In the comparatively short time since the publication in the early Sixties of the essays making up the collection entitled Pour Marx Althusser's fame as a Marxist philosopher has spread far and wide. Although he has refused to be labeled a structuralist, more often than not his name is mentioned along with those of L?vi-Strauss, Lacan, and Foucault. Within the orbit of Marxist phi losophy Althusser has earned for himself a reputation as an unflinching opponent of Hegelian, historicist and humanist interpretations of Marx and Marxism. To his ardent followers he is the one philosopher who remains true to, and seeks to uncover and develop, 'orthodox' Marxism. To his equally ardent opponents Althusser is just short of a dogmatic Stalinist, who cloaks his tirades with a maze of terminological obscurantism while urging others to demonstrate an equally high level of supposed rigor. To this last group Althusser stands guilty at least of advocating a reactionary, positivist Marxism, if not of committing all conceivable errors of pre-Kantian philosophy. To the former group, however, he stands in the best of that tradition ranging from the Marx of Capital to the Lenin of State and Revolution and Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Undoubtedly Althusser's influence within France, and in particular within French Marxist circles, is tremendous. Regardless of whether one is sympathe tic to his ideas Althusser has drawn renewed attention to the mature Marx, a period of Marx's life which in recent years was almost entirely forgotten by philosophers in favor of the early Marx. Althusser's inspiration, moreover, lies behind many of the already numerous recent French Marxist philosoph ical tracts. Surprisingly, Althusser has earned also for himself a notable follow ing in English-speaking countries, particularly among British and Australian New Left circles. Without a doubt those hostile to Althusser's thinking see this as yet another example of the Anglo-Saxon affinity for positivism. Given this widespread reception of Althusser's work it is not so remarkable, then, that we can find even in the Soviet Union today a cautious recognition and critique of his ideas. Although they pay deferential respect to a loyal Communist and Marxist
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