism, the problem becomes more complicated. Undoubtedly, those Western Marxist theorists who focus only on the European and American worlds often fall into the trap of Eurocentrism. Furthermore, Western Marxism portrays classical Marxism as economic determinism, thereby neglecting issues of nation and culture.

这一切将我们带回对欧洲中心主义命题的讨论。最近，后殖民理论家谴责马克思主义具有亲帝国主义或欧洲中心主义倾向。若试图将这些观点归咎于马克思、恩格斯和列宁，仅凭事实依据便易驳斥。正如巴鲁赫·斯宾诺莎(Baruch Spinoza)所言：无知不是论据。但当后殖民理论家以西方马克思主义文化哲学概念作为评判马克思主义的标准时，问题便趋于复杂化。毋庸置疑，那些只关注欧美世界的西方马克思主义理论家常常陷入欧洲中心主义的窠臼。此外，西方马克思主义将经典马克思主义描绘为经济决定论，从而忽视了民族和文化问题。

In fact, Marxism is a complete system, most of which originates from the practice of material struggle. Recently, I have been reading Simin Fadaee’s *Global Marxism: Decolonisation and Revolutionary Politics*, published by Manchester University Press in 2024, and have found it quite enlightening. In this book, Fadaee argues for the global nature of Marxism and devotes chapters to revolutionaries such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and Che Guevara. At the end of the introduction, Fadaee writes: “The claim that Marxism is Eurocentric is itself a Eurocentric act, because it denies the theoretical foundation of the most transformative movements and revolutionary practices in modern human history. Rather than making such a dogmatic assertion, it is better to adopt a more constructive historical dialogue, humbly learn from the practical experience of Marxism in the ‘Global South,’ and consider what we can learn from the global relevance of Marxism.”

事实上，马克思主义是一个完整的体系，其中大部分内容源于物质斗争实践。近来，我一直在阅读西敏·法达伊(Simin Fadaee)所著的《全球马克思主义：去殖民化与革命政治》一书，颇受启发。该书由曼彻斯特大学出版社于2024年出版。法达伊在这本书中论证了马克思主义的全球性，并分章节探讨了毛泽东、胡志明、阿米尔卡·卡布拉尔(Amilcar Cabral)、弗朗茨·法农(Frantz Fanon)、格瓦拉等革命家。在导论结尾处，法达伊写道：“声称马克思主义具有欧洲中心性的这一做法本身就是欧洲中心主义在作祟，因为这等于否定了人类近代最具变革性运动和革命实践的理论基石。与其作此武断论断，不如以更具建设性的历史对话姿态虚心向‘全球南方’汲取马克思主义实践经验，思考我们能从马克思主义的全球相关性中学到什么。”

Rockhill: Western Marxism is a product of imperialist ideology, whose core function is to conceal or obscure the nature of imperialism and distort the struggle against it. By “imperialism” I mean the broadest concept: it is a process of establishing and forcibly implementing a systematic transfer of value from certain regions of the world (the “Global South”) to other regions (the “Global North”) through means such as plundering natural resources, using free or cheap labor, and opening up markets for commodity dumping. This socio-economic process has led to the underdevelopment of most regions of the world while simultaneously fostering the extraordinary development of the imperialist core countries (including their intellectual production). Within the major imperialist countries, this socio-economic process has given rise to an imperialist superstructure, namely the political and legal institutions of the state and the material system of cultural production, dissemination, and consumption. In Brecht’s terms, we can call it the “cultural apparatus.” [6]6 Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), German Marxist playwright and poet, used the term “cultural apparatus” (Kultur Apparat) to describe the institutional structures through which the ruling class produces and disseminates ideology. This in turn has produced an imperialist superstructure composed of the state’s legal apparatus and the material system of cultural production-circulation-consumption. The knowledge production dominated by the imperialist core countries is precisely a component of the cultural apparatus of the major imperialist countries.

罗克希尔:西方马克思主义是帝国主义意识形态的产物，其核心功能在于掩盖或隐瞒帝国主义的本质，曲解与之进行的斗争。我所说的“帝国主义”是最广义的概念，它是一个通过掠夺自然资源、使用免费或廉价劳动力、开辟商品倾销市场等手段，建立并强制实施从世界某些地区(“全球南方”)向其他地区(“全球北方”)进行系统性价值转移的过程。这种社会经济过程既导致了世界多数区域的欠发展，又催生了帝国主义核心国家(包括其知识生产领域)的超常发展。在主要帝国主义国家内部，这种社会经济过程催生了一个帝国主义上层建筑，即国家的政治法律机构以及文化生产、传播和消费的物质体系。按照布莱希特的说法，我们可以将其称为“文化机构”。这又催生出了由政权法律机器和文化生产—流通—消费物质体系构成的帝国主义上层建筑。帝国主义核心国家主导的知识生产正是主要帝国主义国家文化机构的组成部分。

In asserting that Western Marxism is a product of imperialist ideology, I argue that it is a particular variant of Marxism that emerged within the superstructure (more precisely, the cultural institutions) of the major imperialist countries. This Marxism is disconnected from the universal pursuit of Marxism in scientifically interpreting and practically transforming the capitalist world order. In my forthcoming book from Monthly Review Press, *Who Pays the Piper for Western Marxism?*, I locate this Marxism as an imperialist superstructure and analyze the political-economic forces driving its development. A notable characteristic is that the capitalist ruling class and imperialist states have, to a significant extent, provided direct funding and support for it.

