Intellectual Evolution of Georg Lukács in the Context of Developing Lenin’s Idea of Revolution

Abstract

The Hungarian philosopher, Georg Lukács, recognized the crisis-consciousness of his generation at the turn of the 20th century and began to search for solutions in the art. However, his theory about art proved to be illusory, being unable to reshape society. After many philosophical attempts to realize his theory in praxis, in 1918 Lukács turned to Marxism and later became one of the most influential Marxist thinkers of his time. In 1919, when the Hungarian Soviet Republic fell, Lukács, like many other intellectuals, had to flee abroad. In emigration, he started to summarize the experiences of the fallen revolution and referred to Lenin’s ideas in his early Marxist works, in ‘History and Class Consciousness’ (1923) and ‘Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought’ (1924). This paper aims to follow Lukács’ path, how he became a Marxist from an Essayist, and what solutions he found for the social crises of his era.