Hess and the Young Marx in a Historical Perspective

With the revival of Spinoza in radical theory and the successive publication of Hess’s original texts, since the 1960s the international academic community has witnessed a wave of research on Hess’s thought. Against this backdrop, the relationship between Hess and the formation of Marx’s thought has received widespread attention. McLellan, Berlin, Hiromatsu Wataru, and Kolakowski, among others, have particularly emphasized Hess’s crucial influence on Marx, even regarding Hess as one of the founders of historical materialism. On the question of the formation of the young Marx’s communist thought, Hess’s exploration of communism and the radicalism it represented undoubtedly exerted an important influence on Marx. Engels called Hess “the earliest communist,” and Cornu evaluated Hess as follows: “He was the first to combine Hegelian philosophy and French socialism in a philosophy of action, and not, like Cieszkowski, merely vaguely, but completely explicitly.” Despite this significant influence, this does not mean that Marx imitated or copied Hess’s communist theory. In fact, there are decisive differences between their communist theories. Marx called Hessian communism an “unhistorical abstraction” and considered it full of moral fervor. In contrast, Marx’s communist thinking embodies an adherence to historicity and follows the basic logic of “discovering the new world in the critique of the old world.”

随着激进理论中斯宾诺莎的复兴及赫斯原始文献的陆续问世，20世纪60年代以来，国际学界掀起了一波赫斯思想的研究热潮，在此背景下，赫斯与马克思思想形成的关系得到了广泛的关注。麦克莱伦、伯林、广松涉以及克拉科夫斯基等人特别强调了赫斯对马克思的关键性影响，甚至将赫斯视作唯物史观的创始人之一。就青年马克思共产主义思想的形成这一问题而言，赫斯对共产主义的探索及其所代表的激进主义无疑对马克思产生了重要影响。恩格斯称赫斯为“最早的共产主义者”，科尔钮这样评价赫斯：“他是第一个在行动哲学中把黑格尔哲学和法国社会主义结合起来的人，而且不像切什考夫斯基那样只是隐约地结合起来，而是完全明确地结合起来。”尽管存在着显著的影响，但这并不意味着马克思模仿或照搬了赫斯的共产主义理论。事实上，他们的共产主义理论存在着决定性的区别。马克思将赫斯式的共产主义称为“非历史主义的抽象”，并认为其充满了道德热忱。与之相反，马克思的共产主义思考体现出对历史性的坚守，并遵循“在批判旧世界中发现新世界”的基本逻辑。

The Theoretical Path of Constructing Communism

建构共产主义的理论路径

From the perspective of the theoretical path of constructing communism, Marx moved toward communism through a critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right, whereas Hess always contemplated communism from the basic framework of the philosophy of history. In *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*, Marx identified the fundamental problem of the modern world as grasped by Hegel: the separation of civil society and the political state. Hegel attempted to overcome this separation through speculative reconciliation and the construction of a mediating term. In Marx’s view, the soul of this mode of solving the problem was provided by speculative idealism, which ultimately inevitably fell into mysticism. It was dissatisfaction with Hegel’s mode of resolution that led to a series of Marx’s theoretical constructions. Whether radical democracy, human emancipation, or communism, all had the significance of overcoming the separation of civil society and the state, or, more fundamentally, were solutions given to this problem. The positive result of the critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right lay in Marx’s realization that the form of the state and relations of law are rooted in civil society, thereby confirming the priority of civil society over the state. This means that overcoming the separation of civil society and the state should focus primarily on sublating civil society.

从建构共产主义的理论路径来看，马克思是通过批判黑格尔法哲学而迈向共产主义的，赫斯则始终是从历史哲学的基本框架出发思索共产主义。在《黑格尔法哲学批判》中，马克思指认了黑格尔所把握到的现代世界的基本问题：市民社会与政治国家的分离。黑格尔试图用思辨的调和、构建中项的方式克服这一分离。在马克思看来，这种解决问题的方式的灵魂是由思辨唯心主义提供的，最终难免陷入神秘主义。由于不满于黑格尔的解决方式，才引出了马克思的一系列的理论建构。无论是激进民主、人类解放还是共产主义，都具有克服市民社会与国家分离的意义，或者说，从根本上是针对这一问题给出的解决方案。对黑格尔法哲学批判的积极成果在于，马克思由此意识到，国家的形式、法的关系都是植根于市民社会的，从而确证了市民社会相对于国家的优先地位。这意味着，克服市民社会与国家的分离应该主要着眼于扬弃市民社会。