在断言西方马克思主义是帝国主义意识形态的产物时，我认为，它是在主要帝国主义国家上层建筑(更确切地说是文化机构)中产生的特殊的马克思主义变体。这种马克思主义与马克思主义在科学阐释和实际变革资本主义世界秩序方面的普遍追求脱节了。在即将由每月评论出版社出版的拙著《谁为西方马克思主义的鼓吹者买单?》中，我将此种马克思主义定位为帝国主义上层建筑，并剖析了驱动其发展的政治经济力量。一个显著的特征是：资本主义统治阶级和帝国主义国家在很大程度上对其提供了直接的资助和支持。

The Rockefeller family spent millions of dollars to launch an international "Marxism-Leninism Project," whose primary goal was to forge Western Marxism into an ideological weapon to combat practical actions resisting imperialism. Marcuse was the core figure of this project, and his close friend and academic supporter Philip Mosely was also a key driver. Mosely served for a long time as a senior advisor to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, deeply involved in ideological struggle. As one of the well-known Western Marxists, Marcuse worked for many years as an authoritative expert on communist studies for the U.S. State Department. This highlights how some institutions of the bourgeois state colluded with bourgeois factions to promote Western Marxism. Their fundamental goal was identical: to cultivate a variant of Marxism that could be widely disseminated and ultimately serve their own interests. This was undoubtedly a class compromise—the imperialists originally intended to completely eradicate Marxism but lacked the capacity to do so; they thus adopted a "soft-sell" strategy, striving to promote Western Marxism as the only acceptable and reputable form of Marxism.

洛克菲勒家族曾斥资数百万美元启动了一个国际“马克思主义—列宁主义工程”(Marxism-Leninism Project),其主要目标是将西方马克思主义打造成为意识形态武器，以对抗那些抵御帝国主义的实际行动。马尔库塞是该工程的核心人物，其密友兼学术支持者菲利普·莫斯利(Philip Mosely)亦是关键推手。莫斯利长期担任美国中央情报局高级顾问，深度参与了意识形态斗争。作为知名的西方马克思主义者之一，马尔库塞曾多年担任美国国务院研究共产主义问题的权威专家。这一点凸显了资产阶级国家的一些机构如何与资产阶级派系沆瀣一气推广西方马克思主义。二者的根本目标一致，即培育可广泛传播的、最终服务于自身利益的马克思主义变体。这无疑是一种阶级妥协——帝国主义者本欲全面剿灭马克思主义，然力有不逮，遂改行“软推销”策略，努力将西方马克思主义宣传为唯一可接受且声誉良好的马克思主义形式。

In many respects, the core problem is that Western Marxism failed to grasp the principal contradiction of the capitalist world order, namely imperialism; failed to scientifically understand the dialectical process of socialism emerging within the imperialist world; and refused to recognize the practical significance of revolutionary practices in socialist countries of the Global South. Its ignorance of imperialism and anti-imperialist struggles ultimately led to a loss of scientific rigor. As mentioned earlier, Western Marxism, though varying in degree, has always carried a pathological unscientific character. Its rejection of materialist ontology is an inevitable extension of its comprehensive departure from materialist science. It should be clarified here that "science" in this context does not refer to the positivist paradigm often denigrated by Western Marxists, but to what Marx and Engels called "Wissenschaft"—a fallibilistic cognitive process of establishing the best explanatory framework through continuous testing against material reality and revision through practical experience.

在很多方面，核心问题在于：西方马克思主义未能把握资本主义世界秩序的主要矛盾，即帝国主义；未能科学地理解社会主义在帝国主义世界中辩证产生的过程；拒不承认“全球南方”社会主义国家革命实践的重要意义。它对帝国主义和反帝斗争的无知最终导致其丧失了科学的严谨性。如前文所述，西方马克思主义虽存在程度差异，但始终带有非科学性的病灶。其对唯物主义本体论的拒斥是其全面背离唯物主义科学的必然延伸。这里需要说明的是，此处的“科学”并非西方马克思主义者经常诋毁的实证主义范式，而是马克思恩格斯所说的“Wissenschaft”,指通过物质现实持续检验和实践经验修正建立最佳解释框架的容错性认知进程。

In summary, we might more accurately call Western Marxism "imperialist Marxism," because it is an ideological product of the imperialist superstructure, its fundamental purpose being to conceal the essence of imperialism and to oppose real-world socialism. In contrast, in the world we live in, Marxism resolutely opposes imperialism and possesses rigorous scientificity: it acknowledges material reality, namely that the task of socialist construction is the primary way to combat imperialism and advance toward communism.

综上所述，我们或许应当更精准地将西方马克思主义称为“帝国主义的马克思主义”,因为它是帝国主义上层建筑的意识形态产物，其根本目的在于掩盖帝国主义的本质，并对抗现实世界的社会主义。相比较而言，在我们生活的世界中，马克思主义坚决反对帝国主义，并且具有严谨的科学性：它承认物质现实，即社会主义建设任务是抗击帝国主义、迈向共产主义的主要方式。

It needs to be clear that this is not an argument for completely rejecting all achievements within the imperialist Marxist tradition; we should adopt a dialectical attitude, acknowledging its partial contributions, such as multi-dimensional analyses of capitalism and partial developments of Marxist theory. Given the highly developed material basis of the imperialist superstructure that supports this tradition, this position is logical. But crucially: Western Marxism, which cannot grasp the principal contradiction of the world order, is neither scientific nor emancipatory. Equally critical is recognizing that this form of Marxism became dominant within imperialist theory precisely because it aligns with imperialist ideology, rather than being able to oppose imperialism and contribute to the practical struggle for building socialism.

需要明确的是，这并非主张全盘否定帝国主义的马克思主义传统下的所有成果，我们应持一种辩证的态度，承认其部分贡献，如对资本主义的多维度分析以及对马克思主义理论的局部发展。考虑到支撑该传统的帝国主义上层建筑高度发达的物质基础，此立场合乎逻辑。但至关重要的是：无法把握世界秩序主要矛盾的西方马克思主义既非科学亦无解放性。同样关键的是，要认清这种形态的马克思主义之所以能成为帝国主义理论中的主导，是因为它与帝国主义意识形态相契合，而不是能对抗帝国主义并为建设社会主义的实际斗争作出贡献。

Foster: From a Marxist perspective, arguing that imperialism is the principal contradiction of capitalism in our era means that the reality of revolutionary struggle against imperialism constitutes the principal contradiction of capitalism. For over a century, revolutions against imperialism have been occurring in the Global South, stemming from the actions of oppressed classes and carried out in the name of, or inspired by, Marxism. The struggles of the working class in the Global North against the structures of monopoly capitalism can also be seen as an objective component of the same dialectical process.

