Minqi Li

Minqi Li teaches economics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

The 2007 assessment report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that it is virtually certain that human activities (mainly through the use of fossil fuels and land development) have been responsible for the global warming that has taken place since the industrial revolution. Under current economic and social trends, the world is on a path to unprecedented ecological catastrophes.1 As the IPCC report was being released, new evidence emerged suggesting that climate change is taking place at a much faster pace and the potential consequences are likely to be far more dreadful than is suggested by the IPCC report.

The current evidence suggests that the Arctic Ocean could become ice free in summertime possibly as soon as 2013, about one century ahead of what is predicted by the IPCC models. With the complete melting of the Arctic summer sea ice, the disintegration of the Greenland ice sheets may become unavoidable, threatening to raise the sea level by five meters or more within this century. About half of the world’s fifty largest cities are at risk and hundreds of millions of people will become environmental refugees.2

The world is currently about 0.8˚C warmer than in pre-industrial times and is within one degree of the highest average global temperature over the past one million years. The world is warming at a rate of 0.2˚C per decade and given the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, there will be a further long-term warming of 0.6˚C. Moreover, now with the likely loss of Arctic summer sea ice, the Arctic Ocean will absorb rather than reflect back solar radiation, which may lead to an additional warming of 0.3˚C. Taking into account these developments, the world may be already almost committed to a 2˚C warming relative to pre-industrial times, widely considered to be a critical threshold in climate change.3

A 2˚C warming is likely to result in widespread drought and desertification in Africa, Australia, southern Europe, and the western United States; major glacial losses in Asia and South America; large-scale polar ice sheet disintegration; and the extinction of 15–40 percent of plant and animal species. Worse, with 2˚C warming, substantial climate feedbacks, such as dangerous ocean acidification, significant tundra loss and methane release, and disruption of soil and ocean carbon cycles, will be initiated, taking the course of climate change beyond human control.

According to James Lovelock, one of the world’s leading earth system scientists, if the global average temperature rise approaches 3˚C (relative to pre-industrial times) and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) rises above 500 parts per million (ppm), both the world’s oceans and the rainforests will turn into net emitters of greenhouse gases. In that event, the global average temperature could rise further by up to 6˚C, making the greater part of the earth uninhabitable for human beings, raising the sea level by at least 25 meters, and causing the extinction of 90 percent of species and a possible reduction of the world population by 80 percent.4

James Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world’s leading climate scientists, argued that to avoid a devastating rise in sea levels associated with the irreversible ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica, as well as massive species extinction, the world should aim to limit further global warming to no more than 1˚C (or 1.8˚F) relative to 2000. According to the existing IPCC models, this implies an atmospheric concentration of CO2 no more than 450 ppm. However, in a recent study, Hansen argued that the IPCC models failed to take into account various potential climate feedbacks. Paleoclimate evidence suggests that “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization has developed and to which life on earth is adapted,” atmospheric concentration of CO2 must be reduced to about 350 ppm. The world’s current CO2 concentration is 387 ppm and growing at a rate of 2 ppm a year.5

It is quite obvious that the very survival of humanity and human civilization is at stake. Given the gravity of the situation, many people (including some who claim to have the socialist political perspective) put their hope on an ecological reform of the global capitalist system, insisting that such a reform is within the technological and institutional feasibilities of the existing social system. The urgent and unavoidable political questions are: is it at all possible for the existing social system—the system of global capitalism, in all of its conceivable forms—effectively to address the crisis of global climate change and avoid the most catastrophic consequences? If not, what would be the minimum requirements for an alternative social system that will have the institutional capacity to prevent the crisis or, if the crisis cannot be prevented, to help human civilization to survive the crisis? These are the questions that anyone who is seriously concerned with the global ecological crisis will have to confront one way or the other.

Stabilizing the Climate: Technical Options

To prevent or alleviate further global warming, greenhouse gas emissions from human activities (especially the CO2 emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels) will have to be greatly reduced. The emissions of CO2 in turn depend on the emissions intensity of energy consumption (“Emissions Per Unit of Energy Consumption”), the energy intensity of economic output (“energy consumption per unit of output”), and the level of economic output (typically measured as GDP.) Thus, CO2 emissions = economic output ´ energy consumption per unit of output ´ emissions per unit of energy consumption.

Capitalism is an economic system based on the pursuit of profit and capital accumulation. Individual capitalists, corporations, and nation-states engage in constant and intense competition against one another in the capitalist world market. To survive and prevail in the competition, and driven by the desire for greater profits (or more rapid economic growth), individual capitalists, corporations, and nation-states are all pressured and motivated to expand production and accumulate capital on increasingly larger scales. Thus, under capitalism, economic output normally tends to grow, except in periods of economic crisis.

On paper, if energy intensity falls rapidly to offset economic growth, then the level of energy consumption does not have to grow. However, all economic activities inevitably involve certain physical or chemical transformations and must consume some energy (this is true not only for the material production sectors but also for the so-called services sectors). There is a physical limit to how much energy intensity can fall given any economic activity.

Given the way that capitalist markets operate, any decline of energy intensity tends to make energy products cheaper, as short-term demand for energy falls relative to supply. Cheaper energy products, however, encourage people to consume more energy in the long run. Thus, falling energy intensity (i.e., rising energy efficiency) is simply translated into more rapid capital accumulation (economic growth) and rarely leads to absolute declines in energy consumption.6

In reality, capitalist economic growth is usually accompanied by rising energy consumption. Since 1973, despite relatively sluggish world economic growth, world energy consumption has been growing at 2 percent a year. At this rate, world energy consumption will increase by 130 percent between now and 2050. Given these trends, the emissions intensity of world energy consumption will have to be cut drastically or the scale of economic output will have to decline markedly if there is to be any hope of reducing CO2 emissions to an appropriate level.

Fossil fuels account for about three-quarters of the primary energy consumed in electricity generation. To reduce CO2 emissions from electricity generation, there are three technical possibilities: carbon capture and storage; nuclear electricity; and electricity generation from renewables (such as geothermal, wind, solar, tides, waves, and ocean currents).

Emissions from power plants using fossil fuels can be reduced if the carbon emitted in the process of electricity generation can be captured and then stored underground without being released into the atmosphere. Carbon capture and storage is likely substantially to increase the capital cost of electricity generation and reduce energy efficiency (as the process of capturing and storing carbon requires energy). There may not be enough good, leak-proof sites to store very large amounts of carbon. The technology remains unproven, and cannot be applied to existing power stations. This means that, at best, it will take decades before carbon capture and storage is applied to a substantial portion of the world’s power plants.7

Nuclear electricity has very serious environmental and safety problems. It produces massive amounts of radioactive wastes. It uses uranium, which is a nonrenewable mineral resource. The German Energy Watch Group points out that the world’s proven and possible reserves of uranium would be able to support the current level of demand for uranium for at most seventy years and the world could face uranium supply shortages after about 2020. Moreover, given the long lead time to plan and construct nuclear reactors, it will be difficult to replace the half of existing nuclear power plants that will retire in the coming one to two decades.8

Electricity generation from renewables is not an environmental panacea. The equipment and buildings required for “renewable” electricity need to be built by the industrial sector using fossil fuels and nonrenewable mineral resources. Relative to conventional electricity, electricity generated from renewables remains expensive. Wind and solar—the two most important renewable energy sources—are variable and intermittent, and, therefore, cannot serve as the “base-load” electricity, requiring substantial conventional electricity capacity as backup.9

With the exception of biomass, renewables can only be used to generate electricity.10 Electricity generation accounts for less than 40 percent of the world’s total primary energy supply and only 20 percent of the total final consumption. About one-third of the primary consumption of fossil fuels is used for electricity consumption, but two-thirds are used as liquid, gaseous, and solid fuels in transport, industrial, agricultural, services, and residential sectors.