After completing *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*, Marx’s two works from the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher* period both embody the demand to sublate and overcome civil society. “On the Jewish Question” distinguishes political emancipation from human emancipation, and human emancipation undoubtedly carries the implication of emancipation from the narrow egoistic spirit of civil society. “Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” examines the revolutionary subject of sublating civil society and its practical orientation: “The proletariat demands the negation of private property, merely raising to a principle of society what society has made the principle of the proletariat, what, without its own act, is incorporated in it as the negative result of society.” In other words, the revolution of the proletariat is directed at the abolition of private property, and this abolition necessarily implies the transcendence of civil society. In short, only after undergoing the intellectual transformation from religious critique to political critique and then to critique of political economy did Marx arrive at the critique of private property centered on alienated labor in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, and reconstruct communism through the positive sublation of private property.

在写完《黑格尔法哲学批判》之后，马克思在《德法年鉴》时期的两部作品，都体现出扬弃和克服市民社会的要求。《论犹太人问题》区分了政治解放与人类解放，人类解放无疑具有从市民社会狭隘的利己主义精神中解放出来的意味。《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》则考察了扬弃市民社会的革命主体及其现实指向的问题：“无产阶级要求否定私有财产，只不过是把作为社会否定结果而体现在它的身上，即无产阶级身上的东西提升为社会的原则。”换言之，无产阶级的革命所指向的是私有财产的废除，这种废除必然意味着对市民社会的超越。总之，在经历了从宗教批判向政治批判再到政治经济学批判的思想转变之后，才有了马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中以异化劳动为核心的私有财产批判，并用对私有财产的积极扬弃来重构共产主义。

Unlike Marx, Hess mainly grasped communism within the framework of the philosophy of history. As early as the book *The Holy History of Mankind*, Hess depicted future communism with the ideas of freedom and equality, but here communism itself was merely the embodiment of divine will, and thus part of a religiously tinged “holy history.” Starting from such a philosophy of history, Hess, in *The Philosophy of Action*, constructed the principle of self-action with the help of Fichte’s framework, thereby laying a philosophical foundation for communism. During this period, Hess mainly examined religious alienation and political alienation. The mutual division among people in modern society produced the separation of the individual from the species. Thus, the species became an external force that in turn dominated and ruled over humanity. This species, in the spiritual world, manifested as Christianity, and in the real world, as monarchy. In other words, the common essence of religious alienation and political alienation lies in the separation of the individual from the species. By the period of *On the Essence of Money*, Hess mainly explained the necessity of moving toward communism from the perspective of critiquing the alienation of intercourse in modern civil society. Inspired by Feuerbach, Hess, on the one hand, applied the theory of alienation to the critique of civil society, with money considered to have replaced the position of God: “Money is the practical life of the inverted world, just as God is its theoretical life: it is the alienated power of man, the sold-off activity of man.” On the other hand, he also emphasized that communist society is an ethical community of love. Money symbolizes a society where people are divided and hostile to each other; such a society must give way to a future society based on love.

与马克思不同，赫斯主要是在历史哲学的框架中把握共产主义。早在《人类的圣史》一书中，赫斯就以自由、和平等观念描绘了未来共产主义，但这里的共产主义本身不过是神意的体现，因而是具有宗教意味的“圣史”的一部分。从这样的历史哲学出发，赫斯在《行动的哲学》中借助于费希特的框架构建了自我行动的原理，从而为共产主义奠定了哲学基础。这一时期，赫斯主要考察了宗教异化与政治异化。近代社会中人们的相互分裂，产生了个体与类的分离。由此，类变为外在的力量转而支配和统治人类。这里的类在精神世界中就表现为基督教，在现实世界中就表现为君主政治。换言之，宗教异化与政治异化的共同本质在于个体与类的分离。到了《论货币的本质》时期，赫斯主要是从对现代市民社会交往异化批判的角度来阐释走向共产主义的必要性。在费尔巴哈的启发下，赫斯一方面将异化理论运用于市民社会批判，货币被认为取代了上帝的地位：“被颠倒了的世界的实践生活中的金钱，犹之乎理论生活中的神：这是人的被异化了的力量，是人的被出卖了的活动。”另一方面也强调共产主义社会是一种爱的伦理共同体。货币象征着人与人相互分裂、相互敌对的社会，这样的社会必须让位于以爱为基础的未来社会。

What Is Communism?

