Spinoza & Marxism:
Selected Bibliography
(with Basic Spinoza Web Guide)

Compiled by Ralph Dumain

“Ignorantia non est argumentum” — Baruch Spinoza

“Omnis determinatio est negatio” — Baruch Spinoza

“Even in the case of philosophers who give systematic form to their work, Spinoza for instance, the true inner structure of the system is quite unlike the form in which it was consciously presented by him.” — Letter from Karl Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle, 31 May 1858

“In addition, a writer should distinguish between what an author really gives and what he gives only in his own imagination. This is true even of philosophical systems; thus, what Spinoza considered the cornerstone of his system and what actually constitutes that cornerstone are two entirely different things.” — Letter from Karl Marx to Maxim Kovalevsky, April 1879

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Books, Monographs, & Articles in Books

Akselrod (Ortodoks), L. I. Spinoza and Materialism, in Spinoza in Soviet Philosophy, selected and translated by George L. Kline (New York: Humanities Press, 1952, pp. 61-89. A translation of 'Spinoza i materializm,' Krasnaya nov, No. 7 (1925), pp. 144-68. Spinoza and Materialism, "Red Virgin Soil," 1925, No 7, pp. 144-168.

Althusser, Louis. Essays in Self-Criticism, translated by Grahame Lock. London: NLB [New Left Books]; Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1976.

Essays in this book contain the really substantial comments on Spinoza of all the books by Althusser available on the From Marx to Mao site, as well as Althusser's explanation of his use of Spinoza. Of the other books, first check out the remarks in part II of Reading Capital. There is also a passing mention of Spinoza in Letter to Merab Mamardachvili (January 16, 1978).

Balibar, Etienne. Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy Before and After Marx, translated by James Swenson. New York: Routledge, 1994. 1. Spinoza, the Anti-Orwell: The Fear of the Masses.

Balibar, Etienne. “Potentia Multitudinis, quae una veluti mente ducitur: Spinoza on the Body Politic,” in Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy, edited by Stephen H. Daniel (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005), pp. 70-99.

Balibar, Etienne. Spinoza and Politics, translated by Peter Snowdon. London; New York: Verso, 1998.

Balibar, Etienne. Spinoza: From Individuality to Transindividuality. Delft: Eburon, 1997. (Mededelingen ... vanwege het Spinozahuis; 71) 36 pp.

Balibar, Etienne. Spinoza, the Transindividual, translated by Mark G. E. Kelly, introduction by Jason Read. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, 2020.

Between Hegel and Spinoza: A Volume of Critical Essays, edited by Hasana Sharp & Jason E. Smith. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012.

Casarino, Cesare. "Marx before Spinoza: Notes Toward an Investigation," in ???, chapter 8, pp. 179-234.

Deborin, A. M. "Spinoza's World-View," in: Spinoza in Soviet Philosophy: A Series of Essays, selected and translated, and with an introduction by George L. Kline (London: Routledge and Paul, 1952), pp. 90-119. A translation of 'Mirovozzreniye Spinozy,' Vestnik kommunisticheskoi akademi, Bk. 20 (1927), pp. 5‑29.

Deleuze, Gilles. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, translated by Martin Joughin. New York: Zone Books, 1990.

Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza, Practical Philosophy, translated by Robert Hurley. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1988.

Goldmann, Lucien. Immanuel Kant. London: NLB, 1971.

Hardt, Michael. "Spinoza's Democracy: The Passions of Social Assemblages" in Marxism in the Postmodern Age, edited by Antonio Callari (Guilford: New York, 1994).

Howie, Gillian. Deleuze and Spinoza: Aura of Expressionism. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave, 2002. Table of contents. Publisher description.

Ilyenkov, E. V. Dialectical Logic, Essays on its History and Theory (1974), translated by H. Campbell Creighton. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977. 2: Spinoza—Thought as Attribute of Substance.

James, Susan. “Spinoza and Materialism,” in Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy, edited by Stephen H. Daniel (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005), pp. 100-113.

Kolakowski, Leszek. "On Spinoza," in Metaphysical Horror (Penguin, London 2001), p. 78-80.

Kolakowski, Leszek. The Two Eyes of Spinoza & Other Essays on Philosophers, translated by Agnieszka Kolakowska and others, edited by Zbigniew Janowski. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2004.

Kordela, A. Kiarina. $urplus: Spinoza, Lacan. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. Full text online. Also at at Scribd.

