Left theoretical history: relic of a bygone university

It was a showdown of sorts. In the cold winter of February 1966, there was a debate in the SDS “Formed Society” working group about the forms of action of the still young student movement. Shortly before, at the first Vietnam demonstration in West Berlin, their “anti-authoritarian” wing had crossed rhetorical boundaries and directly called for a revolution of the oppressed. The editor of the “Argument”, Wolfgang Fritz Haug, condemned this tactic of escalation because it burned individuals for the quick effect. He chose confrontation.

In addition to Rudi Dutschke, the SDS working group was led by Götz Schmidt and Hans-Joachim Hameister, who maintained connections to the Argument Club, the magazine’s supporting organization. “The argument” threatened to be drawn into the path of the anti-authoritarians. The dispute ended with the club breaking up. Too many members, including the long-time “Argument” editors Bernhard Blanke and Reimut Reiche, sympathized with the bold new left-wing radicalism that soon set the tone in the SDS. However, Haug himself held on to the magazine and secured control over it. The course of the “Argument” did not become actionist, but rather its slogan soon became “Science as Politics.” The new look revealed whose legacy the journal wanted to inherit: “The Argument” looked like a copy of the legendary “Journal for Social Research,” the central organ of the exiled critical theory of the 1930s.

Despite the big shoes to fill, “The Argument,” like its model, developed into a lodestar of Marxist theoretical debates in Germany. For many years the magazine met the zeitgeist with this program and reached a broader intellectual masses with first editions of almost 25,000 issues, especially during the 1970s. Recently, however, Wolfgang Fritz Haug stated in an “nd” interview that “‘The Argument’ is on offer” and promoted new talent in the editorial team. From 2025, this will be taken over by the philosopher and sociologist Lukas Meisner, who recently joined the editorial team. Nevertheless, things are likely to be difficult for the magazine in the future – and that has to do with the fact that “The Argument” was and remained, in a double sense, the generational project that it became recognizable as in the spring of 1966.

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Marxist theory freaks

The conflict described over the forms of action reveals a lot about “The Argument” and its position in the internal dynamics of the New Left. Of course, everyone involved was “somehow” part of the New Left, were Marxist theory freaks, and they all envisioned fundamental, often revolutionary, changes to Western post-war societies. They were all young – but many anti-authoritarians were younger. Shortly before his 30th birthday, Wolfgang Fritz Haug was around four to five years older than his competitors. In the cosmos of the academic New Left, these few years of age difference meant the duration of a course of study and thus an entire generation. Here, not only well-read and cleverly argued intellectuals, “58ers” and “68ers,” as it is often said, but also students and academic assistants, each with their own specific interests, faced each other.

In the literal sense, “The Argument” is a generational project of its editorial duo. To this day, Wolfgang Fritz and Frigga Haug, 88 and 86 years old, hold the reins of the magazine firmly in their hands. Both shaped the course of the magazine with determination and often bordering on authoritarian. Many of those familiar with the magazine’s long history will recognize a core problem with the journal in the demand for “guts” that Haug called for from the next generation in the aforementioned interview. After all, who could satisfy the critical requirements of their inner circle? Who could withstand the harsh judgments and demanding work ethic? And above all: who wants or can do that today?

This brings us to the second dimension of the generational project. “The Argument” flourished for decades as exactly the journal it had developed into in 1966: as an organ of the critical academic middle class. But it has changed so much under the various university reforms of the past 25 years that the magazine no longer suits it. The journal no longer “runs” on academic career paths that are blocked and precarious due to fixed-term contracts, under pressure to acquire so-called third-party funding and to produce peer review articles. »The Argument« consistently refused to follow fashions and new requirements. It remained a journal of Marxist scholarship at a still high level. But today’s young academics, who could ensure the journal’s survival, have to write in other, often English-language, journals under the pressure of scientific parameters. “The argument” is not an isolated case here. Many left-wing and politically committed magazine projects face similar challenges, but few manage to adapt to the new requirements.

Forum of Academic Marxism

65 years after the “Argument” was founded, conditions are tough for the magazine. A review of all the topics of this intellectual mass, its theoretical innovations, clever arguments and political controversies would go beyond the scope of this article. For many years, “The Argument” was not only important, it was a central reference point for a progressive and young intellectual awakening. The German New Left developed its arguments not least in this magazine, which was originally designed as an international project, but only “The Argument” survived.

The magazine and its associates covered every field and every topic that was important to the loose international of the New Left. It started as a leaflet by student opponents of nuclear weapons. The Algerian War was also quickly taken up and developed its own impetus, which quickly enabled bridges from the collapse of the French colonial empire to the Vietnam War and via anti-colonialism to the analysis of imperialism. At the same time, analyzes of Nazism as theories of fascism were initiated. Work was carried out on instruments that would be able to identify fascist dangers in good time. Not every turn of the debates back then will resonate today. But in view of the AfD, Milei or Trump as symptoms of a global slide to the right, this attitude of “argument” no longer seems controversial, but rather bitterly necessary.

Parallel to these debates, the journal and its environment first appropriated critical theory and through it Marxist theorizing. “The Argument” became a forum for an academic Marxism that had never existed at German universities before the 1960s. This Marxist foundation remained and permeated all further projects in and around the magazine. It extended into Frigga Haug’s opening up to feminism from the late 1970s onwards, the emerging ecological discussions and the always rich oeuvre of cultural analyses. Despite all this, keen eyes were kept on the intellectual environment: the extensive reviews section of the magazine became a showpiece.

Left-wing projects, especially clearly Marxist ones, could easily get caught up in political whirlpools during the Cold War and drown in ideological suspicion. “The Argument” sought proximity to the DKP and its West Berlin branch, the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin (SEW). However, the paper did not merge with state socialism, but promoted discussions about Western Marxism and tried to make southern European Eurocommunism popular in West Germany as well. Gorbachev’s perestroika was warmly welcomed during the 1980s, and after the fall of the Iron Curtain, pluralistic Marxist traditions that had emerged in previous years took center stage.

More and more mammoth projects

These debates gave rise to the intensive debate with Antonio Gramsci, which soon went beyond the scope of the magazine. The fact that there is now a translation of his prison notebooks into German is due to the “Argument” and the affiliated publisher, which published the edition from 1991. Only a short time later, “The Argument” and its surroundings dedicated themselves to a truly mammoth project. What began as translations of the French Dictionary of Marxism grew into the HKWM, the “Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism.” The 15-volume glossary of terms recently published the ninth half-volume, “Compassion to Nazism.” To this day, its editorial team, which includes a core of long-time companions of the magazine as well as many younger up-and-comers, meets in the spring at Wannsee to debate the next volumes with countless lemmas.

It is this project that Wolfgang Fritz and Frigga Haug want to devote their energy to from now on. This comes at the expense of their commitment to the magazine. If “The Argument” were actually to leave, a product of the West German post-war boom would also disappear, which was both a result and a co-creator of the university expansion from the 1960s onwards. Over six and a half decades, the magazine has made the most of “its” historical moment. Not only recognizing these times, but also sensing and sustainably using the opportunities that arise from them is, as they say, the real competence of real intellectuals.

David Bebnowski is a historian and social scientist. He works at the Americas Institute at LMU Munich in the ERC project “The Arts of Autonomy” on a history of feminist pressure in Germany and the USA. His book “Struggles with Marx” was published in 2021. New Left and academic Marxism in the magazines ‘Das Argument’ and ‘Prokla’ 1959–1976″, Wallstein, 534 pp., hardcover, €46.

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