Maximilien Rubel
Encyclopedia
Maximilien Rubel was a famous Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 historian. He was educated in law and philosophy in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 and Chernivtsi before moving to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 to take German studies at the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

, from which he received his Licence-dès-lettres
Licentiate
Licentiate is the title of a person who holds an academic degree called a licence. The term may derive from the Latin licentia docendi, meaning permission to teach. The term may also derive from the Latin licentia ad practicandum, which signified someone who held a certificate of competence to...

 in 1934. He became a French citizen in 1937, and shortly after began publishing the literary magazine Verbe-Cahiers humains, before being drafted into the French Army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...

. Due to his Jewish origins, Rubel lived semi-secretly in Paris under the German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 occupation of France
Military history of France during World War II
The military history of France during World War II covers the period from 1939 until 1940, which witnessed French military participation under the French Third Republic , and the period from 1940 until 1945, which was marked by mainland and overseas military administration and influence struggles...

.

In his encounters with Marxist members of the resistance movement
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...

 in this milieu Rubel was reputedly astonished by the incoherence and confusion that surrounded Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

 and so-called "scientific" socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

. In difficult circumstances Rubel then set to work to gain a thorough understanding of Marx's life and work. It was Rubel who originally coined the term "marxologie" to refer to a systematic scholarly approach to the understanding of Marx and Marxism, which he saw as quite distinct.

After the war, Rubel continued with his research, first publishing on Marx in 1946, and receiving a Doctorat-ès-lettres
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...

 from the Sorbonne in 1954. He joined the Centre d'études sociologiques in the Centre national de la recherche scientifique
Centre national de la recherche scientifique
The National Center of Scientific Research is the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe....

 in 1947, and retired as Maître de recherche honoraire in 1970. Rubel published widely on Marx - more than 80 titles - and had a very active academic career which cannot be detailed here. He combined controversial readings of Marx with rigorous scholarship, and was frequently polemical in his criticisms of the ideologies of "Marxism", which he often contrasted with a view of working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 liberation that emphasised the "self-movement" of the working class above all else.

Selected works

  • Marx, Life and Works (New York: Macmillan
    Macmillan Publishers
    Macmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others.-History:...

    , 1980)
  • Non-market Socialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: Macmillan, 1987) edited with John Crump
  • Marx Without Myth: A Chronological Study of his Life and Work (New York: Harper & Row, 1975) written with Margaret Manale


External links

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