Abstract

Before 1966, Italian Marxism was influenced by Lukacs' ‘socialist realism’ rather than by History and Class Consciousness. This predominant interest in aesthetic questions can be ascribed to the lingering influence of Croce's neo-idealism over Italian Marxist intellectuals. Only with the translation of The Destruction of Reason and The Young Hegel immediately after de-Stalinization in the 1960s did discussion of Lukács' philosophical work begin, along with that of Western Marxism in general.

The Italian translation of Marxism and Philosophy appeared in 1966, even before that of History and Class Consciousness. Mario Spinella's introduction to Korsch's work was very general and revealed the extent to which Italian Marxism still lagged behind the many problems central to ‘critical Marxism.’