This book by Andrzej Walicki, a Polish liberal who's written much on the history of modern(ist) philosophy, consists of six parts. The first is about Marx, the second about Engels, the third about what he dubs "Necessitarian Marxism", the fourth on Leninism, the fifth on totalitarianism (Stalinism mostly), and the sixth on anti-Stalinism. The book is very thorough and rather dense and plodding at times, slightly in the style of Charles Taylor with its endless text exegesis and its slow and careful discussion of terminology. Nevertheless, it absolutely fails at its primary purpose, understood as a refutation of Marxist philosophy.

The first part, about Marx, is mostly an explanation of Marx' conception of liberty and its alleged consequences for the way Marxists perceive human individuality and the like. Walicki's expounding of Marx' view of liberty is quite good, but all his critiques fail utterly. Often he simply totally misreads texts, and many of his complaints are no more than "that's not individualist!" or the usual liberal expounding of negative liberties as the only real ones. Walicki seems to think Marx means to destroy individuality altogether to make man a species-being again, which just shows his lack of understanding of the subject: a species-being is always an individual being, but exists as such in, and by grace of, a collective, namely humanity as a whole: the two aspects of man need NOT be contradictory, but are made so by certain social relations! This view is so alien to Walicki's thought that though he grapples with the problem for a hundred pages, he never arrives at it.

The second part is a discussion of the differences, or lack thereof, between Marx' Marxism and Engels' Marxism. He makes much of Lukács early opinions on the subject, which were very critical of Engels, apparently ignoring Lukács' later withdrawal of these views (though of course one should be free to ignore such things, as one may be right at first and wrong later, I admit). Added to this is Brzozowski's old complaint against Engels, often repeated, that he "reifies" the processes of history too much. I do not agree with these views, but Walicki's explanation of them is fair enough, and Walicki pays (to my pleasant surprise) proper attention to the ways in which Engels explained the Marxist perception of society which Marx himself did not address as thoroughly, such as the position of non-productive labour, the role of freedom vs. necessity, and the communist future. He still makes entirely too much out of minor differences in style and approach between Marx and Engels, though.

The third part of the book discusses Kautsky, Plekhanov and Luxemburg. These articles, like the one on Lenin which forms part four, are largely biographical and add little new content. The "necessitarian Marxists" are so called by Walicki because according to him they all share the emphasis on historical necessity as a cornerstone of Marxist thought that later informed Lenin and his successors. Walicki portrays them largely as one-sided Marxists, whose views paved the way for the later totalitarian excesses of Leninism and Stalinism. Of course his main argument against their views is that they leave no room for his liberal conception of freedom, i.e. freedom from restraint, which seems to be the real foundation of Walicki's problems with and arguments against ALL Marxism in theory.
Despite this, his discussion of Plekhanovs polemics against Belinskiy and Mikhailovsky (who is often quoted with assent by Walicki) is informative for all. His treatment of Luxemburg, on the other side, is positively contemptuous, and is appalling reading.

The fourth and fifth parts are mainly used to establish Walicki's theory that Leninism and Stalinism are both totalitarian in nature, but two different kinds of Marxist totalitarianism. Lenin seems to be viewed by Walicki with some awe, and oddly most of the totalitarian aspects of his reign are reduced to certain character flaws in Lenin himself as explanation. Typical, in a certain sense, for liberal critics like Walicki not to use any kind of materialist explanation of such matters which might be more convincing. Walicki's critique of Leninism as an improper and one-sided understanding of the Marxist critique of parliamentarism is much better, and seems at certain points to hit home. However, his reliance on comparisons with the Russian "Narodniki" is a little odd considering Lenin's disdain for that group during all his life.
The article also goes into some depth discussing Bukharin and his contributions to Leninism, and Walicki views Bukharin as the most consistent defender of Lenin's own approach after Lenin's death, which I agree with (but he does not very well defend).

The fifth article on "totalitarianism" (mostly referring to Stalinism but not entirely) is good but flawed. Walicki rightly points out the vanguard party and Lenin's scientism make a potentially very dangerous combination for any practical policy, which is almost guaranteed to lead to certain excessively drastic measures. His discussion of Stalinism as a "popular religion" version of Marxism is quite excellent, and goes into many of the more subtle issues of Stalin's view of the world. The main problem is that it is little factual and because of this emphasis on theoretical issues tends to overstate Stalin's commitment to Marxism. Nevertheless, in my view this is the most useful part of the book.

The sixth chapter is "dismantling Stalinism". Walicki makes a strawman here out of historian Moshe Lewin's views on the development of Soviet society, in order to portray him as representative for Marxists who are (allegedly) by force of the circumstances of the USSR's collapse forced to accept the impossibility of doing without markets. This is of course gibberish in all its forms, and certainly not a good representation of Lewin. Most of the rest of this chapter continues down this Hayekian track, blaming the destruction of the Soviet socialism on the fundamental flaw in Marxism that it is so strongly opposed to markets and market liberty. Nothing in this chapter is of any value whatever, and it can be much better read in Hayek's own "The Road to Serfdom", which is shorter and more to the point.

All in all, Walicki's book is of some middling use as an overview of the various views on Marxism of various leading Marxists. It is in particular useful as a (negative) discussion of Marxism through the lens of the 'freedom vs. necessity' debate. However, as a critique of Marxism itself it absolutely fails on all points, and its extremely dense and plodding style make it hard reading. It is additionally entirely too long and rehashes old arguments from Berlin, Hayek, Kolakowski etc. way too much for it to be seen as a real contribution to the debate on Marxism. Not recommended. ( )