Abstract
Far more interesting than the as yet stumbling East-West dialogue is the give and take between Soviet and non-Soviet Marxist philosophers. This exchange has been going on for some years: unfortunately, it seldom has been anything more than puerile polemic. With the publication of Sartre's Critique1 the situation has completely changed. This book is conceived as a total critique of Marxism-Leninism, accomplished through a 'penetra tion' to the real meaning of Marx. To the considerable extent that Sartre succeeds in this volume in re-presenting Marxian man and the Marxian view of society he issues a challenge to Marxist-Leninists, which they can ignore only at the peril of seeing the entirety of dialectical and historical materialism dismissed as so much bad commentary. The situation described in this article is significant not only for the status of Marxism-Leninism but also for an understanding of the point to which Sartre and a certain form of existentialism have progressed. We shall, therefore, begin with the almost impossible task of briefly outlining the content of Sartre's Critique. In a second section we shall extract the critiques he specifically directs toward Marxism-Leninism and attempt to see to what extent they are valid. Finally, we shall examine the responses which Sartre's work has evoked from the Soviets.
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