Out of the total final consumption of fossil fuels, about 40 percent is used in the transport sector, 24 percent in the industrial sector, 23 percent in the agricultural, services, and residential sectors, and 13 percent is used as raw materials for chemical industries. Electricity obviously cannot replace fossil fuels as chemical industrial inputs. In addition, it would be very difficult or impossible for electricity to replace fossil fuels in their uses in sea and air transportation, freight transportation on roads, high-temperature industrial processes, and the powering of heavy equipment in industrial, construction, and agricultural sectors. While it might be technically feasible to replace the gasoline-fueled passenger cars with electric cars (and passenger cars might be the crux of modern capitalist consumer culture), the technology remains immature and it could take decades before the electric car dominates the market.

Moreover, as currently about three-quarters of the primary energy used in electricity generation derives from fossil fuels and about three units of coal are required to generate one unit of electricity, an electrification of transport, industry, and other sectors would tend to increase rather than decrease CO2 emissions. For the purpose of climate stabilization, electrification of these sectors would not make much sense unless the bulk of the electricity generation has been “de-carbonized” (that is, the conventional fossil-fuels generated electricity replaced with carbon-captured, nuclear, and renewable electricity).

Even if all of the economic and technical difficulties discussed above were to be overcome, it is likely to take decades before the world’s electricity generation is largely transformed, and it could take several more decades to electrify much of the world’s industrial and transportation infrastructure. By then global ecological catastrophes would be all but inevitable.

Biomass is the only renewable energy source that can be used to make liquid and gaseous fuels.11 However, limited by the available productive land and fresh water, biomass cannot provide more than a small fraction of the world’s demand for liquid and gaseous fuels. Worse, recent studies reveal that taking into account emissions in land development and soil erosion, fuels made from biomass actually emit more greenhouse gases than conventional petroleum.12

Climate Change and the Limits to Growth

According to the IPCC report, to limit global warming to 2–2.4˚C (relative to the pre-industrial temperature), it is necessary to stabilize the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)—taking into account the total effects of CO2 and other greenhouse gases—in the atmosphere at 445–490 ppm. This would in turn require that global CO2 emissions peak between 2000 and 2015, and fall by 50–85 percent from the 2000 levels by 2050.

Global CO2 emissions have been growing at about 3 percent a year since 2000. If the current trend continues, by 2010 global emissions would be 34 percent greater than the 2000 levels. It follows that to stabilize the CO2e at 445–490 ppm, global emissions need to fall by 63–89 percent from the 2010 levels.

Can these emissions reduction targets be accomplished under the system of global capitalism, with its constant tendency towards accumulation of capital and economic growth? Table 1 presents several alternative scenarios of emissions reduction and economic growth that are consistent with a 63 percent reduction of emissions (which would allow for stabilizing CO2e in the atmosphere at 490 ppm), assuming global emissions peak in 2010 and decline thereafter. In other words, the intent is to point to some possible combinations of changes in energy intensity, emissions intensity, and economic growth that would meet the target of stabilizing CO2e levels at 490 ppm. These scenarios, while hypothetical and based on optimistic assumptions, highlight the dramatic changes necessary to stabilize CO2 levels. They help to illustrate that no sensible goals of climate stabilization can be accomplished under conditions of endless economic growth and capital accumulation.

As is discussed above, in many areas it is technically very difficult or impossible to replace direct consumption of fossil fuels with electricity. Nevertheless, in all scenarios, it is assumed that 50 percent of the fossil fuels final consumption will be electrified by 2050. Moreover, despite various limitations to carbon-captured, nuclear, and renewable electricity, in different scenarios, it is optimistically assumed that 50, 75, or 100 percent of the electricity generation currently using fossil fuels will be de-carbonized by 2050 (corresponding to average declines in emissions intensity of 1, 1.7, or 2.7 percent a year respectively). Energy intensity is assumed to fall by 33, 45, or 55 percent by 2050 (corresponding to average decline of 1, 1.5, and 2 percent a year respectively). With a 33 percent reduction of energy intensity, the world average would approach the average level of “energy efficiency” seen in “advanced” capitalist countries today. With a 45 or 55 percent reduction, the world average would be comparable to the “energy efficiency” levels of Western European countries today.13

The observed levels of “energy efficiency” in the advanced capitalist countries result not only from some advanced technologies, but also from the massive relocation of energy-intensive industries to the global periphery. This raises the question whether these “efficiency” levels can ever be accomplished by peripheral countries, making the assumptions of global improvements in efficiency of this magnitude highly optimistic. It is also important to recognize that the three factors assessed in these scenarios—emissions intensity, energy intensity, and economic growth—are not necessarily independent of one another. Certain changes in the types of fuel used to alter emissions intensity, for example, may adversely affect the potential to improve energy intensity or economic growth, and vice versa. However, in the presented scenarios, these problems are optimistically ignored.

Given the assumed declines in emissions intensity and energy intensity, one can then calculate the maximum economic growth rate that is consistent with the emissions reduction objective. For example, in scenario 1, assume that 50 percent of electricity generation currently using fossil fuels will be de-carbonized by 2050 (implying that emissions intensity declines at an average annual rate of 1 percent) and that energy intensity falls at an average annual rate of 1 percent. Then to reduce emissions by 63 percent from 2010 to 2050, the average annual economic growth rate from 2010 to 2050 must not exceed –0.4 percent, that is, the economy must contract. Similarly, in scenario 9, assume that 100 percent of electricity generation currently using fossil fuels will be de-carbonized by 2050 (implying that emissions intensity declines at an average annual rate of 2.7 percent) and energy intensity falls at an average annual rate of 2 percent, then the average annual economic growth rate from 2010 to 2050 must not exceed 2.3 percent.

It is clear from table 1 that the assumed declines in emissions intensity and energy intensity are much more dramatic than the historical performance of the global capitalist economy (what the IPCC refers to as “business as usual”) and the assumptions for all scenarios are, therefore, very optimistic. Nevertheless, in most of the scenarios, the world economy would have virtually to stagnate and in one scenario, the world economy actually needs to contract absolutely. And this is even assuming declines in emissions and energy intensity that exceed historical averages, and dramatically so in the case of emissions intensity, where the scenarios are based on a rate of improvement of at least more than three-fold and up to nine-fold the historical rates. Considering that the world population growth rate is about 1 percent a year, only the most optimistic scenarios would result in positive growth of per capita GDP.

Table 1. Stabilizing CO2e in atmosphere at 490 ppm, 2010-50: scenarios relying on various declines in emissions intensity of energy and energy intensity of the economy and the rates of economic growth they allow (annual rates of change).

Table 1: Stabilizing C02e in atmosphere…

Source: Historical data for world economic growth, energy consumption, and emissions are from World Bank, World Development Indicators Online,2008.

And even with these highly optimistic scenarios on atmospheric carbon stabilization, according to the IPCC estimate, the world would still warm by 2.4˚C (relative to pre-industrial times). Indeed, the IPCC projections fail to take into account many of the latest developments. The Arctic summer sea ice is now likely to disappear and the Arctic Ocean will, therefore, absorb more heat. An atmospheric concentration of CO2e of 490 ppm will probably lead to a global warming of 2.7˚C (rather than the 2.4˚C suggested by the IPCC report), taking the world dangerously close to the 3˚C threshold, which according to James Lovelock would amount to a global collective suicide by humanity.

If the goal is to stabilize atmospheric concentration of CO2e at 445 ppm, instead of 490 ppm, then the global emissions need to fall by 89 percent, not just 63 percent. At 445 ppm, global temperature would still rise by 2˚C (relative to pre-industrial times). Some major ecological catastrophes would be unavoidable and dangerous climate feedback cycles could be initiated. Far more drastic cuts in global emissions would be required if the goal is truly to stabilize the climate and create a sufficiently large safety margin.

