Moses Hess’ Socialist Thought

Wenyi Liu1

ABSTRACT Moses Hess’ socialist thought has been “ignored” for a long time. As a result, when people study the internal opportunities of Marxist socialist turn, it is found that there are deep “cracks” in it. In fact, Hess’ socialist thought has rich connotations and has gone through the four stages of theological, philosophical, economic and ethical socialism. It has not only opened the prelude to the spread of socialism in Germany, but also directly heralded the birth of Marx’s “scientific socialism”. Therefore, it is a valuable topic to explore the evolution of Hess’ socialist thought and its historical significance.

Keywords: Socialism, Alienation, Relationship.

INTRODUCTION Moses Hess’ socialist thought was formed and developed in this period from 1930s to 1940s. However, when people study the history of German or European Socialist Thought in the 19th century, it will be surprised to find that Hess is rarely known. When exploring the source of classical Marxist socialist thought, the academic circles often ascribe to the British and French utopian socialists, such as Saint Simon, Fourier and Owen. However, Hess plays an indispensable role in the socialist transformation of Marx. He not only deeply influenced Marx and Engels, but also was the only one who was on the same way to move forward with young Marx and Engels. The absence of Hess led people to find the deep “cracks” in the study of the inherent opportunity of Marxist socialist turn. Hiromatsu Wataru, Japanese scholar, believes that “the biggest reason why the past research did not fill in this crack is to ignore or underestimate the overwhelming influence of Moses Hess, a leading figure in the Rhine Newspaper on the Left Hegelians” [2]. Therefore, in order to grasp the “overall Marxist” and restore Hess’ position in the history of modern socialist thought, it is meaningful to make anattempt to study Moses Hess’ socialist thought and its historical significance.

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