Yugoslavia – The Praxis Group (1964-1975)
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Yugoslavia’s Special Path – The Break with Stalin (1948)
Yugoslavia under Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) was the only socialist state to successfully break away from Moscow. In 1948, the split came: Stalin wanted to control Yugoslavia, Tito refused. Stalin excommunicated Yugoslavia from the Eastern Bloc, threatened invasion.[1]
But Tito survived – militarily strong enough, politically skillful enough, internationally supported (by the West!). Yugoslavia became non-aligned – neither Eastern Bloc nor Western Bloc, but a “third way.”
The philosophical consequence: Yugoslavia could experiment – ideologically, economically, culturally. The result: the Praxis Group, the most productive Marxist school of philosophy of the 1960s and 70s.
The Emergence – The Journal Praxis (1964)
In 1964, Yugoslav philosophers founded the journal Praxis – with the subtitle “Philosophical Journal.” The editors: Gajo Petrović (Zagreb), Mihailo Marković (Belgrade), Rudi Supek, Predrag Vranicki, and others.[2]
The journal appeared in Serbo-Croatian – but with summaries in English, German, French, and Russian. This was strategic: they wanted to be internationally visible, not only nationally.
In parallel there was an international edition: Praxis International (from 1965) – entirely in English, with contributions from Western philosophers (Habermas, Marcuse, Fromm, Goldmann).
The Korčula Summer School (1963-1974)
Even more important than the journal was the Korčula Summer School – annual conferences on the island of Korčula (Adriatic coast, Croatia). Here met:
- Eastern European Marxists (Yugoslavs, but also Czechs like Kosík, Poles, Hungarians)
- Western European Marxists (Habermas, Marcuse, Lefebvre, Goldmann, Axelos)
- Critical theorists from the West
This was unique: nowhere else could East and West discuss so freely. Not official cultural diplomacy (as with the Hegel Congresses, see Chapter 10.4), but open dialogue – critical, controversial, productive.[3]
The topics: alienation, praxis, self-management, technology, ecology, gender theory – far beyond traditional Marxism.
The Philosophical Position – Humanist Marxism
The Praxis Group represented a “humanist Marxism” – against Soviet dia-mat, against Althusser’s anti-humanism.
1. Praxis as the Center
The key concept: praxis. Not “base and superstructure” (economic determinism), but praxis – human action, labor, creation, self-transformation.
This is Marx’s early writings (the Theses on Feuerbach, the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts): “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” (Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach)
The Praxis Group emphasized: human beings are not passive (determined by structures), but active – they shape history, transform conditions, create the new.
2. The Relation to Hegel
The Praxis Group read Hegel as a philosopher of praxis. Especially the Phenomenology – the master-slave dialectic: the slave becomes self-consciousness through labor. Not theory liberates, but praxis.
Gajo Petrović (1927-1993) wrote: “Hegel’s dialectic is not only logic, but ontology of praxis. Being is not static, but becoming – and becoming is praxis.”[4]
This is closer to Bloch, Lukács, and Kojève than to Althusser. Not structure without subject, but subject in praxis.
3. Critique of “Actually Existing Socialism”
The Praxis Group criticized Yugoslavia itself – and this was dangerous. They said:
- Self-management (workers manage enterprises) is good – but only formally. In fact: bureaucracy, party control, no real co-determination.
- The state remains repressive – secret police (UDBA), censorship, political prisoners.
- The ideology stiffens – even in Yugoslavia, Marxism becomes dogma, not living praxis.
The consequence: socialism must be reformed – from within, through critique, through democratization.
The Suppression (1975) – The End of the Praxis Group
Tito tolerated the Praxis Group for a long time – as a showpiece (“See, we have free discussion!”). But when the critique became too sharp, he intervened.
1975: Eight philosophers of the Praxis Group were dismissed from the University of Belgrade – officially “suspended,” in fact a professional ban. Among them: Mihailo Marković, Svetozar Stojanović, Ljubomir Tadić.[5]
The journal Praxis was discontinued in 1975 – not a direct ban, but pressure (no printer would print it any longer, no distributor would distribute it).
The Korčula Summer School was broken off in 1974 – the last conference still took place, but under police surveillance, with intimidation. After that: no further conferences.
The suspended professors could no longer teach, but they continued to receive their salaries (!) – an odd compromise solution. They were allowed to do research and publish (abroad), but not to appear at the university.
Some went into exile (Marković later to the United States), others remained in Yugoslavia – marginalized, but not imprisoned.
The International Impact
Despite the suppression, the Praxis Group had enormous impact:
1. On the New Left: The idea of self-management, of participatory democracy, of praxis – this shaped discussions in the 1970s and 80s.
2. On Habermas: Habermas took part in the Korčula conferences, discussed with Petrović and Marković. His Theory of Communicative Action (1981) is in part a dialogue with the Praxis Group – praxis becomes communicative praxis.
3. On post-Yugoslav philosophy: After 1991 (the breakup of Yugoslavia), some Praxis philosophers were rehabilitated – they had been right in their critique. But it came too late.
Systematic Significance
The Praxis Group shows: Marxism can be self-critical – if one does not dogmatize it. Hegel teaches: self-critique is the condition of truth. A system that does not criticize itself stiffens.
Yugoslavia proved: even a more “liberal” socialism (compared to the Soviet Union) cannot tolerate fundamental critique. If the legitimacy of the system is called into question, it reacts repressively – even without a Gulag.
The lesson: without the institutionalization of critique, there is no self-correction. A system needs forums (like Praxis, like Korčula) where critique is permitted. If it abolishes them, it accumulates errors – until collapse (Yugoslavia in 1991).
On the Tito-Stalin split: Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo: Struggle for the Balkans, London: Merlin Press, 1990. ↩︎
On the Praxis group: Mihailo Marković/Robert S. Cohen (eds.): Yugoslavia: The Rise and Fall of Socialist Humanism, Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1975; Gerson S. Sher: Praxis: Marxist Criticism and Dissent in Socialist Yugoslavia, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977. ↩︎
On the Korčula Summer School: Marković/Cohen: Yugoslavia, pp. 143–168; as well as personal accounts from participants such as Habermas. ↩︎
Gajo Petrović: “Marx’s Concept of Man and Marxist Humanism,” in: Praxis 1 (1965), pp. 7–22. ↩︎
On the suppression: Marković/Cohen: Yugoslavia, pp. 205–228; as well as Sher: Praxis, pp. 243–267. ↩︎