Table 2. Scenarios of emissions reduction and world economic growth (stabilizing CO2e in atmosphere at 445 ppm, 2010-50, annual rate of change).

Table 2: Scenarios of emissions reduction and world economic growth

Source: Historical data for world economic growth, energy consumption, and emissions are from World Bank, World Development Indicators Online,2008.

Table 2 presents the alternative scenarios of emissions reduction and economic growth that are consistent with an 89 percent reduction of emissions. The rest of the assumptions are the same as table 1. It turns out that the world economy would have to contract in all scenarios. For scenarios 1 to 3 (where the assumed declines in emissions intensity and energy intensity are clearly optimistic in comparison with the historical performance of global capitalism), the world economy would have to fall by two-thirds to three-quarters after 2010 to accomplish the objective of emissions reduction.

The results presented in tables 1 and 2 suggest that under no plausible circumstances could the objective of climate stabilization be compatible with the endless expansion of the global capitalist economy. However, the capitalist economic system is inherently incapable of operating with a non-growing (not to say contracting) economy.

The Politics of Climate Change and the Imperative for Socialism

Could this author be too pessimistic? Is the “ingenuity,” “innovativeness,” “adaptability,” and “resilience” of capitalism underestimated? The spokespersons of the mainstream environmental movement, such as Lester R. Brown (author of Plan B and director of Earth Policy Institute) and Amory Lovins (coauthor with Paul Hawken and L. Hunter Lovins of Natural Capitalism), try to convince us that magical technologies will come to the rescue. Solar panel costs will fall to the floor, as energy efficiency will surge ten-fold. Greenhouse gases emissions and other pollution can be reduced drastically, while gross domestic product will keep growing explosively. For them, there is no inherent conflict between production for profit and capital accumulation on the one hand and ecological sustainability on the other.

Their typical line of argument is that “the technology is already available” and “all that is needed is political will.” By “political will,” they are of course not referring to anything like fundamental social transformation. Instead, they are talking about some legislative reforms and international agreements within the basic capitalist framework. At most, they would demand some limited changes in personal consumer behavior.

The mainstream environmental movement, as far as its social composition is concerned, mainly consists of people who belong to the upper middle class in a capitalist society. They include the university professors, engineers, technicians, managers, financial analysts, and other professionals. Although they typically do not own significant amounts of the means of production, they play important managerial and technical functions for the capitalists and enjoy substantial material privileges relative to the working class.

In periods of revolutionary upsurge, such as in the 1960s, some of them could be rapidly radicalized and become various “ultra-leftists.” In periods of counter revolution, they could become the most important ally of the ruling class in the offensive against the working people. In the 1980s and ’90s, the upper middle class was an important social base for neoliberalism in many countries and they played a crucial role in the restoration of capitalism in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China.

As the global ecological crisis deepens, some among the upper middle class recognize or sense that the existing capitalist “life style” is in serious trouble and cannot be sustained indefinitely. Yet, they are unable or unwilling to imagine anything beyond the capitalist system, on which their relatively privileged material life depends. They are not yet ready to give up their implicit political support for the capitalist class. Their living conditions and experiences are very much detached from those of the working class. It is therefore difficult for them to see that only with a massive mobilization and organization of the working class could there be any hope for the social transformation required for ecological sustainability to be accomplished. The upper-middle-class environmentalists, as a result, have to put their desperate hope (or faith) in technological miracles on the one hand and the power of moral persuasion on the other hand (which they hope would convince the capitalist class to behave morally and rationally).

However, the laws of motion of capitalism will keep operating so long as the capitalist system remains intact, independent of the individual wills and against the best wishes of the upper-middle-class environmentalists. Sooner or later, those truly conscientious environmentalists will have to choose between the commitment to ecological sustainability and the commitment to an exploitative and oppressive social system. Furthermore, with the deepening of the global ecological crisis and the crisis of global capitalism in general, it may soon become increasingly difficult for the capitalist system to accommodate the material privileges of the upper middle class while simultaneously meeting the requirements of production for profit and accumulation.

As I discussed earlier, there are many technical obstacles to the de-carbonization of the world’s energy system. Brown and Lovins have greatly exaggerated the potentials of technical change. But even if many of the proposed highly efficient energy technologies using renewables become available right away, their application will be delayed by the inherent obstacles to technological diffusion in the capitalist system. In an economic system based on production for profit, a new technology is “intellectual property.” People or countries that cannot afford to pay are denied access. Even today hundreds of millions of people in the world have no access to electricity. How many decades would it take before they start to have access to solar-powered electric cars?

Moreover, unlike consumer novelties such as cell phones or lap tops, which can be readily manufactured by the existing industrial system, the de-carbonization of the world’s energy system requires fundamental transformation of the world’s economic infrastructure. This basically means that the pace of de-carbonization, even under the most ideal conditions, cannot really be faster than the rate of depreciation of long-lasting fixed assets. Considering that many buildings and other long-lasting structures will stand for half a century or even longer, the assumed rates of de-carbonization presented in tables 1 and 2 must be seen as extremely optimistic.

From a purely technical point of view, the most simple and straightforward solution to the crisis of climate change is immediately to stop all economic growth and start to downsize world material consumption in an orderly manner until the greenhouse gases emissions fall to reasonable levels. This can obviously be accomplished with the existing technology. If all the current and potentially available de-carbonization technologies are introduced to all parts of the world as rapidly as possible, the world should still have the material production capacity to meet the basic needs of the entire world’s population even with a much smaller world economy (scenarios 1 to 3 in table 2 would roughly correspond to a return to the 1960s material living standards).

However, under a capitalist system, so long as the means of production and surplus value are owned by the capitalists, there are both incentives and pressures for the capitalists to use a substantial portion of the surplus value for capital accumulation. Unless surplus value is placed under social control, there is no way for capital accumulation (and therefore economic growth) not to take place. Moreover, given the enormous inequality in income and wealth distribution under capitalism, how could a global capitalist economy manage an orderly downsizing while meeting the basic needs of billions of people? Economic growth is indispensable for capitalism to alleviate its inherent social contradictions.

The Kyoto protocol requires that the advanced capitalist countries reduce their CO2 emissions by 5 percent from 1990 to 2012. Figure 1 presents the CO2 emissions of the world’s largest economies from 1990 to 2005.14 The United States refused to sign the protocol and U.S. emissions grew by 22 percent from 1990 to 2005. Among the signatories of the Kyoto protocol, Japan’s emissions grew by 16 percent and the Euro-zone emissions tended to grow since the mid-1990s. UK emissions (due mainly to its massive shift from coal to North Sea gas) have been on a flat trend.

Ironically, Russia is the only large economy that has reduced emissions substantially since 1990, during a period in which its economic output and population declined. Russia’s emissions fell by one-third from 1990 to 2005, with an annual rate of reduction of 2.7 percent. If the world economy were to repeat the Russian experience three times, that is, toexperience the kind of economic collapse that Russia experienced in the 1990s three times with a comparable reduction of emissions, then by 2050 the world emissions would fall by two-thirds. This would only allow the atmospheric concentration of CO2 equivalent to stabilize at about 490 ppm. As is discussed above, this would still fall short of what is necessary.

Chart 1. CO2 emissions, selected countries (millions of tons)

Chart 1: CO2 emissions, selected countries

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline.

Since 1990, China’s emissions and India’s emissions have more than doubled, and China has now overtaken the United States to become the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. At the current rate, China’s emissions will double in ten years and India’s will double in less than fifteen years. The European Union is currently committed to a reduction of emissions by 20 percent (from the 1990 levels) by 2020. All of this reduction would be offset by just one year of China’s economic growth. With the great Chinese capitalist boom, China now builds two coal-fired power plants every week. This means that every four years China will build as many coal-fired power plants as currently exist in the United States. What hope is there for climate stabilization with this kind of fanatical drive for accumulation? What magical technology can make this kind of capitalism sustainable?

