The Polemics Regarding the ‘Crisis of Marxism’ and the Formation of Jabotinsky’s Early Ideological Perceptions: 1898-1903

Abstract

One of the important events in the intellectual life of Europe during the later years of the nineteenth century was the polemics regarding the ‘Crisis of Marxism’. Marxist scholars and politicians had to contend with critics who held Neo-Kantian views. The Neo-Kantians aspired to revive the moral-transcendental conflicts of the free individual at the center of the political discourse, and to renounce the positivistic ethics that in their opinion was based on social utilitarianism. A third force entered the public arena at the time of the polemics. The non-conformists George Sorel and Benedetto Croce accepted the Neo-Kantian criticism of the Marxist system and offered a revision of their own. However, instead of the categories of reason, social contract, and natural rights applied by Neo-Kantian intellectuals, they turned to concepts such as impulse, instinct, and unconscious. Jabotinsky’s formative years as a young man were spent in one of the centers of the ongoing polemics, as a student at the University of Rome from 1898 to 1901. As I claim in the article, Jabotinsky’s early views were influenced by Croce and Sorel, and their circles were responsible, to some extent, for Jabotinsky’s adherence to a nationalist view. In order to characterize the formation of Jabotinsky’s political and aesthetic thinking, I focus on an analysis of the political and ideological milieu, the source for his basic assumptions on social issues, during his formative years as a student, journalist, and novice writer.