Lordon, Frederic. Willing Slaves of Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire. London; New York: Verso, 18 March 2014.

Lukács, Georg. The Destruction of Reason, translated by Peter Palmer. London: The Merlin Press, 1980. See esp. sections on Jacobi and Schelling for reactions to Spinoza.

Macherey, Pierre. Avec Spinoza: études sur la doctrine et l'histoire du spinozisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992.

Macherey, Pierre. “Between Pascal and Spinoza: The Vacuum,” in Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy, edited by Stephen H. Daniel (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005), pp. 58-69.

Macherey, Pierre. Hegel or Spinoza, translated by Susan M Ruddick. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Translation of Hegel ou Spinoza.

Macherey, Pierre. “Hegel Reads Spinoza” [From Hegel or Spinoza, University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming], translated by Susan M Ruddick, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2011, vol. 29, pp. 223-236.

Macherey, Pierre. Hegel ou Spinoza. Paris: Francois Maspero, 1979.

Macherey, Pierre. In a Materialist Way: Selected Essays, edited by Warren Montag; translated by Ted Stolze. London; New York: Verso, 1998.

Macherey, Pierre. "The Problem of the Attributes," translated by Ted Stolze; in The New Spinoza, ed. Warren Montag and Ted Stolze (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 64–94.

Marx, Karl. Cuaderno Spinoza, translated with notes by Nicolás González Varela. Editorial Montesinos, 2012. (In Spanish.)

May, Todd. “Deleuze's Spinoza: Thinker of Difference, or Deleuze Against the Valley Girls,” in Current Continental Theory and Modern Philosophy, edited by Stephen H. Daniel (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2005), pp. 114-126.

Montag, Warren. Bodies, Masses, Power: Spinoza and His Contemporaries. London; New York: Verso, 1999.

Montag, Warren; Stolze, Ted; eds. The New Spinoza. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. (Theory Out of Bounds; v. 11)

Nails, Debra. "Metaphysics at the Barricades: Spinoza and Race," in Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, edited by Andrew Valls (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 57-72. R. Dumain footnoted on p. 71, note 36.

Negri, Antonio. The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza’s Metaphysics and Politics, translated by Michael Hardt. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.

Negri, Antonio. Spinoza for Our Time: Politics and Postmodernity, translated by William McCuaig. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Negri, Antonio. Subversive Spinoza: (Un)contemporary Variations, edited by Timothy S. Murphy; translated by Timothy S. Murphy ... [et al.]. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2004.

Plekhanov, Georgii. Selected Philosophical Works, translated from Russian by Julius Katzer. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976.

Bernstein and Materialism (July 1898), Vol. II, pp. 325-339. Originally published in German in Neue Zeit, No.44, 30 July 1898. Republished in Russian in Critique of Our Critics, 1906.

On the Alleged Crisis in Marxism (1898), Vol. II, pp. 316-325. Summary of a lecture delivered by Plekanov in various towns in Switzerland and Italy during late spring & early summer 1898. Same text also located at leninist.biz.

Fundamental Problems of Marxism (1907), Vol. III, pp.117- 183. See chapter II.

Translator's Preface to the Second Edition of F. Engels' Ludwig Feuerback and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1905), Vol. III, pp. 64-83.

Cowardly Idealism (1910) Vol. III, pp. 424-454. See part VIII.

Preface to A. Deborin's Book: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism (1915), Vol. III, pp. 577-599. See part IX.

From Idealism to Materialism (1915), Vol. III, pp. 600-644. See part XII.

Spinoza in Soviet Philosophy: A Series of Essays, selected and translated, and with an introduction by George L. Kline. London: Routledge and Paul, 1952.

Contents:
Spinoza and Judaism, by D. Rakhmian.
Spinoza and materialism, by L.I. Akselrod (Ortodoks)
Spinoza’s world-view, by A.M. De´borin.
Spinoza’s substance and finite things, by V.K. Brushlinski.
Spinoza’s ethical world-view, by S.Y. Volfson.
Spinoza and the state, by I.P. Razumovski
The historical significance of Spinoza’s philosophy, by I.K. Luppol.

Varela, Nicolás González. Racismo y Filosofía: "Cierto negro brasileño leproso": Sobre un sueño de Spinoza. 2013, e-book.

Williams, Caroline. Spinoza and Political Critique: Thinking the Political in the Wake of Althusser. Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru / University of Wales Press, Caerdydd, August 2009.

