Abstract

This article examines the theory of personality compatible with Marxism developed by the French Marxist philosopher Lucien Sève, examines his view of how a Marxist biography should be written and how actual biographies should be evaluated. The conclusion is that Marxist biography should be distinctive, and that Sève has presented a plausible sketch of what a Marxist biography should look like. But he has also laid down an incredibly difficult set of criteria for success in which even Marxists themselves fail to satisfy in their biographical writing, and perhaps unsurprisingly no one does, or perhaps could ever, fulfil all the criteria of such a biography, however potentially worthwhile the effort.