It should be pointed out that the Chinese workers and peasants have not at all benefited from this relentless search for capitalist profit. It is the transnational corporations (who use China as the world’s “workshop”) and the Chinese capitalist elites that have reaped enormous profits from this. To a lesser extent, the upper middle classes in the advanced capitalist countries have also benefited from the cheap consumer goods and “services” produced by the workers in China, India, and other parts of the periphery.

On June 14, 2007, Financial Times published a quite bizarre article (“What is at risk is not the climate but freedom”) by Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic and the former leader of the anticommunist “velvet revolution”:

We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough…for environmentalists and their followers to suggest radical measures to do something about the weather…Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us…

[Global] warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established truth”…As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The freedom-loving President Klaus (who is apparently a good student of Friedrich Hayek) then demanded that scientists “have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.” Klaus then assured us that “advances in technology” and “increases in disposable wealth” will continue and “will solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.”

One has to admit that it does take some courage for Klaus to defend “freedom” at a time when an important political consensus is being formed among the international bourgeoisie that the issue of climate change cannot be ignored any more. Given my own political experience and background in China (a former socialist state like Czechoslovakia), I do feel some strange familiarity with Klaus’s position.

Frankly, only an extremely reactionary politician who has deep-in-the-heart hatred of the working class and socialism could have made such outlandish comments. In one respect, however, Klaus is closer to the truth than all the mainstream environmentalists. It does take global “central” planning for humanity to overcome the crisis of climate change, if by “central” one is talking about self-conscious, rational coordination by democratic institutions.

The technical requirements for climate stabilization are clear. The global energy infrastructure needs to be fundamentally transformed to be based on renewables. Much of the world’s economic infrastructure will have to be changed accordingly. Agriculture will need to be reorganized to follow sustainable principles and to be freed from dependence on fossil fuels for fertilizers and machineries. The entire transportation system will have to be re-built, with railways and public transportation operated by renewable electricity playing prominent roles. The scale of the world economy will need to be reduced in accordance with the emissions reduction objectives. All of these need to be accomplished without undermining the basic needs of the world’s population.

It is clear that capitalism cannot accomplish these objectives. If we do not want to undermine the ecological conditions that support civilization, what else can accomplish these goals other than socialism with public ownership of the means of production and democratic planning?

So-called “market socialism” is not an option. Both theory and historical experience have demonstrated that “market socialism” inevitably leads to capitalism. Those who object to socialist planning might argue that the experience of historical socialisms suggested that socialist planning would be “inefficient.”

Leave aside the question that the future socialism would no doubt do better than the historical socialisms in democracy and economic efficiency, given the extreme gravity of the global ecological crisis, “efficiency” is simply not a relevant issue. The real question is: can socialism provide food, education, and health care to everyone on the earth? We know that historical socialisms were able to, and Cuba is still able to accomplish this with quite limited material resources.

Capitalism has always failed to provide food, education, and health care to at least hundreds of millions of people. If the global ecological crisis is not overcome, then capitalism will eventually fail the entirety of humanity. Is the choice not clear enough?

Notes

1.   Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report,” November 2007, http://www.ipcc.ch.

2.   David Spratt, “The Big Melt: Lessons from the Arctic Summer of 2007,” October 2007, http://www.carbonequity.info/docs/arctic.html.

3.   David Spratt and Philip Sutton, Climate Code Red (Friends of the Earth, 2008), http://www.climatecodred.net.

4.   David Spratt and Philip Sutton, Climate Code Red; Jonathan Leake, “Fiddling with Figures while the Earth Burns,” Times Online, May 6 2007, http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock; James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 15–38.

5.   James Hansen et al., “Target Atmostpheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” (abstract), April 2008, (accessed May 2008). Also see John Bellamy Foster, “The Ecology of Destruction,” Monthly Review 58, no. 8 (2007): 1–14.

6.   This is known as the Jevons Paradox, named after the nineteenth-century British economist William Stanley Jevons who first took note of this perverse effect. See Brett Clark and John Bellamy Foster, “William Stanley Jevons and The Coal Question,” Organization & Environment 14, no. 1 (2001): 93–98; John Bellamy Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002), 94–95.

7.   Ted Trainer, Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain A Consumer Society (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2007), 110–11.

8.   Energy Watch Group, “Uranium Resources and Nuclear Energy,” EWG-Series No.1/2006 (December), http://www.energywatchgroup.org.

9.   Michael H. Heusemann, “The Limits of Technological Solutions to Sustainable Development,” Clean Technology and Environmental Policy 5 (2003): 21–34. A recent experiment sponsored by the Germany government intends to show that a network with 61 percent of electricity from wind, 14 percent from solar photovoltaics, and 25 percent from biomass, can meet up to 100 percent of electricity demand (“Renewed Energy,” The Guardian, February 26, 2008). But as discussed below, biomass is very problematic and could emit more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels. Thus, the experiment suggests a 75 percent limit to de-carbonization of electricity generation.

10. The energy statistics discussed here and in the following paragraph are from: International Energy Agency, Key World Energy Statistics 2007.

11. Although there has been much talk of developing a “hydrogen economy,” hydrogen itself is not a primary energy source (i.e., there are no natural stores of hydrogen to be exploited). Hydrogen fuel is produced from water, a process which requires energy input. Thus, hydrogen is simply an energy storage mechanism (much like a battery), and its environmental consequences depend on the source of energy that is used to produce it.

12. Joseph Fargione, et al., “Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt,” Science 319, no. 5867 (2008): 1235–38; Timothy Searchinger, et al., “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change,” Science 319, no. 5867 (2008): 1238–40.

13. According to Key World Energy Statistics (see footnote 9), in 2005, measured by 2000 U.S. dollars, the energy intensity of OECD countries was 37 percent below the world average, France 41 percent below world average, Germany 44 percent below world average, and UK 56 percent below world average.

AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE PHILIPPINE STRUGGLE

By Alice G. Guillermo

Delivered at a gathering of revolutionaries in a guerrilla zone in 1942, Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yenan Forum” constitute a landmark document in twentieth century revolutionary art theory and practice. While it represents a unique contribution of an Asian country as it is crystallizes the role of art and literature from concrete conditions of revolutionary experience and practice, it is at the same time of great importance in the worldwide arena of struggles for national liberation.

The Yenan Forum derives its particular resonance and urgency from its context, the ongoing process of struggle‑‑the anti‑Japanese war and the Chinese revolution. The Red Army led by Mao Zedong had gone through successful campaigns in the countryside where they mobilized the peasants against the invading Japanese, the warlords, and the reactionary Koumintang army. The assembly at Yenan, which they had cleared as a guerrilla base, represented a milestone in the journey of a thousand steps.

Mao Zedong himself situates the awakening of revolutionary consciousness in the May 4th movement of 1919 when the Chinese intellectual were caught up in the ferment of progressive ideas. By the time of the Yenan Forum, the revolutionary potential of these incipient ideas had become realized and numerous intellectuals, writers, specialists in the various arts, and cultural cadres of the Party had become won over to the revolutionary cause.

Against the dominance of traditional bourgeois aesthetics as it prevailed in China and the Western world, the Yenan Forum is an affirmation of revolutionary aesthetics being created in theory and practice from the experience of struggle. Art assumes a militant character as it becomes a weapon of social change.

General Premises

The Yenan Forum has a number of salient points within which revolutionary art is contextualized. First, an important part of the revolutionary task is “to ensure that literature and art fit well into the revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people, and for attacking and destroying the enemy.” Such has been the role of art in critical historical conjunctures, as even Pablo Picasso in the context of the Spanish Civil War declared: “Paintings are not done to decorate apartments; they are instruments of attack and defense against the enemy.” Indeed, some of the greatest art and literature of the world have borne out the role of art as witness to history and agent of change. Francisco Goya’s engravings warned of the sleep of reason breeding monsters. Delacroix’s “Liberty Guiding the People” was a clarion call in the French Revolution. Picasso’s “Guernica” immortalized the resistance of the small Basque population in the Spanish Civil War in a modernist cubist style.

