THE CRISIS OF MARXISM Karl Korsch 1 Marxism today is in the midst of an historical and theoretical crisis. It is not simply a crisis within the Marxist movement , but a crisis of Marxism itself . This crisis reveals itself externally in the complete collapse of the dominant position - partially illusory, but also partially real - that Marxism held during the pre-World War I era in the European working class movement. It reveals itself internally in the transformation of Marxist theory and practice, a transformation which is most immediately apparent in Marxists' altered position vis-à-vis their own national state as well as with respect to the bourgeois system of national states as a whole. It is deceptive and even false to see the theoretical origins of the present crisis as resulting either from a perversion or an oversimplification of Marx's and Engels' revolutionary theory at the hands of their successors. It is equally misleading to juxtapose this deg...