Mapping Western Marxism: On Zhang Yi-bing’s Deep Plough of Texts

Professor Zhang Yi-bing has made special contributions in the field of studies of Marxism abroad. He not only made many case studies of Western Marxism, but also put forward a new framework for the research of this field. His basic point is that Western Marxist tradition had ended in 1968 after the publication of Negative Dialectics because the principles of authentic Marxism and the critique of capitalism had been abandoned. From then on, Marxism in western world was divided into three trends: post-Marxism, postmodern Marxism and Neo-Marxism. Although this view is illuminating, it is partial to some degree. This article will argue that, according to the change of theoretical logic and social reality, the historical process of Western Marxism can be divided into four types: modernist Marxism, postmodernist Marxism, Marxism of modernity and Marxism of postmodernity. Here the division is based on the problem of whether Western Marxists are still insisting on the relevance of Marxian dialectic of modernity, instead of the principle of authentic Marxism, the critique of capitalism, or the categories of identity and totality.