Bourgeois critics deplore as “instrumentalist” art which is placed at the service of the revolution or which assumes an active political/revolutionary role. Such an attitude harks back to Kant and his principle of “disinteredness” which gave rise to the theory of “art for art’s sake” or the absolute autonomy of art. On the contrary, Mao Zedong stressed that “there is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes or art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.” In the same way, there is no art that stands above ideology. Since art is interest‑linked because of the social origins and institutions of its creators, it always bears ideological content. Thus, if revolutionary art has espoused the interests of the laboring classes, classical and traditional art on the whole have upheld conservative ideologies reflecting and preserving class privilege. The relation between politics and art becomes highly evident in historical conjunctures, but while politics exerts a strong influence on art, art in turn can have a significant effect on politics. Art is not only a weapon or instrument in the class struggle, but it has an important role in building the new people’s culture in anticipation of or in the process of social reconstruction. Mao Zedong brought out the role of culture in his analysis of contradiction in the context of base and superstructure: “True, the productive forces, practice, and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role…. But it also must be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role…. When the superstructure (politics, culture, etc.) obstructs the development of the economic base, political and cultural changes become principal and decisive.

The Yenan Forum brings out sharply the importance of assuming the class standpoint of the proletariat as the leading revolutionary class, with the peasant class as its closest ally. Art plays a part in combating the enemy and aiding the masses‑‑the proletariat, peasantry, and urban petty bourgeoisie‑‑both in the process of struggle and in political remolding. The basic question is thus: “For whom is art?” With this Mao Zedong enjoins all artists, writers, and cultural workers to immerse themselves in the masses, do work among them, understand and learn from them.

In order to be effective in his work, a revolutionary artist must study Marxism‑Leninism as his philosophical framework and his own society as his specific context, including the various classes of society, their mutual relations and respective conditions.

Relevance to the Philippines and the Third World

The ideas of Mao Zedong have been particularly relevant to the Philippines and the Third World because of the parallelism in the social conditions of China during its revolutionary period and those of the Philippines which is still at present engaged in a protracted revolutionary struggle. It is necessary to summarize the history of resistance and revolution in the Philippines and the basic ills of Philippine society as a background for understanding its people’s revolution and its particular revolutionary artistic practice.

The history of resistance

In the Philippines, the history of anti‑colonial resistance began with the long series of revolts against Spanish rule culminating in the Philippine Revolution of 1896 and the subsequent Philippine‑American War at the turn of the century. Resistance against the invading Japanese forces in the Second World War was spearheaded by the Hukbalahap (Anti‑Japanese Army) led by the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas under the control of the Lava group. After the war this became reduced to capitulationism and gangsterism. The first signs of political renewal came with the founding of the initial political group, the Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines by Jose Ma. Sison. This university organization was founded to combat the prevailing obscurantism, clericalism, and red‑baiting in the academe and society as a whole. It was followed in 1964 by a more radical youth organization wider in scope, the Kabataang Makabayan or Patriotic Youth. From its fast growth ensued widespread politicization, marked by ferment in the universities among intellectuals and artists. The time was ripe for the reestablishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines on December 26, 1968 under the guidance of Marxism‑Leninism‑Mao Zedong Thought. The following year, on March 29, 1969, the people’s guerrillas were brought into the New People’s Army and in 1974 the National Democratic Front was founded. With these landmark organizations, the revolutionary movement for change was set on its course.

Since the late Sixties, the Filipino people, the revolutionary workers, students, intellectuals in cities and the large masses of peasants in the countryside have engaged in a struggle to overcome the ills of Philippine society, which were identified as imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism, and to establish a new pro‑people order.

With the founding of the New People’s Army in 1969, the revolutionary armed struggle commenced, spreading throughout the archipelago and escalating during the period covering the imposition of martial rule in 1972 by Marcos up to his downfall through the 1986 uprising , and continuing under the Aquino rule and the present Ramos government. Counterinsurgency operations, including bombings of the countryside and hamletting resulting in the displacement of people, were carried out by the reactionary army and human rights violations were rife during the martial law rule of Marcos. In 1986, the big landlord Mrs. Aquino was brought into power by a so‑called revolution, much propagandized by the U.S. press, which was in reality an uprising led by a general (now the incumbent), the reactionary defense secretary and their military supporters, with the help of the Catholic Cardinal, riding on the popular wave of anti‑Marcos sentiment. Although top political prisoners were released at the beginning of her term, following U.S. tutelage she later declared total war against the peasantry and the revolutionary forces, along with her institutionalization of fanatic and criminal vigilante groups. During the present government of Fidel Ramos, intensive bombings of peasant populations continue in the countryside, especially in the North where guerrillas have built their strongholds.

The ills of Philippines society

Feudalism, imperialism, and bureaucrat capitalism have been identified as the basic ills of Philippine society. The concrete manifestations of these and the persistence and ingenuity of the people’s struggle to overcome them have constituted much of the subject matter of revolutionary art.

In the Philippines, although the U.S. military bases in Clark and Subic have been dismantled, the anti‑imperialist struggle continues in both the economic, political, and cultural fields. Only recently, the United States expressed its resolve to maintain its presence in Asia, and in particular in the Philippines under new conditions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank continue to foist onerous economic conditions on the people burdened by a huge foreign debt. In this past decade, U.S. imperialism has devised more sophisticated strategies, resorted to covert and dirty tricks, mostly in the form of psychological warfare, such as the Low Intensity Conflict (LIC) to disguise its machinations. In the Philippines, an extension of the LIC takes the form of the proliferation of religious sects which breed irrationalism, confusion, and psychological dependence.

Feudalism remains a reality in the Philippines, Mrs. Aquino’s “Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program” was a total failure, one which served to protect landlord rather than peasant interests. Big landlords, led by the Cojuangco‑Aquino clan itself, hastily made use of the loopholes and exceptions in the program and the peasants are no better off than before. As in the period of the Chinese Revolution, the proletariat in the Philippines is the leading the revolutionary force with the peasantry as its closest ally and the revolutionary land reform program is central to the national democratic revolution. Meanwhile, local industries are at a disadvantage because of the dominance of transnational corporations and because of prevailing poor conditions of production. Bureaucrat capitalism is a daily fact of life as politicians and government bureaucrats use their influence to advance their own personal interests to the detriments of the people.

Real change in Philippine society can be brought about only by revolution under the guidance of Marxism‑Leninism‑Mao Zedong Thought and the insights gained from the specific conditions of struggle by Filipino revolutionaries. In the Philippines the revolution is a protracted guerrilla war that takes into account the archipelagic nature of Philippine geography and the problems and advantages arising therefrom. The reactionary army of the government is backed by U.S. military aid, in terms of money, war materiel, and training, which form the basis of its relative strength in comparison to the guerrilla forces. On the other hand, the guerrillas have the advantage of terrain and, more importantly, the support of the rural populations. Learning from the Chinese experience, the Philippine revolution has adapted the strategy of encirclement, with the revolutionary forces surrounding the urban centers from the countryside. It is cognizant of the advantage of this strategy as a means of building a broad base of support since the guerrilla army is always complemented by a cultural contingent to win over the sympathy of the people and build hegemony in the local populations‑‑the aim of the cultural revolution which is achieved only through a long process.

