reading Lukacs "history and class consciousness"

One of the points he makes often in the 1967 preface is the problem that he had early on of having two contradictory strains of thought which he believed and of how to reconcile these--particularly with regard to the division between theory and praxis, that is, he believed something as a theorist, but in his praxis, he could see gaping holes or clear paradoxes that existed. While I sympathize with this--and have a first hand experience with it working in the SOC--I also find myself feeling this way about his theory itself.

Much of what he says about the totality and the method of marxist knowledge production is familiar to me and the way he elucidates it is striking in its clarity and logic. However, underlying all of this is a deep belief that he has in the coming revolution--no doubt inspired by the events of 1917 which were fresh on his mind in the early 20s when he wrote this. Much of what he says here sounds a bit ridiculous in its teleology. I will try to find a good example, but for now let me just present my own paradoxical position: I find the description he gives of a method important. it seems to be a clear predecessor to the position of cultural studies and I can see ways in which it also foretells althusser and the regulationist economists. On the other hand, it seems to be informed or underpinned by this firm belief in the coming upheaval and seems to largely overlook the ideological power of capitalism as a sort of elysian field that draws people to it even as it exploits and alienates them. The promise of capital has been far more powerful a force on people's consciousnesses than history--or any particular understanding of history--has been thus far. Perhaps he is saying more than this, but at this stage I feel like there is this contradiction I am trying to resolve: if this method is based on the assunption that the knowledge produced by the "ruthless criticism of everything existing" qua the totality is both linked to an a causal force in a form of social revolution that seems doomed to fail because it can't form a bulwark against a capitalist world without becoming ruthlessly capitalist itself. In other words, if this theory is rooted in this practice, can I consider one viable even as I think the other somewhat laughable in the form he presents it? This will be the question I seek to answer as I move onward in this text.