Self-Criticism by Georg Lukacs (1920)
Written: 1920.
First Published: August 12, 1920 in the Hungarian communist periodical Proletár, No7, p. 13-14.
Translated: from German by J. E. Morain [”Selbstkritik,” Revolution und Gegenrevolution: Politische Aufsätze II trs. Janos Györkös, et al. (Darmstadt und Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1976), 42–46.].
Source: Margin Notes, Vol. 2, p. 45.
Transcribed: by Zakaria Chodrishvili;
Copyright: © 2026. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons “Attribution 4.0 International” license
Self-criticism is without a doubt a paramount duty of every revolutionary and every revolutionary party. In self-criticism, however, the method of Marxism may not be disregarded, and so [it must be understood that] everything that happened in the past is a manifestation of history and, as such, necessary. Insofar as we criticize it, we must return to the real grounds of the events and criticize these. This criticism can only be self-criticism. For if we claim that we acted falsely, then we find the ground in ourselves (in our own person, in the condition of the party and the class), and we endeavor to alter this ground so that we act rightly in the future—under different circumstances. The true question of self-criticism is therefore: where were the roots of failure; and not: what would we have had to do then. This latter way of posing the question carries the risk that I blame others instead of myself, that I declare, on account of present experiences that I have only lived through as a result of failure, what I would have done then—no worthwhile lesson for the perspective of future practice results from this declaration. (Because the claim that I was “more clever,” “more perspicuous,” etc. than the others, that I merely failed to bring my wisdom into currency, carries no worthwhile lesson either.)
I have therefore written down these little remarks to serve as the introduction to a self-criticism. I understand self-criticism literally: I take my article, which I published in “Documents of Unity” immediately after the unification,[1] to be a characteristic symptom of the uncorrected stance that dominated amongst us Hungarian communists with regard to the revolutionary role of the party, such that one can thus throw some light on the facts of the unification [by examining it]. The particular claims of the article are not important. What is important is that an article could be written and appear as official opinion (and even without any serious opposition being expressed), which wanted to conclude the victory of the proletarian revolution without a party, instead opting for expansion beyond the bounds of the party. I repeat: if it were merely the case that I had written an incorrect, bad article, then it would not be worth expending a word on the topic. However the appearance of the article, the fact that it came up against no objection, etc. are interesting symptoms of the situation of March 21st [1919], and, setting out from these symptoms, it will be profitable to deal with the matter itself.
In my opinion, the question is not whether or not the Communist Party acted correctly when it seized power (this is what Comrade [Paul] Levi, the intellectual father of the “loyal opposition,” asks in the Berlin Internationale[2]). That was unavoidable. Question: did they act correctly when they gave up their organizational independence and merged with the Socialist (shortly thereafter, Socialist-Communist) Party?
Before anything, we must answer this question with a declaration. In the moment of unification there was, organizationally, no communist party. There were many workers agitated for communism ( = won over through agitation), those who sympathized and acted with it. But these [workers] were only organized in the Communist Party to a very limited extent. This had many internal and external reasons, above all else the brevity of the time. The Communist Party was formed in the middle of November. Work in the first months consisted of agitation and the relatively expansive propagation of communist doctrine. (Even the most biased critics will corroborate that a great deal occurred in this area.) In the first half of February, the movement arrived at the stage where serious organizational work could begin. Then came the demonstration at the Nepszava office[3] and the arrest of Béla Kun, and organizational work became stuck. This was, however, only for a short time. Already in the first half of March organizing was powerfully underway, but time was again short: After hardly three weeks the question of seizing power became current; to organize a party inside of three weeks is an impossibility. Thus, the fact is that there was really no organized communist party on March 21st. There were individual organizations, groups, members, etc., but a functionally capable organized party there was not. (With regard to the former situation of the movement it is very telling that those members who joined the party in March were mostly completely new; most of the members who joined the party in February left it, and in their place it gained new ones—an indication that the communist movement was still hardly consolidated then.)
However, we cannot remain stuck at this fact. Not only was there no party, but the party and its leadership were also not really conscious of how indispensable the party is for the conduct of a revolution. Many, including myself, believed that we could fulfill this function with the organs of the proletarian state. This error was not exclusively an error of the Hungarian communists. Anyone who examines the whole world-revolutionary movement (the split in the German party,[4] the theses of the Amsterdam Bureau [of the Comintern.],[5] the movement of the American workers, the IWW) sees this conception everywhere, though in many variations: the belief that the party organization is in essence a child of bourgeois society, which the proletarian class struggle must replace with new, specifically proletarian organizations (workers councils, factory councils, industrial unions, etc.). The underestimation of the revolutionary role of the party stems from this: the only form of party that the non-Russian workers knew from immediate experience was the corrupt and compromise-happy party of social democracy. It is understandable that the organ that emerged in opposition to it seemed like a rejection of the party-form itself. All the more because the newly formed communist parties, amongst ourselves and in other countries, did not organizationally distinguish themselves from the old parties in a fundamental way so that the organizational difference (and thus the change in function) could be visible to everyone. Because one can only form a closed party that is genuinely a mass party and not a sect in the advanced stage of revolution. As long as the revolution has not reached this [point], fluctuation between two equally one-sided extremes is inevitable. That is one part [of the matter]: that the communist party did not organizationally distinguish itself from the old workers parties sharply enough. The other is that the revolutionary section of the communist workers did not see the revolutionary significance of organizing in the party with sufficient clarity. The German Communist Party finds itself in this crisis today. The Hungarian communists had not yet arrived at this crisis when they stood at the precipice of seizing power. That the unification provoked general dissatisfaction in the circle of communists is still not proof that they had really and clearly perceived the question and its significance. On the contrary. In the discussions held around this question the theories of both Lenin and Erwin Szabó[6] were tolerated peacefully, and so it is wholly obvious that they had not yet arrived at posing the question. (I must admit that this criticism is not principally directed at myself.)
Already in the final phase of the dictatorship an awareness of this developed. Then an attempt was made to reorganize the party in a communist fashion. There was no time for this, and so the establishment of the Hungarian party, like the Russian, first became possible after a failed revolution. How the Western parties will resolve this question we do not know.
Fortunately—and the fall of the Hungarian dictatorship also contributed to this—they see the question clearly, [even] if they also cannot resolve it in the present phase of revolution. The revolution must already be very advanced, should a closed mass party be established; it must have already gone beyond the stage of mere agitation and propaganda—which can hardly be achieved in the West before the victorious revolution. This is the greatest crisis of the revolution at present. The crisis first showed itself in the Hungarian dictatorship. Today it has been recognized across the world, even if no solution has been found.
[1] [Translator’s note:] Of the Communist Party and the Social-Democratic Party
[2] [Translator’s note:] Lukács’s reference to the “loyal opposition” refers to Paul Levi’s attempt to organize a united opposition that included the centrist social-democrats and trade unions.
[3] [Translator’s note:] Nepszava was the paper of the Hungarian Social Democrats.
[4] [Translator’s note:] Presumably referring to the split between the KPD and the KAPD.
[5] [Translator’s note:] The Amsterdam Bureau was dominated by left-wing communists, leading to its dissolution in May 1920.
[6] [Translator’s note:] A leading Hungarian social democrat.