Journal Articles, Essays & Other Short Pieces

Bakker, Jonathan Bushnell. "Deborin's Materialist Interpretation of Spinoza," Studies in East European Thought, Volume 24, Number 3, October, 1982, pp. 175-183.

Berlin, Isaiah. Review of George L. Kline, Spinoza in Soviet Philosophy, Oxford Magazine 71 (1952–3), pp. 232–233.

Bowring, Bill. "What if Ilyenkov Had Known Marx's Notes on Spinoza?" University of London, Birkbeck College - School of Law; May 23, 2012.

Cemal, Mustafa. Althusser's rejection of Dialectics via Spinoza.

Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza, Cours Vincennes - 24/01/1978, 25/11/1980, 09/12/1980, 12/12/1980, 21/12/1980, 13/01/1981, 20/01/1981, 17/02/1981, 10/03/1981, 24/03/1981.

Fourtounis, Giorgos. "On Althusser's Immanentist Structuralism: Reading Montag; Reading Althusser; Reading Spinoza," Rethinking Marxism, vol. 17, no. 1 (2005), pp. 101-118.

Holland, Eugene. "Spinoza and Marx," Cultural Logic, Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 1998.

Hull, Gordon. "Marx's Anomalous Reading of Spinoza," Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 28 (1), Fall 2000: 17-31.

Illuminati, Augusto. "Recent Italian Translations of Althusser's Texts on Aleatory Materialism," translated by Arianna Bove, borderlands, volume 4 number 2, 2005.

Klein, Julie R. "Etienne Balibar's Marxist Spinoza," Philosophy Today, 44 (Supp), 2000, pp. 41-50.

Lindsay, Jack. “Spinoza,” in Collected Poems, illustrated by Helen Lindsay (Lake Forest, IL: The Cheiron Press, 1981), pp. 223-227.

Maidansky, Andrey. "The Russian Spinozists," Studies in East European Thought, vol. 55, no. 3, September 2003, pp. 199-216. Alternate site.

Mandel, Ernest. “Spinoza, consequente verdediger van de burgerlijke vrijheid” [Spinoza, consistent defender of civil liberty], Tijdschrift voor de studie van de Verlichting (Themanummer: De politieke filosofie van Spinoza), 6de jaargang, 1978, nrs. 1-4, pp. 241-254.

Mediations: Journal of the Marxist Literary Group, vol. 25, no. 2, winter 2011: Marx or Spinoza. Several articles.

Morfino, Vittorio. "An Althusserian Lexicon," translated by Jason Smith, borderlands, volume 4 number 2, 2005.

Negri, Antonio. "On Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus," translated by Charles T. Wolfe, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Volume 18, Number 2, 1995. An earlier version of this essay appeared in Chimeres 17 (Paris, Fall 1992).

Negri, Antonio. "Spinoza's Anti-Modernity," translated by Charles T. Wolfe, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, Volume 18, Number 2, 1995. First appeared in Les Temps Modernes, 46: 539 (June 1991).

Oitinnen, Vesa. “Evald Il’enkov as an Intepreter of Spinoza,” Studies in East European Philosophy, vol. 57, nos. 3-4, September 2005, pp.319-338. [Special Issue: The Philosophy of Evald Il’enkov]

Read, Jason. "The Althusser Effect: Philosophy, History, and Temporality," borderlands e-journal, volume 4 number 2, 2005.

San Juan, Jr, E. “Spinoza, Marx, and the Terror of Racism,” Nature, Society, and Thought, vol. 16, no. 2, April 2003, pp. 193-230.

Schwartz, Joel. "Liberalism and the Jewish Connection: A Study of Spinoza and the Young Marx," Political Theory, vol. 13, no. 1 (1985), pp. 58-84.

Toscano, Alberto. The Politics of Spinozism: Composition and Communication. Paper presented at the Cultural Research Bureau of Iran, Tehran, January 4, 2005.

Unemployed Negativity (blog). Red Spinozism: Towards and Against a Spinozist Theory of Alienation. July 24, 2011. And several more entries on Spinoza on this blog.

Williams, Caroline; McInerney, David. "Althusser and the Persistence of the Subject: Caroline Williams speaks with David McInerney," borderlands, volume 4 number 2, 2005.

Zeilinger, Doris. Spinoza, the "Very Untranscendental": Ernst Blochs Interpretation of Spinoza.

