Autumn of 1968: «Literaturnaya gazeta» and the «International Revisionism» (A. Chakovskii contra Gy. Lukács)

Stykalin A.S.

Abstract

In the late 1950 s – early 1960 s, the outstanding Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic György Lukács (1885–1971) was perceived in the Soviet Union as one of the masters of European revisionism. This fact was connected with his participation in the dramatic events of autumn 1956 in Hungary. But by the mid-1960s, the international campaign to criticize Lukács's ideas in the countries of the Soviet bloc died down, and in subsequent years a divergence of positions between the two ruling parties – the CPSU and the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party – concerning the outstanding Marxist was formed. In Hungary, the works of the late Lukács were accepted (albeit with reservations) by the communist regime. And even were integrated to some extent into the Hungarian concept of socialism, whereas in the USSR, criticism of his «revisionist» aesthetics, having subsided by the mid-1960s, was replaced by many years of silence about his activities. The negative attitude of Lukács towards the suppression of the Prague Spring of 1968 gave rise to attempts to resume public criticism of his ideas in the USSR, particularly in «Literaturnaya gazeta» in late October 1968. This displeased the main ideologist of the János Kádár regime, György Aczél, who conveyed his opinion to the Soviet embassy in Budapest. As a result, further criticism of Lukács in the USSR did not develop, but a wary attitude towards him remained. The publication of a number of the most important works of Lukács was undertaken only in the second half of the 1980 s under the conditions of Perestroika. However, the prestige of Marxism in the minds of the Soviet intelligentsia by this time had fallen sharply, and because of this, the works of the outstanding Hungarian philosopher aroused limited interest among domestic intellectuals. Attached to the article is a letter from the editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta A. Chakovskii to the Central Committee of the CPSU, in which he expressed bewilderment at the overestimation of Lukács' work that had taken place in Hungary.

Keywords

György Lukács; intervention to Czechoslovakia in August 1968; regime of János Kádár in Hungary; antirevisionist campaigns in the USSR; Ernst Fischer.

DOI: 10.31249/rsm/2022.03.12

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