A Philosophy of Labour: Comparing A. V. Lunacharskij and S. Brzozowski

At the end of 1907 within a couple of months Lunacarskij met both Gor’kij and Brzozowski in Italy and found many important points of contact with each. To compare Lunacarskij’s thought at that time with Brzozowski’s ‘‘philosophical program’’ of 1907 casts some new light on the great variety of interpretations that enlivened Easter European Marxism at the beginning of the twentieth century. On the one hand, it explains Lunacarskij’s ‘‘economism’’ as distinct both from Brzozowski’s extreme anthropologism and Gor’kij’s ‘‘cosmism’’; on the other, it shows that Lunacarskij’s ‘‘philosophy of labour’’ promoted a violent attitude of conquest and humankind’s domination of nature. Although he criticized Brzozowski’s sympathies with German Idealism, Lunacarskij shared with him a deep appreciation of human creative power, which is evident in his peculiar form of collectivism as well.