The historical conjuncture in which theories are formed stamps them with their main characteristics. ‘Classical’ Marxism – initiated on Marx’s death by Engels and notably comprising Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg and Otto Bauer – emerged against the background of profound political and economic turbulence, which led to the First World War and the Russian Revolution. Conversely, so-called Western Marxism, of which Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci were the initiators, and to which Adorno, Sartre, Althusser, Marcuse and Della Volpe in particular belong, developed in a period of relative stability for capitalism. The themes broached by these authors, but also their theoretical ‘style’, clearly register the effects of this. Thus, although they all pertain to the Marxist tradition, a gulf separates Hilferding’s Finance Capital (1910) and Lenin’s State and Revolution (1917) from Adorno’s Minima Moralia (1951) and Sartre’s The Family Idiot (1971–72).