共产主义何谓？

In grasping the connotation and nature of communism, Marx and Hess share both commonalities and significant differences. On the one hand, both Marx and Hess regarded political critique and communism as the direction for the liberation of the Germans, and both saw communism as the realization of German philosophy. On the other hand, they also positioned communism in the sense of sublating alienation and overcoming the separation of the individual from the species. Marx wrote in “On the Jewish Question”: “Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract citizen, and as an individual human being… has become a species-being; only when man has recognized and organized his own powers as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.” It is not difficult to see that Marx here also discusses human emancipation in the sense of the unity of species and individual, which shares the same purport as Hess’s discussion of communism in *The Philosophy of Action*. The French political revolution broke with absolute monarchy, replacing it with a state based on the rule of law. The German spiritual revolution broke with the old religion, replacing it with a new religion, a rational religion. In Hess’s view, neither of these transformed external constraints into self-constraint. Only Babeuf’s communism established the unity of individual and species in real life, and only Fichte’s atheism established the autonomy of the human subject in the spiritual realm. However, both Babeuf’s communism and Fichte’s atheism had their own limitations. Hess believed that true communism should unify the two, combining communism as the negation of private property with communism as free activity.

在对共产主义的内涵及性质的把握上，马克思与赫斯既有相通之处，也存在显著的差异。一方面，马克思和赫斯都把政治批判、共产主义作为德国人解放的方向来思考，并且都将共产主义看作是德国哲学的实现。另一方面，他们也都是在扬弃异化、克服个体与类的分离的意义上定位共产主义的。马克思在《论犹太人问题》中写道：“只有当现实的个人同时也是抽象的公民，并且作为个人……成为类存在物的时候，只有当人认识到自己的原有力量并把这种力量组成为社会力量因而不再把社会力量当作政治力量跟自己分开的时候。只有到了那个时候，人类解放才能完成。”不难发现，马克思这里也是在类与个体统一的意义上论述人类解放的，这与赫斯在《行动的哲学》中关于共产主义的讨论旨趣相同。法国的政治革命打破了绝对君主制，取而代之的是法治国家。德国的精神革命打破了旧的宗教，取而代之的是新的宗教、理性宗教。在赫斯看来，这两者都没有将外在的制约转化为自我制约。只有巴贝夫的共产主义才在现实生活中确立起个体和类的统一，只有费希特的无神论才在精神领域确立起人类主体的自律性。但是，无论是巴贝夫的共产主义还是费希特的无神论都存在自身的局限性。赫斯认为，真正的共产主义应该统一二者，将作为私有财产否定的共产主义和作为自由活动的共产主义结合起来。

Although both Marx and Hess discussed the issue of economic alienation and used the sublation of alienation to define communism, there are clear differences between the alienated labor discussed by Marx and Hess’s alienation of intercourse. On the one hand, the alienation of intercourse analyzed by Hess unfolds within the sphere of circulation; money, the key concept in Hess’s critique of civil society, is precisely the hallmark of the world of the petty merchant. Marx, by contrast, discusses the alienation of labor within the scope of the capitalist mode of production. On the other hand, the alienation of intercourse analyzed by Hess is, in essence, still a continuation of Hegel’s critique of civil society. Marx, however, holds that the root of man’s self-alienation (alienated labor) lies in the existence of another man, who in the reality of production refers to the capitalist. “Let us now see how the concept of alienated, externalized labor must be expressed and presented in reality.” When Marx speaks thus, it means that the analysis of alienation shifts from a general conceptual analysis to an analysis of reality. “Not gods, nor nature, but only man himself can become the alien power ruling over man.” The fundamental intention behind Marx’s push to extend the explanation of alienation to the level of human relations is to transition to the relation between labor and capital. It is precisely this relation that reveals the essence of alienation from the perspective of reality. Marx repeatedly emphasizes: “Man’s relation to himself becomes objective and real for him only through his relation to the other man” — this is by no means an idle remark. The differences between Hess and Marx in their understanding of economic alienation within the sphere of civil society reflect their differing degrees of attention to and mastery of classical political economy. In essence, Hess’s so-called economic alienation is not a product of rigorous economic research; at best, it is a Hegelian-Feuerbachian philosophical transformation of French socialist thought.

