Before the Schism: Revisiting György Lukács's �Plebeian Democracy� in a Global Perspective

This paper discusses György Lukács' ideas of a new type of ("plebeian") democracy (1945-1947). It suggests that Lukács postwar political ideas need to be contextualized by showing their relation to other "new democracy" ideas of the 1930s and 1940s suggesting to expand democratic citizenship with an ambitious element of social rights. It also emphasizes that "plebeian democracy" was a third-road vision ("neither capitalism, nor communism"), expressing Lukács' desire to offer and embark, in East Central Europe, on a path of development other than Soviet type state socialism with violent oppression exercised by the "dictatorship of the proletariat".