福斯特:从马克思主义的视角来看，认为帝国主义是我们这个时代资本主义的主要矛盾就意味着反对帝国主义的革命斗争这一现实构成了资本主义的主要矛盾。一个多世纪以来，“全球南方”一直都在发生反对帝国主义的革命，这些革命源于被压迫阶级的行动，并且是以马克思主义的名义或受其启发而开展的。“全球北方”的工人阶级反抗垄断资本主义结构的斗争亦可被视为同一辩证进程的客观组成部分。

The Western Marxist tradition was initially characterized by a comprehensive opposition to Soviet Marxism. Consequently, Western Marxists often supported Western Cold War actions that had imperialist structures. On the ideological level, they condemned the theoretical legacies of Engels, the Second International, and the Third International, along with dialectical materialism itself. Anti-imperialist revolutions in the Global South were largely regarded as irrelevant to Marxist theory and practice. Although European communist movements briefly proposed more radical alternatives, these movements, even at their peak, were rejected by Western Marxism and ultimately succumbed to social democratic politics.

西方马克思主义传统最初以全面反对苏联马克思主义为特征。因此，西方马克思主义者经常支持具有帝国主义结构的西方冷战行动。在意识形态层面，他们谴责恩格斯以及第二国际和第三国际的理论遗产，连同唯物主义辩证法也一并否定。“全球南方”的反帝革命多被视为与马克思主义的理论和实践无关。尽管欧洲的共产主义运动曾短暂地提出了更为激进的替代方案，但这些运动即便在其鼎盛时期亦遭到西方马克思主义的排斥，最终屈从于社会民主主义政治。

Thus, within Western Marxism, the classical Marxist legacy survived only in philosophical fragments inspired by Marx's critique of capital. Western Marxism became alienated from the Western working class, severed from Third World revolutions and anti-imperialist struggles, and ultimately abandoned the spirit of reason. Here, it is necessary to reiterate the profound meaning of Marx and Engels' early work *The Holy Family*, subtitled "A Critique of Critical Criticism": they resolutely opposed analysis that degenerated into "pure criticism"—a "speculative idealism" divorced from "real humanism," real history, and materialism, which could not even identify with the struggles of the working class, let alone match the level of struggle of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. After the revolutions of 1848, it completely disappeared.

于是，在西方马克思主义内部，经典马克思主义遗产仅残存于受马克思资本批判启发的哲学片段之中。西方马克思主义既疏离了西方工人阶级，又割裂于第三世界革命、反帝斗争，最终背离了理性精神。在此，需再次强调马克思恩格斯早年将其著作《神圣家族》的副标题定为“对批判的批判所做的批判”的深意：他们坚决反对沦为“纯粹批判”的分析——这种脱离“现实人道主义”、真实历史和唯物主义的“思辨唯心主义”,不仅无法认同工人阶级的斗争，甚至不及革命资产阶级的斗争水准。在1848年革命之后，它便完全消失了。

If the Western Left denies or turns a blind eye to the major revolutionary struggles taking place in the world, ignores or downplays the impact of imperialist exploitation driven by the West for centuries, then it cuts off all practical connection with Marxism. In this regard, Western Marxism as a specific paradigm must give way to a more globally oriented dialectical perspective, one represented by classical Marxism and which today can be called global Marxism or universal Marxism. Given that the current global system of accumulation, based on materialism, is reuniting workers' struggles around the world, the "quadruple estrangement" of Western Marxism may be reversed.

西方左翼如果否认或对世界上正在发生的主要革命斗争视而不见，忽视或淡化几个世纪以来一直由西方推动的帝国主义剥削的影响，那么它就切断了与马克思主义的所有实际联系。就此而言，作为特定范式的西方马克思主义，需让位于更具全球视野的辩证视角，此视角以经典马克思主义为代表，当今则可被称之为全球马克思主义或普遍马克思主义。鉴于当今全球积累体系以唯物主义为基础将世界各地的工人斗争重新联合起来，西方马克思主义的“四重背离”有望逆转。

You mentioned Marcuse, which makes me realize that what we are engaging in here is a critique of the post-World War II Western Marxist tradition, not a wholesale rejection. Marcuse is indeed a Western Marxist, rather than a Marxist in the West, but he was more radical than Adorno and Horkheimer.

您提及了马尔库塞，这使我意识到我们在此展开的是对二战后西方马克思主义传统的批判，而非全盘否定。马尔库塞确属西方马克思主义者，而非西方的马克思主义者，但他比阿多诺和霍克海默更为激进。

In my first two years of university, I was deeply influenced by Marcuse. *One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society* left me skeptical because it deviated from dialectics. In that book and other works, Marcuse explicitly abandoned materialist dialectics, gave up faith in the working class, and imperialism was not central to his overall analysis. Faced with a one-dimensional mass society, the concept of the "Great Refusal" was too weak to constitute critical reason and practice in Marx's sense. Marcuse wrote in the conclusion of *One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society*: "The dialectical concept pronounces its own hopelessness, both on the theoretical and on the empirical level." This ran counter to the spirit of his earlier work *Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory*. Marcuse was deeply influenced by Sigmund Freud and Martin Heidegger. His *Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud*, though an important work of the Freudian Left, slid into a psychologism that, in the name of pursuing concreteness, deconstructed the subject and weakened historical, material, and structural analysis. From Heidegger, he absorbed a critique of technology detached from social relations, embodying an anti-Enlightenment pessimism. It was precisely the dual influence of Freud and Heidegger, coupled with a lack of genuine historical analysis, that led him to view the reality of 1950s America as more stable and unchanging than it actually was, thereby producing the illusion of a "crisis-free capitalism" and the despairing dialectics of *One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society*.

