DO WESTERN MARXISTS DREAM OF A REVOLUTION TODAY?

There is a point of view according to which “Western Marxism” after the collapse of the USSR and the disappearance of the Communist regimes ceased to be a political project and concentrated instead on the study of culture. In this article, the author argues that this is a wrong perception. Many con-temporary Marxist philosophers do study culture a lot, but they continue to exert serious influence if not on political process, then at least on intellectual climate. In the 1990s certain authors changed their discourse concerning the USSR, but today many left philosophers who still stick to Marx’s ideas continue to talk about the necessity of revolution, besides they provide political criticism of contemporary culture of capi-talism and even try to rehabilitate Lenin as a political figure. Something in the discourse of Western Marxists has really changed: as a result of the decline of faith into the linearity of History, Marxists from now on talk about revolution in the context of utopia rather than in the context of progress.