Robert William Goodrich, "The Political Selection of Ideology [a review of: Richard Weikart, Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein, International Scholars Publications, Bethesda, Md. 1998]" (2001)

H-NET BOOK REVIEW, published by H-Ideas (March, 2001); http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-german&month=0103&week=d&msg=YN6k/gk8ZOdzqXT1WUcMuA&user=&pw=

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
> Published by H-Ideas (March, 2001) 
> Richard Weikart. Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein. Bethesda, Md: International Scholars Publications,
> 1998. x + 257 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 1-57308-290-8.
> Reviewed by Robert William Goodrich, Department of Philosophy, Religion,
> and History, Augustana College. 
> The Political Selection of Ideology 
> In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx and Charles Darwin unleashed a torrent of scientific and social controversy that has yet to recede fully. Both
> men's theories challenged the political, social, scientific, and moral ordering of society. Yet, neither man could control his legacy. Darwin's
> ideas were bastardized and popularly misunderstood as Social Darwinism, while the ever-sensitive Marx was so distraught over the corruption of his
> ideas that he once commented that he was not a Marxist. Indeed, their fates were intertwined in more ways than one, for social theorists looked to
> science for legitimacy. Socialist theoreticians in particular prided themselves on their broad reading and scientific methodology.
> Exploring just one overlap of scientific and social theory, Richard Weikart
> presents a rich intellectual history of prominent German socialist theorists' reception of Darwinism in the nineteenth century. With each
> chapter organized around an individual theoretician, Weikart's work wades through an impressive array of primary source material including published
> books, articles, speech manuscripts, and some previously unknown correspondences to reveal a heterogeneous, inconsistent, and dynamic
> relationship between German socialists and contemporary science. Indeed, Weikart's main thesis claims, "The German socialists' reception of
> evolutionary theory illustrates the mutual interpretation of scientific and social thought" and "Social theory dictated the extent to which Darwinism
> was accepted in socialist circles" (pp. 2-3). 
> First and foremost, Weikart sets out to explore the "interconnectedness of scientific and social thought" (p. 223), specifically the impact of
> Darwinism on socialist revisionism. Weikart asks, did the gradualist evolution in Darwin's theory of nature inform an evolutionary view of
> socialism in opposition to a revolutionary theory? Alongside this central theme, Weikart includes a chapter on "The Role of Biologists" and engages
> in brief forays into Darwinism's effect on socialism's view of eugenics, race, and religion, all of which provide tantalizing introductions into the
> breadth of evolutionary and Social Darwinistic thought at all levels of socialist theory -- a phenomenon many prefer to relegate to the German Right.
> By the phrase "socialist Darwinism," Weikart consciously distances the
> integration of Darwinism into socialist thought from the more widely used Social Darwinism. And here is one of Weikart's consistently illuminated
> arguments -- that leading socialists did not accept the direct application of Darwinism to society; rather, based on the uniqueness of man, they
> separated Darwin's natural theory from socialist social theory. Indeed, the inability to reconcile the two led many leaders to embrace non-Darwinian
> evolutionary theories. For this argument, Weikart presents a complex constellation of ideologies: Marxist (Marx, Engels, Bebel, Bernstein, and a
> mature Kautsky) and non-Marxist (Lange, Buechner, Dodel, the young Kautsky) socialism; Darwinian and non-Darwinian (especially Tremaux and Lamarck)
> evolutionary theory; and non-socialist proponents and opponents of various strands of evolutionary theory. In this confusing intellectual maelstrom,
> it is not surprising, as Weikart reveals, that Marxists, including Marx, proved inconsistent.
> Weikart avoids the temptation of a theoretical teleology that culminated in
> the abandonment of revolutionary principles first in the war crisis of 1914 and later in the Bad Godesberg Program of 1959. Instead, Weikart reveals
> the "ambiguous relationship" (p. 221) of German socialism to Darwinism. The inconsistent and even contradictory approach to the increasingly popular
> and popularized theories of natural selection appears on every page. The rich correspondence between intellectual and political leaders exposes the
> tension and uncertainty towards Darwinism that lay beneath the common perception of a homogeneously positive reception by socialists.