Non-Marxist writings of interest

Borges, Jorge Luis. “Baruch Spinoza,” translated by Edna Aizenberg, in Borges and His Successors, edited by Edna Eizenberg (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990), pp. 276-284.

Poems

Bukharin, Nikolai. “Amor Dei Intellectualis (Baruch Spinoza),” in The Prison Poems of Nikolai Bukharin: Transformation of the World (Verse about the Ages, and about People), translated by George Shriver (Seagull Books, Calcutta India, 2009), pp. 216-217.

Audio files

Deleuze, Gilles. 04-Sur Spinoza (audio files, in French, 1980).

Artwork

“Spinoza sketch” by Pablo Picasso, for the cover of Introduction à l’histoire de la philosophie by Jean-Toussaint Desanti (Paris: La Nouvelle Critique, 1956).

Web pages & sites

Reading Spinoza (bilingual Russian-English site)

Russian translations of Spinoza’s works and studies of his philosophy, 1833-1994, bilingual: Russian – English from Studia Spinozana, vol. 12 (1996)

Unemployed Negativity (blog).  Several entries on Spinoza.

More Spinoza on this site

"Spinoza, the First Secular Jew?" by Yirmiyahu Yovel

Spinoza's Attributes by Constantin Brunner

Heinrich Heine on Spinoza and Our Lenses

Heinrich Heine on Leibniz & Spinoza

Quotes from Abelard and Heloise, or the Writer and the Human by Ludwig Feuerbach

Lectures on the Essence of Religion #1 (Part II) by Ludwig Feuerbach

Letter from Karl Marx to Maxim Kovalevsky, April 1879

“To Spinoza” by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Yirmiyahu Yovel

“Spinoza” by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Yirmiyahu Yovel

"Spinoza" poem by Jorge Luis Borges

"Baruch Spinoza" poem by Jorge Luis Borges

"Zu Spinozas Ethik" (On Spinoza's Ethics) — poem by Albert Einstein

"Spinoza" poem by Jack Lindsay

Participating in Goce Smilevski’s Conversation with Spinoza

John-Paul Sartre on Paul Nizan

Paul Nizan & Baruch Spinoza

Spinoza, La Filozofo de la Homa Feliĉo (in Esperanto: Spinoza, Philosopher of Human Happiness)

“La Ekskomuniko de Baruĥ de Spinoza” de Theun de Vries, elnederlandigis Henk Beijne (in Esperanto: Excommunication of Spinoza with text of the cherem, translated from Dutch)

“La Filozofo” de Albert Goodheir (in Esperanto: fictional account of Spinoza by his housekeeper)

Spinoza en Esperantujo (Spinoza in Esperanto)

Other texts on Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) on this site

Salomon Maimon’s Autobiography: On a Proposed Conversion to Christianity

Introduction to Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment by Raphael Mahler

Review: Michael Mack, German Idealism and the Jew by Ralph Dumain

Other texts on Spinoza on other sites

Baruch-Benedictus: From uprooted roots to root-independent ideas? by Marcelo Dascal

“Mark Twain and Spinoza: A Spinozistic Commentary on Mark Twain’s What is Man?” by Joseph B. Yesselman, (last rev. September 18, 2006)

Key Spinoza sites

Spinoza Bibliografie - Spinoza Gesellschaft e.V. (Spinoza Bibliography Online Project)

A Dedication to Spinoza's Insights - Joseph B. Yesselman's Home Page

The Jerusalem Spinoza Institute

Studia Spinoziana

Thumbshots Spinoza Web Guide

Baruch Spinoza Webliography

Spinoza Research Network

The Spinoza Study: The Works of Benedict de Spinoza, Translated by R.H.M. Elwes, A. Wolf (Short Treatise) and H.H. Britan (Metaphysical Thoughts) [hypertext]

(6/27/08, updated 7/28/09, 12/23/09, 3/27/10, 8/3/10, 8/22/10, 5/3/11, 7/22/11, 1/15/12, 1/28/12, 2/11/12, 9/20/12, 4/15/13, 7/11/13, 10/5/13, 10/17/13, 11/23/13, 5/28/14, 3/3/19, 3/28/20, 8/4/20, 2/12/21, 3/11/21 3/16/21, 6/5/22,5/27/23 )

Descartes & Marxism: Selected Bibliography

Leibniz & Ideology: Selected Bibliography

Popularizing Philosophers: A Selected Bibliography

Marx and Marxism Web Guide

Salvaging Soviet Philosophy (1)