In the ideological struggle in the Philippines, anti‑Marxist reactionaries reject Marxism on the grounds that it is a foreign ideology. But the very character of Marxism places emphasis on its adaptation to specific social and historical conditions; it is never absolutized or rigidified into a fixed dogma or formula. As Mao Zedong himself stressed, “Dogmatic Marxism” is not Marxism, it is anti‑Marxism. In other words, the revolutionary theory and practice of a particular country is continually involved in indigenizing Marxism as it deals with concrete needs and problems arising from specific conditions.

Cultural Programme

In 1968, the Re‑establishment Congress of the Communist Party of the Philippines issued a Programme for the People’s Democratic Revolution in the Philippines in the fields of economics, politics, military warfare, culture, and foreign policy. In the field of culture, it made the following calls:

“1. Develop a national, scientific and mass culture responsive to the needs and aspirations of the Filipino people;

2. Campaign again imperialist and feudal or Church control and influence over the educational system and mass media;

3. Propagate the national language as the principal medium of instruction and communication;

4. Develop a people’s democratic culture and put revolutionary content in art and literature while combating the decadent literature of ‘universal humanism’, pessimism, escapism, class reconciliation and all other pernicious bourgeois trends;

5. Combat Christian chauvinism against the national minorities;

6. Support the progressive movements and actions among students, teachers, and all intellectuals.;

7. Guarantee the better livelihood of teachers and other staff members of educational institutions and guarantee economic freedom;

8. Respect the freedom of thought and religious belief and use patient persuasion in gathering support for the people’s democratic revolution;

9. Denounce imperialist study and travel grants;

10. Fight for free education at all levels and wipe out illiteracy and superstition among the masses and rouse them to a revolutionary and scientific spirit.”

Mao Zedong’s Aesthetics and the Cultural Revolution

It is from the necessity to gain the broadest possible hegemonic support that the cultural‑artistic component of the revolution assumes cogency. The salient points or guidelines leading to a revolutionary aesthetic theory and practice were articulated by Mao Zedong in the Yenan Forum talks in response to this need to build a new people’s culture. As the contribution of Marxist‑Leninist‑Mao Zedong Thought to aesthetics, it is most balanced, sound, and humane formulation, at no time collapsing art into politics or categorically rejecting the cultural legacy of the past or the artistic contributions of other classes.

Art and life

According to Mao Zedong, the source of all literature and art is the life of the people. “Life as reflected in works of literature and art can and ought to be on a higher plane, more intense, more concentrated, more typical, nearer the ideal, and therefore more universal that actual everyday life.” According to his formulation, while art reflects life, it does not consist of a simple mirror image, but is rather its intense crystallization. Furthermore, Mao Zedong’s realism is firmly based on the immediate and actual revolutionary praxis of the artist who not only observes the people but also and especially interacts with them and learns from them even as he is engaged in mass cultural work.

In literature and the visual arts, the realist style is associated with the valorization of concrete and observed detail, resulting in the convincing evocation of the material reality of specific time and place. Engels advanced this further when he wrote: “Realism, to my mind, implies, beside truth of detail, the truth in reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances.” (Lukacs; 1980, 52) Georg Lukacs made an important contribution to the concept of the typical in realism when he wrote” “the creative writer does not create in perfect freedom, simply out of his own mind, as bourgeois idealist aesthetics claims. He is on the contrary closely tied to the reproduction of reality in a manner faithful to its true content. This tie, however, means that he has to reproduce the overall process (or else a part of it, linked either explicitly or implicitly, to the overall process) by disclosing its actual and essential driving forces. The reality of a particular character, a particular destiny, etc., now depends on the expression of this overall process‑‑the degree to which this is successfully achieved, its truth and penetration, concreteness, palpability, and typicalness.” (Lukacs: 1980, 51‑52)

In the visual arts, realism is associated with areas of European painting which place emphasis on material detail, as in the Dutch genre paintings of the seventeenth century. However, the concept of realism as an art historical term was consciously adapted by the nineteenth century School of Courbet in France where it acquired a socialist orientation in its choice of and sympathy for working class subjects. It was the realism of the Courbet School which developed into contemporary social realism, more political and keener in its sense of social contradiction, as practiced by artists in different countries.

To the revolutionary Chinese artists, realism was related to its European theoretical formulation in the emphasis on concrete material detail and observed everyday life, especially that of the masses of workers and peasants, as well as in the concept of the typical also found in Mao Zedong. In painting, however, this did not mean abandoning their traditional Figurative style and adapting Western realism with its modeling and tonal values‑‑which Chinese artists learned via the influence of the academic socialist realism of Russia‑‑, but for them it meant going beyond the conventional themes of genre and landscape in the Tao and Buddhist world views to deal with the new contemporary themes of people’s struggles, communal work and socialist progress. In the art of landscape, it meant highlighting change, as when a factory or a children’s school are found where a temple or pavilion used to be. It meant portraying in bright and striking images the new men and women of China at work in socialist transformation.

While Mao Zedong adhered to the “reflection theory” in art and literature, it is of note that he did not imply a passive reflection but an intense, typical and yet universal, representation of life and society. Following this, it may be possible to distinguish between “classical realism” and revolutionary realism. Classical realism, as various contemporary writers on aesthetics have argued, is bourgeois realism which purportedly gives a transparent reflection of life and social reality, but, through precisely this effect of transparency, lulls the reader and weakens one’s acumen in perceiving the operation of ideology. In this effect of transparency and seeming objectivity, the reader overlooks the class‑linked and ideological nature of the literary text which he takes to be a faithful representation of reality. In revolutionary realism which retains the basic feature of realism, the valorization of concrete material detail, class contradictions are not neutralized or glossed over but are, on the contrary, heightened or sharpened, thereby showing the totality of a society in its contending forces, and thus eliciting partisanship in the struggle. Revolutionary realism goes beyond the declarative mode, as in reflection, to the imperative, which is political advocacy, and the interrogative mode. The sharpening of class conflict creates an interrogative text as it questions the prevailing order and reveals its unjust and exploitative character.

Mao Zedong went a step further when he advocated that revolutionary realism be combined with revolutionary romanticism in what contemporary Chinese artists have called the “dual synthesis” style, which, however, has not yet been fully explicated or developed. Mao Dun, in his talk in the Fourth Congress of Writers and Artists in 1979, the first after the Cultural Revolution and the first post‑Mao congress, took up this concept: “Through the ‘dual synthesis’ style, most authors have sought to mold exemplary heroic characters who advance bravely, revolutionary optimists who are unafraid of hardship and who are ever mindful of the long‑range prospects of communism. However, such characters may also be found in revolutionary realist works. Therefore, works emphasizing the ‘dual synthesis’ style should definitely have another nonhypothetical domain above and beyond the molding of such heroic figures, and this can be sought only through a ‘hundred flowers’ liberalization.” (Goldblatt: 1982, 43‑4). At the same time, this he stresses that this cannot be taken as a formula for all, for, in the spirit of liberalization and democracy derived from Mao’s cultural policy to “let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend”, artists should be free to develop their own styles‑‑a popular theme in the 1979 Fourth Congress of Chinese Writers and Artists.

Cultural heritage and foreign influence

Mao Zedong’s theory of revolutionary art does not advocate the repudiation of the literary ad artistic heritage. There is no loss of appreciation or respect for the fine productions of the past: one must “critically assimilate whatever is beneficial, and use them as examples when we create works out of the literary and artistic raw materials in the life of the people of our own time and place…. We must on no account reject the legacies of the ancients and the foreigners or refuse to learn from them even though they are the works of the feudal or bourgeois classes.” The revolutionary artist can learn from traditional art, but his task goes beyond its preservation to its transformation into a progressive contemporary context as new meaning is carried by old forms.

There are important implications in the use of traditional forms which were for centuries produced by the people and are thus an essential part of the national culture. It implies that revolutionary art will bear a national identity as it draws from and transforms tradition to reflect contemporary needs‑‑that Chinese revolutionary art, in particular, will bear the imprint of the Chinese artistic identity. Following this, the revolutionary art of the people of other countries will also hear their own cultural identity, springing from their social and historical development.