在大学的前两年，我深受马尔库塞的影响。《单向度的人：发达工业社会意识形态研究》一书因背离辩证法而令我存疑。马尔库塞在该书及其他著作中明确抛弃了唯物主义辩证法，放弃对工人阶级的信念，帝国主义亦非其整体分析的核心内容。面对单向度的大众社会，“大拒绝”这一概念过于孱弱，难以构成马克思意义上的批判理性和实践。马尔库塞在《单向度的人：发达工业社会意识形态研究》一书结论中写道：“无论从理论还是经验层面，辩证法概念宣判了自身的无望。”这与其早期著作《理性与革命：黑格尔与社会理论的兴起》的精神背道而驰。马尔库塞深受西格蒙德·弗洛伊德(Sigmund Freud)和马丁·海德格尔(Martin Heidegger)的影响，他的《爱欲与文明：对弗洛伊德思想的哲学探讨》虽是弗洛伊德左派的重要著作，却滑向以追求具体性为名解构主体，弱化历史、物质和结构分析的心理主义。他从海德格尔处汲取了脱离社会关系、体现反启蒙悲观主义的技术批判观。正是弗洛伊德和海德格尔的双重影响，加之缺乏真正的历史分析，致使其将1950年代的美国现实视为比实际情况更加稳固和一成不变，从而产生了“无危机资本主义”的幻象和《单向度的人：发达工业社会意识形态研究》中绝望的辩证法。

However, Marcuse's *Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory*, published in 1941, was a completely different, revolutionary work. I still vividly remember the excitement of first encountering it as a youth; it led me and many of my contemporaries to delve deeply into Hegel's *Phenomenology of Spirit*. During the economic and energy crisis of 1973–1975, he wrote *Counterrevolution and Revolt*. The chapter "The Left under the Counterrevolution" offered a penetrating analysis of imperialism. In the chapter "Nature and Revolution," he attempted to introduce an environmental Marxist perspective into the burgeoning ecological movement, even briefly breaking the taboo within Western Marxism against dialectical naturalism. The chapter "Art and Revolution" pointed toward his *The Aesthetic Dimension*, his final attempt at a critique of capitalism.

然而，1941年问世的马尔库塞的《理性和革命：黑格尔和社会理论的兴起》是一部截然不同的革命性著作。我仍清晰地记得少年时初遇此书的激动，它引领我与众多同代人深入研究黑格尔的《精神现象学》。在1973—1975年的经济和能源危机期间，他撰写了《反革命与反叛》一书，其中“反革命下的左翼”一章对帝国主义的剖析鞭辟入里。在“自然与革命”一章，他尝试将环境马克思主义的视角引入新兴的生态运动，甚至一度突破西方马克思主义对辩证自然主义的禁忌。而“艺术与革命”一章指向了他的《审美之维》一书，这是他对资本主义进行批判的最后尝试。

But there is another, seemingly incongruous aspect of Marcuse's life: how should we explain his direct participation in the anti-communist "Marxist-Leninist project"? It was only later, as a graduate student, that I read his heavily propagandistic book *Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis*, written in the 1950s. Similar to Marxists like Paul Sweezy and Franz Neumann who fought in the anti-Nazi war, Marcuse was sent to the U.S. Office of Strategic Services to study the German Empire under Hitler, and in 1949 he wrote a report titled "The Potentialities of World Communism."

但是，马尔库塞的生平还有另一个与之看似不协调的方面：我们应该如何解释其曾直接参与反共的“马克思主义—列宁主义工程”呢?直至后来读研究生的时候，我才读到他在1950年代写的宣传色彩浓厚的《苏联的马克思主义：一种批判的分析》一书。与斯威齐、弗朗茨·诺伊曼(Franz Neumann)等投身反纳粹战争的马克思主义者类似，马尔库塞被派往美国战略情报局从事希特勒治下的德意志帝国研究，并在1949年撰写了题为《世界共产主义的潜力》的报告。

Yet, Marcuse's work always retained a radical character, adhering to the critique of capitalism and the position of revolutionary liberation. From *Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud* to *One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society*, perhaps nothing was more revealing than his support for the radical movements of the 1960s. This turn required him to overturn his own diagnosis of the one-dimensionality of mass society. From *An Essay on Liberation* to *The Aesthetic Dimension*, we no longer see a towering intellectual on the lecture platform, but an intellectual deeply entrenched in the trenches of theory, beloved by the student movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

然而，马尔库塞的著作始终葆有激进特质，坚守资本主义批判和革命解放立场，从《爱欲与文明：对弗洛伊德思想的哲学探讨》到《单向度的人：发达工业社会意识形态研究》,或许都不及他对1960年代激进运动的声援更具启示性，这种转向要求他颠覆自身对大众社会单向度的诊断。从《论解放》到《审美之维》,我们看到的不再是讲坛上的思想巨擘，而是深陷理论战壕、深受1960—1970年代学生运动爱戴的一位深入战壕的知识分子。

Marcuse's experience can perhaps be seen as the whole tragedy of Western Marxism (at least the Frankfurt School branch). When Adorno and Horkheimer grew increasingly conservative in the labyrinth of reification, Marcuse still held a radical vision. His final position was an interweaving of intellectual pessimism and aestheticism of the will: art became the ultimate bastion of resistance. Although this conception still could not escape the rut of elitism, it contained the potential to integrate a genuinely materialist perspective.

马尔库塞的际遇或可视为西方马克思主义(至少是法兰克福学派支脉)的全部悲剧。当阿多诺和霍克海默在物化迷宫中愈发保守时，马尔库塞仍持激进视野。他的最终立场交织着智识上的悲观主义与意志上的唯美主义：艺术成为抵抗的终极依仗。尽管这种构想仍难脱精英主义窠臼，却蕴含着融入真正唯物主义视角的潜能。

This indicates that we should adopt a dialectical critical attitude containing positive elements towards genuine Western Marxism (such as the case of Marcuse, who exhibited the "fourfold rupture" [8]8 The "fourfold rupture" (四重背离) refers to a common critique of Western Marxism, often associated with Perry Anderson, identifying its separation from classical Marxism in four key areas: political practice, the proletariat, dialectical materialism, and the analysis of imperialism. yet did not completely capitulate), rather than outright rejection. The fundamental crux of the Western Marxist tradition, as discussed by Anderson and criticized by Losurdo, lies in its embodiment of the failure of dialectics, even in an era of global revolutionary upsurge.