尽管马克思与赫斯都讨论了经济异化的问题，并用扬弃异化来定位共产主义，但马克思所谈到的异化劳动与赫斯的交往异化存在着明显的差异。一方面，赫斯所分析的交往异化是在流通领域展开的，作为赫斯市民社会批判关键概念的货币恰恰是小商人世界的标志。马克思则是在资本主义生产方式的范围内来谈论劳动的异化。另一方面，赫斯所分析的交往异化，就其实质而言，仍然是黑格尔市民社会批判理论的延续。马克思则认为，人的自我异化（异化劳动）的根源在于另一个人的存在，这个人在生产现实中即指资本家。“现在让我们看一看，应该怎样在现实中去说明和表述异化的、外化的劳动这一概念。”当马克思这样说时，意味着对异化的分析从一般的概念分析转向现实性的分析。“不是神也不是自然界，只有人自身才能成为统治人的异己力量。”马克思之所以要将异化的解释推进到人与人的关系层面，根本用意在于过渡到劳动与资本的关系。正是这种关系从现实性的角度揭示了异化的本质。马克思反复强调：“人对自身的关系只有通过他对他人的关系，才成为对他来说是对象性的、现实的关系”，绝非无的放矢。赫斯和马克思在对市民社会领域内经济异化理解上的差异，反映了他们对古典政治经济学重视程度及把握程度的差异。究其实质，赫斯的所谓经济异化思想并不是严格意义上的经济学研究的成果，它充其量不过是一种对法国社会主义思想的黑格尔—费尔巴哈式的哲学改造。

The Political Practical Effects of the Theory of Communism

共产主义理论的政治实践效应

Because Marx and Hess differed in their philosophical positions and their understanding of the content of communism, they went separate ways in political practice. Through criticizing and absorbing Hegel’s dialectics, Marx emphasized that “the sublation of self-alienation follows the same road as self-alienation itself” and ultimately arrived at the conscious construction of historical materialism. Hess, however, remained trapped in the binary opposition between a reality full of separation and alienation and the ideal state of communism; where Marx surpassed Hegel, Hess ultimately remained confined to Hegel’s speculative idealism. The fundamental defect in Hess’s philosophical position determined that he could not take a revolutionary path of changing the existing world through practical action in reality. In this sense, what Marx said in his critique of Bauer’s speculative idealism applies equally to Hess: “When I sublate only the thought existence of this world, that is, the existence of this world as a category, as a viewpoint — in other words, when I change my own subjective consciousness without changing the objective reality in a truly objective way, that is, without changing my own objective reality and the objective reality of others — this world still continues to exist as before.”

由于马克思与赫斯在哲学立场及共产主义内涵理解上存在差异，导致了他们二人在政治实践方面分道扬镳。通过批判和吸收黑格尔的辩证法，马克思强调“自我异化的扬弃同自我异化走的是一条道路”，并最终通向了唯物史观的自觉建构。赫斯则始终停留在充满分离、异化的现实与共产主义理想状态的二元对立之中，在马克思超出黑格尔的地方，赫斯最终仍囿于黑格尔的思辨唯心主义。赫斯在哲学立场上的根本缺陷，决定了他不可能走一条通过现实的实践改变现存世界的革命道路。在此意义上，马克思在对鲍威尔的思辨唯心主义进行批判时所说的话同样适用于赫斯：“当我只是扬弃了这个世界的思想存在，即这个世界作为范畴、作为观点的存在的时候，也就是说，当我改变了我自己的主观意识而并没有用真正对象性的方式改变对象性现实，即并没有改变我自己的对象性现实和其他人的对象性现实的时候，这个世界仍然还像往昔一样继续存在。”

