Guest editors: Anna Beria (Kingston University, London), Isabel Jacobs (Queen Mary University of London), Giorgi Kobakhidze (Université Toulouse II Jean Jaurès), Jiří Růžička (The Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences)
The distinctive tradition of post-war critical and radical thought in East and Central Europe has long been forgotten or suppressed. Even more controversially, the idea that this tradition found its most productive expression in a unique form of Marxist thought is often denied. This is because ‘Eastern Marxism(s)’ – whatever the term may encompass – has frequently been conflated with the rigid, state-imposed, Stalinist version of Marxist ideology. We believe the time has come, especially in light of the contemporary multiple crises of capitalism, to reassess and revive this tradition. However, while ‘Western Marxism’ has been retrospectively canonised around figures such as Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci, ‘Eastern’ Marxism(s) in CEE face much more significant challenges in terms of temporal, personal and also regional demarcations.
According to a still widespread Western-centric view, which identifies Eastern Marxisms with the ‘dogmatic’ state doctrine of Marxism-Leninism, a properly ‘Eastern’ period of Eastern Marxism begins with the rise of Stalin, loses steam with the critique of Stalin in the 1950s and 60s, and finally reaches its inevitable demise when the regimes supporting it collapse in 1989–91. Individual radical theorists from the CEE are, of course, well-known to some in the West, but they tend to be regarded as exceptional personalities, solitary figures who arose despite their Eastern context, thanks in large part to their exposure to Western influence (K. Kosík, E. Ilyenkov, Praxis School etc.).
A closer historical examination might reveal a very different picture. As a more or less coherent body of philosophical ideas, political doctrine, and socio-economic theory, Marxism emerged in CEE before World War II, whereas, in the West, one finds only scattered Marxist thinkers rather than a fully developed Marxist tradition. Even the so-called founding figures of Western Marxism shaped their perspectives outside Western Europe, primarily in response to the Russian Revolution – a shared foundational moment of both ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ Marxisms. Conversely, what has been termed ‘Eastern Marxism’ (e.g., by Marcuse and Merleau-Ponty) has typically referred exclusively to ‘Marxism-Leninism’, which appears to be rather a belated offshoot of Second International Marxist orthodoxy, albeit with a strong emphasis on political revolution.
It may therefore be more appropriate to shift the East/West Marxist divide to the post-1945 era, or more precisely, to 1956 for the Eastern Bloc. From this perspective, the term ‘Eastern Marxism’ should designate various currents of Marxist thought that primarily criticised and sought ways out of Stalinism. While all of these currents reflected their international intellectual moment and reacted to developments in the West, the ideas that emerged were their own, made possible by the specific context of the often-neglected region of CEE and its post-Stalinist condition.
As a result, the simplistic perspective that reduces Eastern Marxism(s) to the rise and fall of Marxist-Leninist dogma neglects the fact that we can hardly speak about the division line between the eastern and the western Marxisms in the pre-war era. ‘Marxism-Leninism’ continued to develop within the epistemological and ontological (but not political) constraints set up by the Marxist orthodoxy, while the ‘revisionist’ or heterodox currents of that time should not be viewed as precursors of western Marxism but, rather, as a reaction to both theoretical and practical shortcomings of the orthodoxy as well as to the interwar (often) revolutionary conditions of the CEE region. There is no denying that an East/West divide can be discussed, but it should not be framed through the shallow opposition of a creative postwar West versus a dogmatic postwar East. Instead, it should be drawn based on concepts that capture the differences between these respective ‘modes’ of Marxism – both as totalities that encompass internal plurality and as responses to the specific historical and social conditions in which they emerged.
This project of questioning and scouring the past of Eastern Marxism(s) calls for different research methods from those used for researching the Marxisms of the West. ‘Western Marxism’ could be reconstructed with knowledge of German, along with some French and English and a selective reading of Gramsci in translation. And, by the early postwar period, almost all the key works were either published or available in accessible archives. The ‘tradition’ of Eastern Marxism(s) has been written in dozens of languages, sometimes published in now-obscure journals, or in samizdat, or hidden in dresser drawers until the 1990s, when many of the born-again-right-wing authors no longer wanted their old leftist writings to be made public, and when few publishers in any case wanted to publish them.
While the context of capitalism and fascism that gave birth to Western Marxism is relatively comprehensible to the international reader, the diverse context of Central and Eastern Europe is barely understood, obscured by stereotypes and Cold War tropes and rhetorics that continue into contemporary leftism. The reconstruction of a plurality of Eastern Marxisms and their emancipatory-theoretical fellow travellers calls for a large collaborative effort, pooling linguistic and locally embedded knowledge and access to libraries and archives across CEE and providing the detailed historical context necessary to illuminate the region’s theories, as a vast source of globally unknown theorising on issues that remain urgent today: science and ecology, humanism and technology, nationalism and internationalism, history and political subjectivity, planning and participation, material determination and cultural emancipation.
We particularly invite contributions that are conceptually oriented rather than pure case studies and address the following non-exclusive questions and themes in relation to the critical and radical thought in East and Central Europe post-1956:
- What are the difficulties and potentials of searching for a definition of Eastern Marxism? Which working definitions of Eastern Marxisms can be developed?
- In what ways does the term ‘Eastern’ categorise the Marxist perspectives from CEE?
- What distinct and interrelated currents can be identified within different Eastern Marxist traditions?
- When and where does Eastern Marxism begin and end? Continuities and ruptures within the tradition? Problems of periodisation?
- Relevance of Eastern Marxisms today?
- East meets West. The intersections, dialogues, parallel developments and mutual influence between Eastern and Western Marxisms
- East meets South. Imperialism, colonialism and humanism in Eastern Marxisms and anticolonial and decolonial praxis?
- Regional differences, distinctions, schisms and local Marxist traditions within Eastern Marxisms?
We welcome proposals for contributions to the Eastern Marxisms special issue of Historical Materialism. Interested authors are invited to submit a title and an abstract (maximum 300 words) outlining the proposed article to info@historicalmaterialism.org by 20 June 2025. Please clearly indicate in the subject line or body of the email that the submission is intended for the Eastern Marxisms Special Issue.
Following a selection process, chosen contributors will be invited to submit full articles to Historical Materialism. All articles will be subject to the journal’s standard peer-review process and editorial evaluation.
Please note that an invitation to submit a full article does not guarantee publication, and acceptance of the abstract does not imply any commitment by the journal to publish the final piece. Deadline for the submission of full papers is 1 March 2026.