这表明，我们对真正意义上的西方马克思主义(如马尔库塞这类既存在“四重背离”又未完全屈服的案例)应当采取包含积极因素的辩证批判的态度，而非全盘否定。安德森所论及、洛苏尔多所批判的西方马克思主义传统之根本症结，在于其体现了辩证法的失败，即便在全球革命风起云涌的年代亦然。

Since Marx and Engels, there has always been one Marxism: one rooted in revolutionary struggle, uncompromisingly opposed to capitalism and imperialism. Any critique of Western Marxism must ultimately consider how to coexist with a more global Marxism. The reason why criticizing the Eurocentric Marxism of the West is so important today is that there is a new Cold War-style split between the current Eurocentric Left and global Marxism. The Eurocentric Left either downplays, denies, or embraces imperialist power, while global Marxism is determined to confront it comprehensively. As Jameson said, Western Eurocentric Marxism is barely surviving under the impact of globalization. The self-proclaimed authentic Western Marxism is being replaced by a global Marxism that follows the traditions of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the main theorists of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. Here, analysis is no longer confined to the northwestern corner of Europe, where industrial capitalism and colonialism/imperialism first arose, but is grounded in the materialist foundation of the worldwide proletarian struggle.

自马克思恩格斯以来，始终存在一种马克思主义：它植根于革命斗争，毫不妥协地反对资本主义和帝国主义。任何对西方马克思主义的批判终须考量如何与更具全球性的马克思主义共存。如今对西方以欧洲为中心的马克思主义进行批判之所以如此重要，是因为当前以欧洲为中心的左翼与全球马克思主义之间存在新冷战式的分裂。以欧洲为中心的左翼或淡化、或否认、或拥抱帝国主义强权，全球马克思主义则矢志全面对抗。如詹姆逊所言，西方以欧洲为中心的马克思主义在全球化的冲击下已苟延残喘。自诩正宗的西方马克思主义正被遵循马克思、恩格斯、列宁以及垄断资本主义和帝国主义主要理论家传统的全球马克思主义所取代。在这里，分析不再局限于工业资本主义和殖民主义/帝国主义最初兴起的欧洲西北一隅，而是奠基于世界无产阶级斗争的唯物主义基础。

Rockhill: Regarding the avoidance of a non-dialectical approach to Western Marxism, I fully agree, because a non-dialectical approach leads either to uncritical praise or outright condemnation. Dialectical critique, by elucidating both the contributions and limitations of Western Marxism, provides a materialist explanation for both, thus avoiding dualism. The ultimate goal of such critique is to advance the cause of global Marxism—only by overcoming the distortions of Marxism can it be presented more clearly and developed more deeply. The fundamental purpose of pointing out traditional problems is by no means to indulge in outright condemnation or theoretical posturing, but to enhance its explanatory scientificity and practical applicability on the basis of identifying limitations. This is precisely the method Marx and Engels used in criticizing dialectical philosophy, bourgeois political economy, and utopian socialism.

罗克希尔:关于避免对西方马克思主义采取非辩证的方法，我完全赞同，因为非辩证的方法要么会导致不加批判的颂扬，要么会导致完全的谴责。辩证批判通过阐明西方马克思主义的贡献和局限，给予二者唯物主义阐释，避免了二元论。此类批判的终极目标是推动全球马克思主义事业的发展——唯有克服马克思主义的畸变，方能使其更清晰地呈现并深入发展。指出传统问题的根本目的绝非沉溺于彻底的谴责或理论作秀，而是在识别局限性的基础上提升其阐释科学性和实践适切性。这正是马克思恩格斯在批判辩证哲学、资产阶级政治经济学和空想社会主义时所用的方法。

A dialectical assessment of Western Marxism requires analyzing the breadth of its ideological field and its changes. Only by synthesizing the complexity of the ideological field and the specificity of subject positions can we thoroughly elucidate how Western Marxism, as an ideology, manifests differentially within a structure of subject positions possessing unique morphological characteristics. This stands in stark opposition to essentialist approaches that reduce the sum total of subject positions to a single, mechanical ideological determinism.

对西方马克思主义的辩证评估需分析其意识形态场域的广度及其变化。唯有综合意识形态场域的复杂性和主体立场的特殊性，才能透彻阐明作为意识形态的西方马克思主义如何在具有独特形态学特征的主体立场结构中的差异化显现。这与将主体立场总和简化为单一意识形态机械决定论的本质主义路径截然对立。

Marcuse’s case is extremely instructive: it requires a detailed analysis of the shifts in subjective positions within his writings and their positioning within the broader ideological field of Western Marxism. He transformed from an anti-communist agent into a radical theorist, strongly supporting in certain respects the student movement, the anti-war movement, the feminist movement, the anti-racist movement, and the ecological movement, representing a major shift in position. He maintained long-term, close cooperation with the CIA, participating in the drafting of at least two National Intelligence Estimates. [9]9 National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are forward-looking assessments produced by the U.S. intelligence community on issues of national security concern. This work seamlessly connected with his core role in the ideological struggle project waged by the capitalist ruling class against Marxism in the Soviet Union (and more broadly, the East). After the rise of the New Left movement, he engaged in fierce polemics with imperialist Marxists such as Adorno. Although he was revered as the “godfather of the New Left,” he never truly broke through the barriers of anti-communism and Western Marxism. Nevertheless, extensive FBI files indicate that certain sectors of the bourgeois state regarded him as a potential threat.

马尔库塞的案例极具启示性：需详析其著作中的主观立场变迁，并将其定位于西方马克思主义的更广阔的意识形态场域。他从反共特工转变为激进的理论家，在某些方面强烈支持学生运动、反战运动、女权运动、反种族主义运动和生态运动，立场发生了极大转变。他与中央情报局长期密切合作，至少参与过两份《国家情报评估》的编写工作。此工作与他在资本主义统治阶级针对苏联(更广泛地说是针对东方)马克思主义开展的意识形态斗争项目中所扮演的核心角色无缝衔接。新左翼运动兴起后，他与阿多诺等帝国主义的马克思主义者激烈交锋，尽管被奉为“新左翼教父”的他从未真正突破反共主义和西方马克思主义的藩篱，但大量的联邦调查局档案表明，资产阶级国家的某些部门视其为潜在威胁。

Eclecticism is another notable feature of Marcuse’s thought. Like many Western Marxists, he attempted to graft non-Marxist discourses such as phenomenology, existentialism, and psychoanalysis onto Marxism. Some Western Marxists believe that classical Marxism overemphasizes objective social forces while neglecting subjective experience, thus requiring the introduction of subjectivist discourses as a corrective. This tendency persists among contemporary Lacanian-Althusserians such as Badiou and Žižek. To deconstruct the multiple fallacies of this tendency, it is first necessary to refute its misreading of the dialectical relationship between subject and object in classical Marxism; second, to criticize its claim that dialectical and historical materialism need to be fused with liberal ideology, rather than subjecting psychoanalysis to a dialectical critique from a Marxist standpoint.

