From Engels to Western “Marxism”: The Eclipse of Dialectical Materialism
Giannetto Edoardo (Nanni) Marcenaro
Abstract
This essay examines the long-term theoretical and political consequences of what Giannetto Edoardo Nanni Marcenaro identifies as the systematic mutilation of Marxist thought within the Western philosophical tradition. Central to his argument is the claim that “Western Marxism” — emerging from academic, liberal, and anti-communist currents — has obscured or rejected dialectical materialism, severed Marx from Engels, and erased the revolutionary foundations that Marxism–Leninism establishes through the unity of theory and practice. The essay analyzes how this intellectual revisionism has contributed to the ideological disarmament of the Western working class and to the entrenchment of ultra-liberal capitalist systems. Marcenaro criticizes the philosophical presuppositions that underlie Western Marxism: its rejection of dialectical materialism, its reliance on dogmatic oppositions, and its substitution of abstract categories for the concrete contradictory dynamics of phenomena. He revisits the Marxian labor theory of value to expose both its enduring insights and its conceptual limits, arguing that the “special property” of labor power must be understood dialectically — through the unity of value and use-value — rather than through the metaphysical assumptions inherited from Western dogmatism. To develop this point, the essay draws on Aristotle’s dialectical method, Lenin’s discussions of empirical analysis, and the epistemological traditions of Eastern philosophy, which Marcenaro situates as historically more compatible with dialectical materialism than their Western counterparts. The essay concludes with a call for rigorous self-criticism within the communist movement. For Marcenaro, the recovery of dialectical materialism is not merely a theoretical task but a political necessity: without it, communist organizations remain vulnerable to liberal ideological capture, epistemological confusion, and strategic paralysis. Restoring dialectical materialism as the foundation of Marxism–Leninism is therefore essential for rebuilding a revolutionary capacity adequate to contemporary global conditions.
Keywords
dialectical materialism, Western Marxism, Marxism–Leninism, labor theory of value, dogmatism, Aristotle, Lenin, epistemology, Eastern and Western philosophy, political economy, revisionism, Giannetto Edoardo Nanni Marcenaro
