Theuret, Patrick
On Aufhebung and Abschaffung in Karl Marx: “The false, non-Marxian idea of abolition”?
- 2024.
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The article begins by summarising the controversy over the translation of Aufhebung which, since the end of the 1990s, has pitted the author against Lucien Sève, who found in it the motive to reject the “false, non-Marxian idea of abolition” in favour of that of “overcoming”. After analysing Sève’s successive retractions, the article broadens the scope of the translational problem by examining Marx’s and Engels’ use of another term that unquestionably signifies abolition or suppression, Abschaffung, in order to conclude that the concept of abolition is indeed a key concept in Marxism, as in the social and revolutionary movement of its time.