折衷主义是马尔库塞思想的另一个显著特征，与众多西方马克思主义者类似，他试图将现象学、存在主义以及精神分析等非马克思主义的话语嫁接到马克思主义中。部分西方马克思主义者认为，经典马克思主义过度强调客观社会力量而忽视主体经验，故需引入主观主义话语作为矫正。这种倾向在巴迪欧、齐泽克等当代拉康—阿尔都塞主义者身上依然存在。要解构此倾向的多重谬误，首先需要驳斥其对经典马克思主义主客体辩证关系的误读；其次需批判其声称的辩证和历史唯物主义需与自由主义意识形态融合，而非从马克思主义立场对精神分析学进行辩证批判的主张。

Although there is no space here to delve deeply into the remnants of liberal ideology in Western Marxism, it must be pointed out that the subjectivism of this tradition often allies with culturalism and psychologism, rejecting class analysis theory. Todd Cronan points out that Adorno and Horkheimer treated superstructural elements such as race, ethnicity, and religion as primary factors, pushing the economic base into the background, and reconstituted class as a question of power. Adorno, like Marcuse, openly resorted to psychologism. As Amin argued, culturalism is the mortal enemy of Marxism, and the same applies to psychologism and other subjectivist models.

这里虽无暇深究自由主义意识形态在西方马克思主义中的遗存，但需指明，该传统的主观主义常与文化主义、心理主义结盟，排斥阶级分析理论。托德·克罗南(Todd Cronan)指出，阿多诺和霍克海默将种族、族群、宗教等上层建筑要素视为首要因素，使经济基础退居幕后，并将阶级重构为权力问题。阿多诺与马尔库塞类似，公然诉诸心理主义。如阿明所言，文化主义是马克思主义的宿敌，心理主义及其他主观主义模式亦然。

Western Marxism mostly elevates cultural and subjective elements above the socio-economic base. This cultural-artistic path has a fundamental flaw, because the conception of art (more precisely, the bourgeois concept and practice of art) as the main site of resistance often suspends the material social relations of cultural production, or only criticizes mass art and entertainment while granting high art and theory a free pass. This path also peddles the bourgeois ideology of art, treating art as a unique domain that escapes the totality of social relations of production.

西方马克思主义多将文化、主观要素凌驾于社会经济基础之上。这种文化艺术路径存在根本缺陷，因为将艺术(更确切说是资产阶级艺术概念和实践)视为抵抗主阵地的构想往往悬置文化生产的物质社会关系，或仅批判大众艺术娱乐，却对高雅艺术和理论网开一面。此路径还贩售资产阶级艺术意识形态，将艺术视为逃脱社会生产关系总和的独特领域。

Adorno once analyzed the impact of recording technology on music, discussing the effects of industrialization on the forms of mass culture. However, his discourse on the autonomy of art is steeped in a strong fetishism of cultural commodities. Marcuse also failed to conduct a materialist analysis of the socio-economic forces in the production, circulation, and consumption of bourgeois art; he elevated isolated artworks into magical sanctuaries of resistance, never clarifying how they could bring about substantive social change. Furthermore, Western Marxists like Marcuse and Adorno often neglected or denigrated socialist art. Unlike the approach of Brecht and others, which reveals how art accurately reflects reality and provides tools for collective transformation, the bourgeois art theorists of Western Marxism misdirected people’s political energy into a superstitious belief in the magic of bourgeois art. Since they cannot explain how reading Charles Baudelaire or listening to atonal music can trigger social revolution, one must recognize that their failed aestheticism is actually a cultural project that maintains the status quo: it consolidates the bourgeois cultural order, cultivates the petty bourgeoisie as ideological guardians, while simultaneously denigrating the art of the working-class masses and the democratic practices of socialist culture. Enticing people to immerse themselves in the lofty theories of bourgeois art aims to expand the ranks of petty-bourgeois intellectuals as gatekeepers of bourgeois culture. Such cultural projects encourage people to abandon class struggle and treat bourgeois art (i.e., bourgeois ideology) as the guiding principle of resistance, which runs counter to the interests of the oppressed working masses of the world. This failed aestheticism is mutually reinforcing with the political defeatism of Western Marxism, abandoning class struggle from below in favor of faith in high theory and the magic of bourgeois culture.

阿多诺曾分析过录音技术对音乐的影响，论述了工业化对大众文化形态的冲击。然而，他关于艺术自主性的论述浸透着浓厚的文化商品拜物教色彩。马尔库塞也未对资产阶级艺术生产、流通和消费中的社会经济力量进行唯物主义分析，他将孤立的艺术作品奉为抵抗的魔法圣殿，从未阐明其如何引发实质性社会变革。此外，马尔库塞、阿多诺等西方马克思主义者往往忽视或贬损社会主义艺术。与布莱希特等揭示艺术如何准确地反映现实并提供集体变革工具的路径不同，西方马克思主义的资产阶级艺术理论家将民众的政治能量误导至对资产阶级艺术魔力的迷信。既然他们无法解释阅读夏尔·波德莱尔(Charles Baudelaire),也无法聆听无调性音乐何以引发社会革命，便应认清其失败的唯美主义实为维护现状的文化工程：它巩固资产阶级文化秩序，培植小资产阶级作为意识形态卫道士，同时贬抑工人阶级大众艺术和社会主义文化民主化实践。诱使人们沉迷于资产阶级艺术的高深理论旨在扩大小资产阶级知识分子作为资产阶级文化守门人的阵营。此类文化工程鼓动人们放弃阶级斗争、将资产阶级艺术(即资产阶级意识形态)奉为抵抗圭臬的做法与世界被压迫劳动大众的利益背道而驰。这种失败的唯美主义与西方马克思主义的政治失败主义互为表里，抛弃了自下而上的阶级斗争，转而迷信高层理论和资产阶级文化的魔力。

