The First New Letf’s And The Canonical Marxism’s Concept Of Class Struggle: Inheritance And Transcendence

As a result of Nikita Khrushchev’s Secret Speech denouncing Joseph Stalin andthe Soviet invasion of Hungary in1956, many Marxists abandoned the CommunistParty of Great Britain and began to rethink its orthodox Marxism. Ralph Miliband,Edward Thompson and Raymond Williams rank among those most directlyassociated with the emergence of the British New Left after1956. As with EdwardThompson in the field of social history, or Raymond Williams in cultural studies,Ralph Miliband takes the lead in political studies. These Marxists seek to build aBritish tradition of Marxist theory.This paper tries to study the first New Left and the canonical Marxism fromtheir different concept of class struggle. Through this comparative study, this authorcomes to the conclusion that the New Left’s class struggle is the active expression ofpressure of forces and tendencies which push the country in new directions. The ideathat class struggle is of decisive importance in determining the nature and form ofthe state is a familiar part of canonical Marxism, and so too is the view that thepurpose of the state’s autonomy is the better to protect and serve the existing socialorder and the dominant class which is the main beneficiary of that social order. Adominant class is truly hegemonic in economic, social, political and cultural terms. Itis worth noting that the capitalist class has very seldom enjoyed anything like fullhegemony in economic, social, political and cultural terms. This has long been anissue that the first New Left have endeavored to study. This human-oriented spiritdirectly influences the tradition of cultural studies. Through this study, it emerges abrand new approach to Marxism with British characteristics. Could this theoryconstruction give any possibility of inspiring the Chinese mode of class struggle?...