The idea that the revolutionary artist can find valuable lessons from the works of the feudal or bourgeois classes shows a sound openness which eschews rigidity leading to class reductionism in art, as found in the attitude that feudal and bourgeois classes are reactionary or decadent and that therefore their art should be repudiated. As progressive/revolutionary aestheticians have pointed out, the works of the feudal or bourgeois classes may contain a progressive potential. Likewise, the symptomatic reading of text which are conservative on the surface may reveal cracks in the surface that indicate deep ideological contradictions subverting their manifest world view.

Nonetheless, while the use of traditional forms is indeed a salutary practice, still it may give rise to certain problems. For one, there are forms in the people’s oral and artistic traditions which have an inherent character because they function as vessels for new and changing content. On the other hand, there are forms and styles which, originating in earlier modes of production, may bear the conservative impress of these modes, or even more, reflect their ideology. In painting, for instance, the Western classical style of figuration which observes conventions of proportion for the human figure and stems from the idealist world view and conservative ideology of an unchanging order is thus incompatible with revolutionary art. It is against this style that realism, especially social realism which portrays living people in struggle, is counterposed.

In the same 1942 statement, Mao Zedong says that the artist can also learn from foreign art, which for the Chinese and other Asians would be generally European art. It is here that an opening to modernism which began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century with the first impressionist exhibit of 1874 can be found. This does not state that foreign influence be confined to the realism of the School of Courbet. In fact, it does not necessarily discount the influence of expressionism, cubism as in Guernica, or even surrealism. Picasso’s Guernica aside from being a powerful anti‑fascist statement of protest against the bombing of the small Basque town, has demonstrated that revolutionary content and modernist form are not incompatible. The essential is that these works have a political content that is socially and historically specific, that they draw their material from particular social and political conditions. It is in this way that realism may be said to be constituted in a broad sense in works of art within a wide range of styles. Mao Zedong’s campaign of “letting a hundred flowers bloom” basically showed his confident openness to cultural variety, at the same time that these contending styles of schools would in the process reveal their strengths and weaknesses.

Popularization and raising of standards

One of the distinct contributions of Mao Zedong to the theory of revolutionary art is his discussion of popularization and raising of standards. Popularization involves the widespread dissemination of revolutionary ideas among the people. This is mainly done through the use of familiar and popular forms in literature and the visual arts. The use of popular forms, such as posters, illustrations and comic books, is effective because they are familiar to the people and there exists no psychological alienation to overcome, as that before an elitist and inaccessible medium such as oil on canvas. In progressive art, the elitism of the academic hierarchy of art media and of canonical prescriptions, is broken down. Popular forms, such as the wall poster and comics, are not in themselves “low” forms of art for they have their own standards of excellence and significant art can be created from them. What is important is that they be infused with meaningful political content, displacing the paltry material often associated with them. Instead of the ideal of the masterpiece, revolutionary art is responsive to issues and creates attitudes with respect to daily events. Therefore, its value lies in its flexibility, its sensitivity to issues, and its quickness to respond. Likewise, instead of the ideal of permanence, much of art done in the midst of struggle, because of the necessity for quick campaigns along with the risks involved, is transitory, like graffiti and instant street murals, but always fresh, renewable, and inexhaustible. However, this does not discount the fact that a large number of the art and literature done during the revolution have long‑lasting value and high standards of excellence.

Possibly an important aspect of popularization involves a research into the people’s symbols which provide entry points into their visual language and facilitate visual communication through images. Th people’s sentiments are channeled through these symbols which are centers or “nodal points of semiotic density” which have accumulated a rich complex of associations and connotations through a long period of time. So important are they that an ideology or program of action which proposes radical change will not get popular response or support unless these are mediated through them.

Popularization and the raising of standards are complementary activities. Specialists and experts make studies and critiques of the works popularized in order to see how their standards can be raised. During the popularization of a political campaign, line, or call, such as the national democratic line which covers a considerable length of time, through art and literature there is a continual effort to raise aesthetic standards, but as Mao Zedong pointed out, raising of standards does not mean moving in the direction of bourgeois art but in the direction of a people’s socialist art.

Dual criteria of art and politics

Central to Mao’s aesthetic theory is the dual criteria in literary and art criticism. These are the political and the artistic. What is politically good advances the interests of the proletariat and the people as a whole who are encouraged to be of one heart and mind; what is politically bad undermines unity and resistance. As to the artistic criterion, “all works of a higher artistic quality are good or comparatively good, while those of a lower artistic quality are bad or comparatively bad.” He explains this dual criteria by the fact that “politics cannot be equated with art, nor can a general world outlook be equated with a method of artistic creation and criticism. We deny that there is an abstract and absolutely unchangeable political criterion, but also that there is an abstract and absolutely unchangeable artistic criterion; each class in every class society has its own political and artistic criteria.” This implies that Mao Zedong, as a poet and artist himself, gives dues importance to artistic form. For while art serves politics, the former obviously retains a relative autonomy, since it evolves its own criteria, and is not in any sense collapsed into the political or sociological. Furthermore, he refuses to absolutize and universalize political and artistic criteria. Instead, these are worked out in each society and in each historical period in a living Marxist practice.

The revolutionary artist strives for “the unity of politics and art, the unity of content and form, the unity of revolutionary political content and the highest possible perfection of artistic form.” No matter how advanced they are politically, works of art must have artistic quality in order to be powerful and appealing. He thus opposed works of art with a wrong political viewpoint and the “poster and slogan style” which may be politically correct in a particular occasion but deficient in artistic power.

The dictum of the “unity of form and content” necessarily leads to the difficult question of how this is to be attained. Form and content are linked together by the matter of effectivity in conveying political content. Effectivity is necessarily based on technical expertise or excellence, a mastery of the artistic vocabulary and of the medium, techniques, and tools of art, and of particular art forms. Furthermore, this mastery is not only a capacity that the artist has and develops in himself, but, more importantly, it is the capability to make the particular form of the work itself‑‑through the judicious and insightful use of lines, colors, tones, composition, media, techniques, and the devices in constituting the pictorial signs or image, with a keen sensitivity to their semiotic or meaning‑conveying potential‑‑highly expressive of its ideational content, that is, the ability to create material form that embodies political meaning in its nuanced richness and resonance. Related to this is the study and investigation of the people’s indigenous aesthetics, their artistic vocabulary and visual literacy in its specific characteristics, in order to work within the regular avenues of artistic communication.

Towards a study of literary and art criticism

Mao Zedong regarded literary and art criticism as one of the principal methods of struggle in the realm of literature and art and that it requires special study. In addition to the dual criteria of criticism, which is the political and the artistic, it is also possible to identify four levels in the criticism of art and literature. These are 1) to reveal the underlying relationship between the literary work and its society and historical period, 2) to bring out the ideology of the text, 3) to analyze the form of the work and show how it realizes meaning and ideology, and 4) to determine and evaluate the partisanship of the work.

The first level of critical practice sets itself the task of revealing and demonstrating the relationship of the work, in both its content and form, to its society and historical period. This requires a thorough understanding of the society and period‑‑the economic, political, and ideological relationships in which the work is situated‑‑to be able to contextualize the text’s references and allusions, ideas, cultural trends, values, attitudes, and its very form. No doubt, the relationship of literature and society is not a direct one‑to‑one correspondence, but one which involves complex and interrelated levels of mediation. The fundamental relationship to class interests within the relations of production is overdetermined by numerous factors: the artist’s family background, psychological make‑up and temperament; personal fund of experience, training and education, personal use of language, the important events and issues of the day, significant influences, fashions in art and literature, patterns of literary and artistic patronage, conditions of literary production, the dominant world view. Because of the operation of numerous overdeterminations, the author’s class origin does not directly and automatically correspond to his class sympathies in a symmetrical manner. It is this level of criticism which lays bare the social and historical determinants of the work, thus breaking down the bourgeois myth of the absolute autonomy of literature and art.

