The Frankfurt School publicly declared its philosophy incompatible with Soviet doctrine.

Evidence

Experience of journalism occasions us to declare formally that our philosophy, as a dialectical critique of the general social tendency of the age, stands in the sharpest possible contradiction to the policies and doctrine emerging from the Soviet Union … Fears that an unambiguous rejection of the policy followed by the Russian regime and its satellites might be to the advantage of international reaction have lost any justification in a situation in which the glorifiers of the state, for whom `cosmopolitanism’ is the worst term of abuse, have succeeded in making a shameful truth out of the petit-bourgeois cliché that fascism and communism are identical. We reject as strongly as possible any interpretation of our work as being an apology for Russia, and we believe that the potential for a better society is more faithfully preserved where the existing one is allowed to be analysed than where the idea of a better society has been corrupted in order to defend the bad one that exists. Any reprints of our works in the Eastern zone are published without our authorization. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1739

Categorization

• DEFINE: The passage states the school’s self-definition: a ‘dialectical critique of the general social tendency of the age’ that ‘stands in the sharpest possible contradiction’ to Soviet policy.
• XREF: connects to: The Frankfurt School critiqued both Stalinism and Western capitalism in equal measure — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 685; The Frankfurt School rejected the totalitarianism-versus-pluralism dichotomy as a false polarity — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 755

Broader Connections

• The Frankfurt School critiqued both Stalinism and Western capitalism in equal measure #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 685
• The Frankfurt School rejected the totalitarianism-versus-pluralism dichotomy as a false polarity #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 755