Reification and salvation
pp. 170-182
in: , Georg Lukács' Marxism alienation, dialectics, revolution, Berlin, Springer, 1964Abstract
The present chapter deals with Lukács' theory of reification of the "proletariat", and his vision of human redemption from alienation under "capitalism" through the "proletariat". Lukács' theory of reification and his vision of human redemption are fundamental to the full understanding of his Marxian scheme of a collective cultural psychotherapy which he tried to implement in practice on a large scale during the Hungarian Commune of 1919 when attempting to "revolutionize the souls' of Hungarians. His views on reification and his vision of redemption are synthetically embraced in the conception of the "proletariat" which is for this reason a dialectic, Janus-faced entity. One may speak of Lukács' views about the "proletariat" as a commodity, and his views about the "proletariat" as a redeemer.1 And here the secularized messianism of his Marxism comes fully to the fore.2