I want to conclude by clarifying the fundamental significance of conducting a dialectical critique of imperialist Marxism: theory can only be transformed into a material force when it breaks through the barriers of knowledge and grasps the masses. The necessity of waging ideological struggle lies in the fact that Western Marxism has led to a general disorientation within the left-wing camp. As global contradictions intensify, the new Cold War escalates, and fascism rises within the imperialist world, forces within the core imperialist regions and parts of the capitalist periphery—including those claiming to be socialist/communist leftists—are openly or covertly embracing imperialism and anti-communist positions. To correct theoretical deviations, and to confront the epochal crises of ecocide, the risk of nuclear apocalypse, capitalism’s unceasing social murder, and the resurgence of fascism, overcoming the “fourfold deviation” [10]10 The “fourfold deviation” refers to the author’s earlier critique of Western Marxism’s departures from classical Marxism in terms of class analysis, materialism, anti-imperialism, and dialectics. and revitalizing anti-imperialist Marxism must be made an urgent task of theoretical class struggle today. It is necessary to rely on the tradition of dialectical and historical materialism to rebuild and revive a powerful anti-imperialist socialist struggle front. This is the ultimate purpose of dialectically critiquing Western Marxism.

我想通过阐明对帝国主义的马克思主义进行辩证批判的根本意义来作为总结：理论唯有突破知识藩篱、掌握群众，方能转化为现实力量。展开意识形态斗争的必要性在于西方马克思主义导致左翼阵营整体迷失方向。随着全球矛盾激化、新冷战升级和帝国主义世界中法西斯主义的抬头，在帝国主义核心区域和部分资本主义边缘地带，包括自诩社会主义/共产主义左翼在内的势力，正在或明或暗地拥抱帝国主义和反共立场。为了实现理论纠偏，也为了应对生态灭绝、核末日风险、资本主义无休止的社会谋杀、法西斯主义回潮等时代危机，必须将克服“四重背离”、振兴反帝马克思主义作为当今理论阶级斗争的紧迫任务，必须依托辩证和历史唯物主义传统，重建并复兴一个强大的反帝国主义的社会主义斗争阵线。这正是辩证批判西方马克思主义的终极旨归。

Foster: Western Marxists not only submitted to the ideology of the existing system but also regarded the United States as an all-encompassing mass society created by Enlightenment rationalism. This led them to neglect class analysis and instead adopt culturalist, idealist frameworks and psychologistic forms that run counter to cultural materialism. This path has far more in common with Weber than with Marx. Marcuse, like Weber himself, was deeply trapped in the “iron cage”; Heidegger’s one-dimensional critique of technology caused him to internalize Weber’s “iron cage” as his own. It can be said that Western Marxism was a product of the era of “praising America,” and French theory went a step further, completely submitting to American ideology in a process of deconstruction comparable to postmodern marketing.

福斯特:西方马克思主义者不仅屈从于现有体系的意识形态，还将美国视为启蒙理性主义造就的包罗万象的大众社会，这使他们忽视了阶级分析，转而采纳与文化唯物主义背道而驰的文化主义、唯心主义框架和心理主义形式。这种路径与韦伯的共通之处远多于马克思。马尔库塞如同韦伯本人般深陷“铁笼”之中，海德格尔对技术的单向度批判使其将韦伯的“铁笼”内化为己用。可以说，西方马克思主义是“美国礼赞”时代的产物，法国理论则更进一步，在堪比后现代营销的解构过程中彻底屈从于美国意识形态。

Western Marxists fought alongside the Western camp, attacking Eastern Marxists. Marcuse’s “Great Refusal” strategy did not prevent him from serving U.S. intelligence agencies in the early Cold War; Adorno’s Western Marxist stance did not stop him and Horkheimer from accepting U.S. authorities’ support for the occupation of West Germany after World War II, or from sitting on the balcony of the “Grand Hotel Abyss” [11]11 “Grand Hotel Abyss” is a metaphor used by Georg Lukács to describe Western intellectuals who critique capitalism from a comfortable, detached position, enjoying its material benefits while condemning its ills. and viciously attacking Lukács in a journal founded by the U.S. Army and funded by the CIA. [12]12 The journal in question is likely *Der Monat*, founded in 1948 by the U.S. military government in Germany and later revealed to have received CIA funding. The harshest condemnation of Lukács’s work to date has been directed at the afterword to *The Destruction of Reason*. At that time, the Korean War was raging, and Lukács was the first to point out that the United States had inherited the irrationalist tradition, suggesting that Western leftists, by embracing Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt—standard-bearers of Nazi ideology—were sowing the seeds of irrationalism within their own ranks.

西方马克思主义者与西方阵营并肩作战，攻击东方马克思主义者。马尔库塞的“大拒绝”策略并未阻止他在冷战初期效力美国国家情报机构；阿多诺的西方马克思主义立场并未妨碍他与霍克海默在二战后接受美国当局对西德占领区的扶持，或端坐“深渊大饭店”阳台，在美国陆军创办、中央情报局资助的刊物上恶毒地攻击卢卡奇。迄今对卢卡奇著作最尖刻的谴责均指向《理性的毁灭》一书后记。彼时朝鲜战争正酣，卢卡奇最先指出美国继承了非理性主义传统，暗示西方左翼拥抱尼采、海德格尔和卡尔·施米特(Carl Schmitt)等纳粹意识形态旗手，正在自己内部播撒非理性主义毒种。

The mainstream of the Western left is mired in a quagmire of “fourfold deviation,”[13]13 “Fourfold deviation” (*sichong beili*) is a term used by the authors to characterize the Western left’s departure from classical Marxist principles in four respects: abandoning class analysis, historical materialism, the critique of political economy, and the revolutionary project. frequently displaying the panic of a total rout, repeatedly reproducing the existing order as an insurmountable fate. In analyzing the contradictions of the capitalist system, its fragility and terror are rarely emphasized, and even the fact of millions of deaths is met with total indifference. But it must be stressed that not all Western Marxists are like this. Finally, I quote from a letter by Baran, Marcuse’s lifelong close friend—the two had earlier worked together at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt. In stark contrast to the representatives of the so-called Western Marxist tradition, Baran wrote in 1957 the greatest Marxist work on imperialism of the time, *The Political Economy of Growth*, and co-authored *Monopoly Capital* with Sweezy. On October 10, 1963, Baran wrote to Sweezy, and his words can precisely summarize the essence of our discussion:

西方左翼主流深陷“四重背离”泥潭，时常显露出全线溃败的恐慌，反复将现存秩序再现为不可逾越的宿命。在剖析资本主义制度的矛盾时，其脆弱性和恐怖性很少被强调，甚至百万人死亡事实也遭到全面漠视。但必须强调的是，并非所有的西方马克思主义者都是如此。最后，我引用马尔库塞的终生挚友巴兰的信件作结——两人早年同在法兰克福大学社会研究所共事。与所谓西方马克思主义传统的代表截然不同，巴兰在1957年撰写了当时最伟大的马克思主义的帝国主义论著《增长的政治经济学》,并与斯威齐合著了《垄断资本》。1963年10月10日，巴兰致信斯威齐，其言恰可概括我们讨论的精髓：

The most pressing question at present is: Has Marxist dialectics become invalid? That is, when “shit” (*Scheisse*) keeps piling up, congealing, and covering the whole society (and a large part of the relevant world), is it unable to generate a dialectical counterforce that can blow it away? Here is Rhodes, jump here![14]14 “Here is Rhodes, jump here!” is a classical allusion to Aesop’s fable “The Boastful Traveler,” popularized by Hegel in the preface to *The Philosophy of Right*. It means: here is the test—prove your claims in reality. If the answer is yes, then Marxism in its traditional form is already obsolete. It predicts suffering, brilliantly explains its generalized roots, but stumbles on the core proposition—that suffering will generate its own force of supersession.

当下最紧迫的问题在于：马克思主义辩证法是否已失效?即，当“屎”(Scheisse)不断堆积、凝结、覆盖整个社会(以及相关世界的很大一部分)时，是否无法催生出能够将其吹散的辩证反作用力?这里是罗陀斯，就在这里跳吧!若答案为是，则传统形态的马克思主义已然过时。它预言苦难，精辟阐释其普遍化根源，却在核心命题上失足——苦难将自我生成其扬弃力量。

I recently read Marcuse’s new work *One-Dimensional Man*. His painstakingly argued position of the “Great Refusal” and “absolute negation” in fact asserts that everything is filthy: monopoly capitalism and the Soviet Union, existing capitalism and socialism. The negative part of the Marxist narrative has been fulfilled, the positive part remains utopian. We return to pure utopianism: there should be a better world, but the power to realize it is nowhere to be found. Socialism is not only not a solution, but there is no subject capable of undertaking it. From the “Great Refusal” to the “Great Retreat” is only one step. I deeply feel that this is the core of the thought (and emotion) of intellectuals today—not only in the USA, but also in Latin America and elsewhere—and it urgently requires us to confront it head-on. Looking around, there are few comrades. The official left only knows how to make accusations in the style of *Political Affairs*,[15]15 *Political Affairs* is the theoretical journal of the Communist Party USA, here used pejoratively to denote a dogmatic, formulaic style of leftist critique. and the rest are all bewildered.

近日拜读马尔库塞新作《单向度的人》,其苦心孤诣论证的“大拒绝”和“绝对否定”立场，实则断言万物皆污秽：垄断资本主义与苏联、既有的资本主义与社会主义。马克思叙事中的否定部分已经应验，肯定部分仍属空想。我们重返纯粹空想主义，应有更善世界，然实现之力杳不可寻。社会主义非但非解方，更无主体可担此任。从“大拒绝”到“大撤退”仅一步之遥。我深感此乃当下知识分子思想(与情感)的核心——非独美国，拉美等地亦然，亟需我们直面应对。环顾四野，几无同道。官方左翼只会《政治事务》式控诉，余者皆惶惑。

What is needed is a sober analysis of the overall situation, a reconstruction of the historical perspective, and a re-examination of the dimensions of time and space. If we can accomplish this feat in *Monopoly Capital*… we will make a major contribution, performing a genuine act of “liberation” for everyone.

所需者，乃对全局之冷静剖析、历史视野之重建、时空维度之重审。若能在《垄断资本》中成此功业……我们将作出重大贡献，为众人施行真正的“解放”之举。

What Baran says here is what he calls “the confrontation of reality with reason.” This requires the reconstruction of a method of historical analysis that runs through the long durée, while simultaneously reconnecting Marx’s dialectics with materialism. This will clarify the necessity and possibility of a “dialectical counterforce,” outlining the path of global liberation. This pure, unadorned, universal Marxist vision remains the task of the current era—not only in theory, but also as a practical philosophy. This requires a break with the Western Marxism that has led history into a dead end.

巴兰此处所言，即其所谓“现实与理性的对峙”。这要求重建贯通长时段的历史分析方法，同时将马克思的辩证法与唯物主义重新联系起来。这将阐明“辩证反作用力”的必要性和可能性，勾勒全球解放的路径。这种纯粹的、无修饰的、普遍的马克思主义视野仍是当前时代的任务——不仅仅是在理论上，还要将其视为一种实践哲学。这需要与导致历史走进死胡同的西方马克思主义决裂。

The “red mole”[16]16 “Red mole” is a metaphor for the revolutionary forces of history, drawn from Shakespeare’s *Hamlet* (“Well said, old mole!”) and adopted by Marx to describe the subterranean, persistent advance of revolution. is reappearing in a new, more global way, and its sphere of activity is no longer limited to the West.

“红色鼹鼠”正以全新的、更具全球性的方式重现于世，其活动疆域不再局限于西方。

(Author bios: John Bellamy Foster: University of Oregon, USA; Gabriel Rockhill: Villanova University, USA; Ma Guangxuan, Lu Tao: School of Marxism, Yunnan University; Translation: Ma Guangxuan, Lu Tao)

（作者简介：约翰·贝拉米·福斯特（John Bellamy Foster）：美国俄勒冈大学；加布里埃尔·罗克希尔（Gabriel Rockhill）：美国维拉诺瓦大学；马光选、陆涛：云南大学马克思主义学院；翻译：马光选、陆涛）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