Hess believed that communism is “the practical realization of philosophical ethics,” achieved through “the struggle of the principle of consciousness.” That is to say, if human beings can become conscious of their true essence, they can realize a society corresponding to that essence. This shows that Hess did not understand the development of productive forces as the condition for abolishing the interpersonal relations that give rise to money. According to McLellan, Hess tried hard in 1846–1847 to adopt certain aspects of Marx’s system, but ultimately returned to the so-called “true socialism” he himself had founded. This “true socialism,” or communism, was centered on Feuerbach’s concept of “species-being” and resolutely rejected the use of force and the harsh doctrine of class struggle. In Hess’s view, communism was justified by moral concepts, or because it was correct and just, not because it was necessary. Specifically, Hess expected to realize communism through a gradual social reform. This meant, first, awakening the masses; second, adopting measures such as property taxes and reforms of inheritance rights to create conditions for universal social education and free human activity. In his book *Catechism of the Communist Faith*, Hess wrote: “After taking the above measures, it will take at most one generation to erase the last traces of the current relations of ownership from society. On the contrary, using violence and surprise attacks to abolish the current relations of ownership will inevitably lead to adverse consequences.”

赫斯认为，共产主义是“哲学的伦理学的实践的现实化”，它是通过“意识的原理的斗争”而实现的。也就是说，如果人类能意识到自己的真正本质，就能够实现与人的本质相适应的社会。这表明，赫斯没有把生产力的发展理解为废除使货币得以产生的人际关系的条件。按照麦克莱伦的说法，赫斯曾在1846—1847年竭力地想采纳马克思体系的某些方面，但最终还是回到了由他创始的所谓的“真正的社会主义”。这种“真正的社会主义”或者说共产主义是以费尔巴哈的“类”概念为核心的，并坚决拒斥采用武力和严峻的阶级斗争学说。在赫斯看来，共产主义之所以是正当的，是用道德观念来证明的，或者说，是因为它是正确和正义的，而非因为它是必然的。具体来说，赫斯期望采取一种渐进的社会改革的方式实现共产主义。这意味着，首先应当唤醒大众，其次要采取诸如财产税和继承权的改革等措施，为普遍的社会教育以及人的自由活动创造条件。在《共产主义信条问答》一书中，赫斯写道：“在采取上述种种措施以后，要从社会上抹掉目前所有制关系的最后痕迹，至多用一代人的时间。相反，采用暴力和突然袭击的办法来废除目前的所有制关系，必然要引起不良的后果。”

Overall, Hess undoubtedly played an important role in the formation of the young Marx’s communist thought. The research of Cornu and Hiromatsu Wataru has effectively broken the long-standing obscuring of the study of Marx’s early intellectual development by dogmatic ideology. However, one must not go to the opposite extreme, such as Hiromatsu’s excessive exaggeration of Hess’s “overwhelming” influence on Marx. Where Marx had decisively surpassed Hess, Hiromatsu still regarded Marx as standing in Hess’s position. This shows that Hiromatsu failed to see the principled difference between Hess’s view that man’s essence is “intercourse and common activity” and Marx’s assertion that man’s essence in its reality is “the ensemble of all social relations,” and instead confused the historical principle inherent in Marx’s view with Hess’s abstract ahistoricity. In fact, precisely because it lacks the fundamental dimension of historicity, Hess’s theory of communism could ultimately only point toward a gradual reform in reality; insofar as such a reform cannot touch the basic structure of capitalism, it means that the so-called “communism” will forever remain in an “abstract ought.”

总体来看，在青年马克思形成共产主义思想的过程中，赫斯无疑起到了重要的作用。科尔纽和广松涉等人的研究有力地打破了教条意识形态对马克思早期思想发展史研究长期以来的遮蔽。但是，切不可由此走向另一个极端，如广松涉那样过分夸大赫斯对马克思的“压倒性”影响。在马克思已经决定性超出赫斯的地方，广松涉仍然将马克思看作是处于赫斯的立场上。这表明，广松涉未能看到赫斯关于人的本质是“交往和共同活动”与马克思所指认的人的本质在其现实性上是“一切社会关系总和”这两种观点的原则性差异，而仍将马克思观点中蕴含的历史性原则与赫斯的抽象非历史性混淆在一起。事实上，正是由于缺失了历史性这一根本维度，赫斯的共产主义理论在现实中只能最终指向一种渐进式的改革，这种改革就其无法触动资本主义的基本结构而言，恰恰意味着所谓的“共产主义”将永远停留在“抽象的应当”之中。

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