The unity and one-ness of Marxist ideology have, for over half a century, been the subject of bitter revisionist attacks. And this is not surprising. Objectively, revisionism seeks to inculcate bourgeois ideology in the communist and working class movement in the guise of “perfecting” and “supplementing” Marxism. In this sense revisionism can be described as ideological piracy: capitalist ideology dressed up in a pseudo- Marxist toga tries by deception to penetrate the minds of the working people in the same way as the pirates lulled the vigilance of their victims by flying false flags from their masts. Since Marxism is a harmonious and consistent teaching, the revisionists, in order to distort it, seek imaginary contradictions between its component parts and demagogically counterpose one to another, suggesting to “delete” here, to “add” there. But each time it appears that it is the fundamental principles of Marxism that are deleted, the principles that constitute its revolutionary essence, while the “adding is but an excerpt from bourgeois ideology.
It will be no exaggeration to say that all the revisionist attacks on Marxism in the guise of its alleged incompatibility with science, draw their arguments from the Mannheim concept. That is why a Marxist critique of the “sociology of knowledge is valid and timely also in relation to the revisionist myth about “liberating” science from ideology.
The counterposing of science to ideology is comprehensively “substantiated” in a long article by the Yugoslav philosopher M. Markovic, headed “Science and Ideology” (cf. Nasa stvarnost, Nos. 7-8, 1959). The author starts by saying that up till now “the concepts science’ and ‘ideology’ have lacked clarity.” If we are to believe this author, neither Marx, Engels, Lenin nor any other Marxist had the slightest idea of the relationship between science and ideology. Apparently, it has been left to Markovic to bring clarity into the matter. It hardly needs saying that Markovic’s “positive contribution does not go beyond sheer banality. Setting science against ideology he sees the difference between them in that “science establishes and explains what has been, what is and what will be”, whereas “ideology expresses what should be, what is desirable in the interests of the working class.” This formulation, as well as the subsequent reasoning coincide almost word for word, with the views of the Austrian Social Democrat Karl Czernetz. Markovic goes on to say that Marxism, far from
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