> The men (and there are only men) whose ideas fill the pages are all
> well-known to any historian of the nineteenth century: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Friedrich Albert Lange, Ludwig Buechner, August Bebel, Karl
> Kautsky, and Eduard Bernstein. And one might initially be inclined to think that Weikart travels a well-worn path. Weikart's strength, however, is to
> bring new sources and a problematized perspective. Yet he never dares to venture beyond the viewpoints of these giants. While the study is about
> reception, Weikart includes only the lofty peaks of the socialist movements. Admittedly, he defines his subject as the "leading theorists and
> propagandists" (p. 8), but even here, he has excluded important socialists such as Lassalle with the justification that Darwinism was not
> "particularly significant in their thought" (p. 8). 
> Yet Lassalle was more widely read by rank-and-file socialists than either Marx or Engels. Does this not make his disinterest in Darwin of interest?
> Also, where, as in Chapter V, "August Bebel's Popularization of Evolution," the promise of a broader perspective emerges, this use of "popularization"
> is understood as elite propaganda rather than popular reception. At no point do the rank and file Social Democrats, the Free Trade Unionists, the
> members of ancillary organizations, or the broader circles of non-joining sympathizers and family members enter the discussion. Bebel's goal may
> clearly have been to inculcate a harmonious synthesis of a non-Darwinian evolutionary theory with Marxism, but the reader ultimately has no sense of
> the success of this effort. 
> This is disappointing. German socialism was a mass movement with multiple potentialities and counter-currents expressed by those who identified to
> varying degrees with socialism and often understood Marxism and Darwinism in heterodox ways. The role of Darwin's Descent on Kautsky's conversion to
> materialism and ultimately socialism found similar parallels among everyday workers, many of whom never made the transformation to Kautsky's orthodox
> Marxism. Indeed, Alfred Kelly, who provides the foreword to the book, has shown in his collection of working-class autobiographies that socialist
> workers eagerly read evolutionary theory but often espoused Social Darwinist ideas without sensing any contradiction with the Marxist Erfurt
> Program. 
> At times, Weikart's exclusive focus on elites leads to paradoxical conclusions. For example, Weikart convincingly displays that Bebel and
> post-Marx leaders of the SPD drew upon practical experience and multiple ideological sources rather than Darwin to inform their increasingly
> evolutionary approach to social revolution. But he dismisses the influence of evolutionary theory as "making no inroads" into their ideas (p. 151).
> Here, the distance of Weikart's study from popular reception blurs the negotiated (dare I say dialectical) relationship between theoreticians and
> their socialintellectual context. While Weikart clearly situates Marx and
> nineteenth-century biologists as products of their time, deeply infused with prevailing attitudes, he would have the reader minimize this same
> contextual structuring inside socialist circles a few decades later. 
> In the end, however, Weikart provides a methodically written, cogently argued, and impressively documented intellectual history. He shatters two
> dominant myths: that Marxists applied Darwinism directly to social theory and that "the introduction of evolutionary biological ideas into socialist
> theory in the late nineteenth century stripped Marxism of its revolutionary edge by replacing dialectical materialism and praxis with mechanical
> materialism, and by fostering gradualism" (p. 149). While this reviewer would have enjoyed an expanded discussion of the ultimate significance of
> this topic by including the reception and thus broader significance of these ideas among regular Germans, both socialist and non-socialist, as an
> intellectual history Socialist Darwinism brings a freshly problematized analysis to an important chapter of socialist and indeed social
> intellectual history. 
> 
> 
> 
> Library of Congress call number: HX273 .W514 1998 Subjects:
> Socialism--Germany--History Socialists--Germany
> Social Darwinism--Germany Evolution (Biology)--Philosophy
> Citation: Robert William Goodrich . "Review of Richard Weikart, Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein,"
> H-Ideas, H-Net Reviews, March, 2001. URL: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=4475985369635.
> 
> 
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