In a study written in 1957 Habermas drew up a sketchy typology of the main trends in Marxism at that time.¹ In the postwar period Marxism was either one scholarly subject among many, or the official ideology of various communist parties. A change, however, could be discerned and Habermas described it with sympathy at a distance: out of the womb of party Marxism, "humanist" and "critical" tendencies were born, as a sign of the pluralisation and individualisation of the doctrine which may help to reintroduce it into the realm of public discourse.