the two world wars and the ongoing Cold War as mere effects of
and reactions to the universalisation of what he termed the
“universal homogenous state”. He wrote: “What has happened
since then has been nothing but an extension in the space of the
universal revolutionary force actualised in France by
Robespierre-Napoleon.” That end state is one in which humans
are free from discrimination based on distinctions of class,
gender, status or ethnicity. It is, to use his terminology,
“universal and homogenous”.
Kojève believed that Left Hegelianism culminated in the Soviet Union, with its official doctrine of post-
nationalism and equality. Meanwhile, the free capitalist United States represented Right Hegelianism
Kojève is clear on one crucial element by the 1940s: the age of “historical men” fighting for the progression
of history is over. We are living in the end times. In the world of ideas, the universal truth is discovered. In
practice, humans should become free and equal. In a letter to Strauss defending his theory, Kojève explains
that the end state is the synthesis of Nietzsche and Hegel’s master and slave dialectic, the “worker’s
struggle becomes the struggler’s work” and the age of universal military service, ushered in by Napoleon,
makes everyone into a “civil servant”. The dialectic of master and slave culminates with the slave’s
emancipation and the master’s loss of his superior status: the state becomes simply one of citizens.
The end state for Kojève represents the fusion of two potential universal homogenous states with Hegelian
characteristics. The original two strands of Hegel’s thought from his immediate students, conservative
“Right” Hegelianism and critical “Left” or “Young” Hegelianism, are neatly embodied in these penultimate
states. Writing in the 1940s, Kojève believed that Left Hegelianism culminated in the Soviet Union, with its
official doctrine of post-nationalism and equality. Meanwhile, the free capitalist United States represented
Right Hegelianism. It was, hence, a synthesis of socialism and capitalism that would end history. Kojève
suggests, remarkably and tongue-in-cheek, in his Introduction to the Reading of Hegel that “it might even be
said that, from a certain point of view, the United States has already reached the final stage of Marxist
‘communism’, since all the members of a ‘classless society’ can, for all practical purposes, acquire whatever
they please, without having to work for it any more than they are inclined to do.” Yet this synthesis of
socialism and liberalism, according to Kojève, would be found principally in the “common-marketisation” of
the world. “In the first case it will be spoken about in ‘Russian’, and in the second case – ‘European’,” he
predicted, for the vanguard of this common-marketisation was the fledgling European Community project,
now known as the European Union.
Marx similarly used the Hegelian dialectic and the notion of directional history to theorise that an
enlightened, egalitarian society would arise from the contradictions of inequality stemming from class
exploitation and unequal ownership of property
In his recently unearthed letters, Kojève explains that post-historical humans will lose a part of their
humanity. Free from ideological conflict or ambition, they would become “non-humans”. He clarifies:
“Non-human can mean animal, or better automaton, as well as god.” Automata can attain “satisfaction”
through “purposeless activity” like art, sport and sex. They can also rebel against the system, either