Two Roads to Freedom: A Comparison of Arendt’s and Marx’s Views on Revolution

Both Arendt and Marx paid great attention to revolution and tried to realize human freedom through revolution. However, there were obvious differences in their understanding of the essence of human freedom, which led to different revolutionary theory constructions and revolutionary strategy schemes. Arendt believed that freedom of action is the real way of being of human beings. Based on the difference between freedom and liberation, she established the revolutionary aim of building a country with freedom and went to the road of “the return of the real political life”. In Marx’s view, the essence of human beings lies in free and conscious labor, so he closely linked together freedom and liberation, established the revolutionary purpose with the free and comprehensive development of human beings as the goal, and went to the road of “reform of production relations”. Arendt’s revolutionary discourse always stayed at the level of political philosophy, while Marx went deep into political economy to explore the internal mechanism of revolution, and his revolutionary theory was more profound and realistic. Arendt, to some extent, put her thought within a theoretical framework that invited comparison with Marx’s thought while criticizing Marx’s revolutionary thought. Comparing Arendt’s view on revolution with that of Marx and clarifying Arendt’s misreading of Marx’s revolutionary thought are of great theoretical and practical significance for the correct understanding of Marx’s revolutionary theory.