Early Marx was no Marxist, and never even had to pronounce himself on the matter, for Marxism hadn't been invented yet. Late Marx was no Marxist, either, and said so himself, more than once. Lukewarm liberals and ex-radicals galore have genuflected endlessly on Marx's jocular disclaimer, in vain attempts to convince themselves and the gullible that the author of The Civil War in France wound up on the side of the faint-hearted . But when Marx declared '"I am no Marxist" he was certainly not renouncing his life's work or his revolutionary passion. He was rejecting the reification and caricature of his work by 'disciples" who preferred the study of scripture to the study of life, and mistook the quoting of chapter and verse and slogan for revolutionary theory and practice. Unlike these and legions of later "Marxists," Marx refused to evaluate a constantly changing reality by means of exegeses of his own writings. For him, the study of texts- and he was a voracious reader if ever there was one- was part of a process of self-clarification and selfcorrection, a testing of his views against the arguments and evidence of others, a broadening of perspectives through an ongoing and open confrontration with the new and unexpected . For Late Marx, the motto doubt everything was no joke. Or at least it was not only a joke.