Karl Korsch

Life and Political Activity

Karl Korsch (1886–1961) was a central figure in the development of Western Marxism, noted for combining rigorous theoretical work with sustained political engagement. Born in Tostedt in northern Germany, he studied law, economics, and philosophy in Jena, Munich, and Berlin, completing a doctorate in law. Early on he developed an interest in social reform and Fabian socialism, spending time in England and engaging with British socialist circles.

During the First World War, Korsch served in the German army but grew increasingly critical of the conflict and of the political order that sustained it. The collapse of the German Empire and the revolutionary wave of 1918–1919 drew him decisively toward revolutionary socialism. He joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and later the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), aligning himself with those who saw the Russian Revolution as a catalyst for broader European transformation.

Korsch became involved in the council movement, supporting the idea that workers’ and soldiers’ councils should serve as the bases of a new socialist democracy. Professionally, he worked as a legal scholar and later as a lecturer, and briefly held office as Minister of Justice in the regional government of Thuringia in 1923, a short-lived attempt at a left-wing coalition government during a period of intense political crisis.

His uncompromising revolutionary views and his independent-minded Marxist theory soon brought him into conflict with the leadership of the KPD and with the increasingly centralized, Moscow-aligned Comintern. Throughout the 1920s he was subjected to criticism for “deviationism” and “ultra-leftism.” By 1926 he had effectively broken with the official communist movement, moving closer to council communism and other anti-authoritarian currents of Marxism.

Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Korsch emigrated, first to the United Kingdom and then to the United States. In exile he faced isolation and financial difficulty, working in a variety of academic and non-academic roles while continuing to write on Marxism, fascism, and the crisis of capitalism. He spent his later years in the Boston area, maintaining correspondence with European and American radicals, including younger generations of Marxists. Korsch died in Belmont, Massachusetts, in 1961.

Marxism and Philosophy

Korsch’s most influential work, Marxism and Philosophy (1923), is widely regarded as a founding text of Western Marxism. In this book, written in the aftermath of the failed revolutionary waves in Germany and Central Europe, he examined the relationship between Marxism, philosophy, and bourgeois thought.

A central claim of the work is that Marxism itself is a historical product, arising out of and transforming the philosophical traditions of German idealism, especially Hegel. Korsch argued that the later tendency to treat Marxism as a closed, scientific doctrine separated from philosophy was historically conditioned by the defeat of revolutionary movements and the integration of socialist parties into parliamentary and trade-union structures. According to Korsch, when Marxism appeared to abandon philosophy, it actually reflected a retreat from revolutionary practice.

Korsch thus insisted on the unity of theory and praxis as the distinguishing mark of Marxism. For him, Marxist theory could not be understood as a neutral, positivistic science akin to natural science, nor as a purely contemplative philosophy. Instead, he presented Marxism as a critical, dialectical method that interprets social reality from the standpoint of the working-class movement and participates in its self-clarification.

In his critique of Second International Marxism, Korsch maintained that figures such as Karl Kautsky had reduced Marxism to a deterministic theory of economic development and a set of doctrinal propositions, thereby de-politicizing it. At the same time, he was critical of the Soviet and Comintern orthodoxy, which he believed ossified Marxism into a state ideology, suppressing the self-activity and autonomy of workers.

Beyond Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch wrote on law and the state, interpreting legal systems as historically specific forms of class rule and social mediation. He analyzed fascism as a response to crises in bourgeois society and the labor movement, and he produced critical studies of Marx’s Capital, emphasizing the need to read Marx’s economic theory as part of a broader critique of capitalist social relations.

Proponents of Korsch’s approach see his work as a rigorous attempt to re-politicize Marxism, stressing its critical and historical character. Critics contend that his emphasis on the unity of theory and revolutionary practice risks underestimating the need for theoretical autonomy and methodological precision, or that his “ultra-left” orientation led to political positions ill-suited to complex, mass-based struggles.

Legacy and Influence

Karl Korsch’s direct political influence was limited by his marginalization within the official communist movement and by his years in exile. Nonetheless, his theoretical work has exerted a lasting impact on 20th-century Marxist thought.

Korsch is often grouped with Georg Lukács as a pivotal early figure of Western Marxism. Both sought to recover the Hegelian, dialectical dimension of Marxism and to oppose mechanistic interpretations of historical materialism. While Lukács pursued this project partly within communist party structures, Korsch followed a more openly heterodox and council-communist trajectory.

His emphasis on the historicity of Marxism—the idea that Marxism must constantly reinterpret itself in light of changing social conditions—resonated with later critical theorists and New Left thinkers. Elements of his critique can be traced in debates about ideology, reification, and the role of intellectuals in social movements. Korsch’s writings influenced or intersected with the work of Theodor W. Adorno, Bertolt Brecht, and later Marxist humanists and autonomist theorists, even where they disagreed with his conclusions.

In the 1960s and 1970s, amid student uprisings and renewed revolutionary ambitions, Korsch’s texts were rediscovered and reprinted, particularly in West Germany, France, and the United States. Activists and scholars used his work to challenge both Stalinist and social-democratic orthodoxies, as well as to articulate anti-bureaucratic and council-based visions of socialism.

Contemporary evaluations of Korsch are divided. Supporters view him as a pioneering critic of dogmatic Marxism, whose insistence on the inseparability of theory and practice remains relevant to discussions of radical politics. Others argue that his theoretical achievements are overshadowed by Lukács and subsequent critical theorists, or that his political strategy lacked practical avenues for mass organization.

Despite these debates, Korsch is widely acknowledged as a key transitional figure between classical Marxism and the diverse strands of Western Marxism and critical theory. His work continues to be studied for its rigorous reconstruction of Marxism as a living, self-critical theory of social transformation, rooted in but not confined to the upheavals of the early 20th century.