Domenico Losurdo traveled to Beijing for the first time in the 1970s, when (Western) Maoism thrilled a large number of Western progressive intellectuals. But when these intellectuals turned away from China—which they accused of having consolidated an “illiberal totalitarian political regime” but also of having “restored capitalism”—by contrast Losurdo remained a friend of China. For him it was from the Chinese experience and its ability to survive the end of the USSR that one could draw inspiration to confront the most important event in the life of an entire generation: the radical crisis of Marxism and the defeat of the communist movement in the West. Western Marxism, born out of the shock of the First World War, is characterized by a utopian messianism prone to anarchism (the thesis of the extinction of the state, for example, or the claim of an immediate cancelation of borders, or hostility towards economy and technology). In China, on the other hand, Marxism has become the basis of national awareness and the consequent liberation struggle. Once political independence is reached, however, the revolution continues today in order to achieve economic independence. Hence the need for a re-elaboration of the same Marxian category of class struggle.

KEYWORDS: Losurdo; China; Western Marxism; Western Maoism; class struggle

From: International Critical Thought 2021 11 (4)

Editor: Wang Yi