Western Marxism is a body of various Marxist theoreticians based in Western and Central Europe, in contrast with philosophy in the Soviet Union. While György Lukács's History and Class Consciousness and Karl Korsch's Marxism and Philosophy, first published in 1923, are often seen as the works which inaugurated this current, the phrase itself was coined much later by Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Antonio Gramsci is also of great significance, though many of his writings were not translated into English until comparatively late. Western Marxists have commonly (but not exclusively) worked as professional academics; philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, literary critics, and so on.
Read more about Western Marxism: Distinctive Elements, Political Commitments, Western Marxists
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“It’s a queer sensation, this secret belief that one stands on the brink of the world’s greatest catastrophe. For it means the fall of Western Europe, as it fell in the fourth century. It recurs to me every November, and culminates every December. I have to get over it as I can, and hide, for fear of being sent to an asylum.”
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