The second level of critical practice brings out the text’s ideology as it is linked to class interests in the society’s relations of production, either by maintaining the status quo in firming up its legitimations, or by challenging it in promoting radical change. This project may not be as simple as it seems, for ideology is not something to be extracted bodily from the text. Rather than a simple line or motif which runs through the text like a colored strand, ideology in literature is complex, multileveled and finely nuanced. Moreover, it has to do not only with the content of literature but with its form as well. For ideology may be broadly defined as a system of political, legal, ethical, aesthetic, religious and philosophical ideas and values that ultimately serve the interest of some class or group. It belongs to the superstructure and is determined in the last instance by the economic, i.e., the relations of production, at the same time that is acts reciprocally on the material base by hindering, retarding, or hastening social change. Ideology, such as the revolutionary proletarian ideology, holds the capacity to inspire and provide orientation for action. Thus, it is through ideology that a class can exercise hegemony in society.

Criticism necessarily involves the development of a finely‑honed sensitivity to ideology and its expression in the text. Ideology permeates or saturates the text thoroughly and profoundly. It is encoded in its forms and conventions, embodied in the characters with their class origins, qualities, conflicts, self‑images, and complex interrelationships; in the narrative, with its conflicts, complications, and resolutions; in the ideas, values, and attitudes revealed in the choices made, the actions, dialogues, and authorial interventions; in the presentation of the social and historical context, in the point of view or point of view of the work, in the form and structure of the literary work, in the very language or languages and idioms. And after an analysis of the text’s ideology, one proceeds to ask how, in the last instance, it reflects or espouses the interests of a particular class, group, or faction within the society’s relations of production. This leads to the assertion that art or truth in art cannot be above ideology. Truth, since it finds verification in facts and is formed in the continual dialectics of theory and practice, is not an absolute and idealist category above social and historical circumstance. And art, while it has its own specificity in the superstructure, is, in the last analysis, linked to class interests. For literature and art, no matter how highly mediated, cannot go beyond ideology into a transcendent and neutral realm where it is cut off from its moorings in the productive relations of society.

The third level of critical practice has to do with the analysis of the form of the work, its structure and internal devices, its formal conventions, and with the investigation of the processes by which its particular form produces ideological meaning. Traditionally, a categorical distinction was made between form and content, and with form simply considered as a neutral vessel for content. Aesthetics, likewise, was also construed as having to do with the formal aspects and qualities of the work alone. But form, in art and literature, is not a mere neutral vessel of meaning, for it likewise takes root in social and historical circumstance. The different literary forms and genres make their appearance in particular historical periods and convey the concepts, values, priorities, indeed, ideologies of their time and place. The appearance or disappearance of certain forms may coincide with the shifts in art patronage due to economic change, while new patrons create new demands and fashions. Form itself is a bearer of ideology. A classical form such as the sonnet belongs to the classical world view and conveys its values or order and measure.

Furthermore, form is not mere style and technique that can be analyzed independently of meaning, but the very choice of form, formal structure, devices in language are part of the meaning of the work and belong to an ideological structure. Form itself is value‑laden. As a conveyor of meaning, it grows out of a society with its contending forces and conveys the values and priorities that arise therefrom. Since form has to do with style, technique, linguistic and literary devices, as well as formal structure, it is also necessarily concerned with the development of technical expertise, following the demands of the particular literary form, whether poetry, the novel, the short story, as well as traditional or popular forms, written or oral, But again technique does not exist for its own sake alone or as an autonomous practice, but is inseparable from the production of meaning and ideology.

The fourth level of criticism involves the evaluation of the partisanship of the literary work. As in the Philippines, the immediate setting of struggle for literature and criticism gives a present urgency to the ideological‑political criterion than at other times, for now, in the crucible of history, the writer can ill adapt or maintain a neutral stance, suspend judgment, or keep a safe political distance. Ideological meanings form a spectrum from the outright reactionary through degrees of bourgeois reformist liberalism and elite or native forms of nationalism to radical partisanship with the people and the proletariat. Aware of possible contradictions between manifest and latent ideological content, the critic determines the work’s ideological parameters and draws out, whenever possible, the progressive or radical potential of the work. In progressive‑revolutionary texts, criticism does not involve the simple process of “extricating the political line” but rather charting out the ramifications and nuances of ideology as it is produced in the various elements of the text, as it is reproduced in other texts of the author, and as it is related to the economic and political system which they seek to change.

Moreover, the ideological meanings of literary texts are likewise viewed as relative to their historical and social contexts, so that while these meaning may be progressive for a particular period and mode of production, they may be modified or realized ideologically in the course of the historical process. Thus, a work which is progressive in the context of its time may clearly reveal its ideological limitations with respect to the productive relations of a later time or mode of production.

As ideology becomes translated into politics in the arena of praxis, the critic has to assess the political effects of the work. In the context of the present struggle, towards what political attitudes, espousals, and practices does the literary work lead the reader, whether directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly? The answer to this question lies in the difference between, on one hand, safeguarding the interests of the dominant class backed by foreign monopoly capital and, on the other hand, advancing the legitimate demands of the people towards realizing their full humanity in a free and just order and in which present historic struggle everyone plays his chosen part.

While Mao Zedong’s aesthetic theory was undoubtedly sound, the later excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution showed a marked departure from his balanced, non‑reductive view. The traditional heritage, as well as foreign works, was placed under severe attack. A general shrinking took place in the obsession of the Gang of Four with models in the various arts, so that, for instance, theatrical production became confined to twelve model plays and paintings were carefully scrutinized for what they deemed were reactionary meanings. The lingering influence of the Gang of Four who controlled cultural life gave rise to much bitterness and dissatisfaction on the part of artists.

Revolutionary Art Practice in the Philippines

The Sixties in the Philippines saw the emergence of revolutionary aesthetics, art and culture with the founding of several militant youth organizations, a number answering to sectoral needs. In 1966, Jose Ma. Sison pointed to the need for a cultural revolution and in the same year called for the Second Propaganda Movement to continue the unfinished task of the Philippine Revolution of 1896. Compared to the nineteenth century Propaganda Movement, this second wave was to be “a propaganda movement of a new type, with a new class leadership and a new alignment of forces and with a new ideological and political orientation more advanced and more progressive … because it occurs at a higher stage of historical development and because the enemy we face, with its domestic allies, is stronger and more advanced than the old colonialism it replaced.” (Sison, 1967, 224‑5). A pioneering work in reinterpreting history from the point of view of the people’s interests was the basic activist text, Philippine Society and Revolution by Amado Guerrero.

The first of the progressive organizations was the university‑based Student Cultural Association of the Philippines which consisted of students and young intellectuals of the University of the Philippines. Later, the Kabataang Makabayan, a militant student and youth organization, formed a section for artists which later became the Nagkakaisang Progresibong Artista‑Arkitekto.

The burgeoning political movement of the Sixties escalated to the First Quarter Storm of 1970 in which a series of mass actions posed a serious challenge to the reactionary state. After the First Quarter Storm, the radical mass organizations, which were enjoying large support, were busy in holding congresses and workshops, as well as conducting political campaigns and mass actions in response to various issues. However, in 1972 with the declaration of martial law and the mass arrest of activists, these organizations were forced to go underground and many of their members dispersed to the countryside where they joined the armed struggle.

One of the organizations which held its congress in 1971 was the Nagkakaisang Progresibong Artista‑Arkitekto consisting of visual artists. The congratulatory message of Jose Ma. Sison, Chairman of the Kabataang Makabayan, delivered on the occasion of its First National Congress and workshop in 1971 clearly stated the bases of revolutionary art under the guidance of Marxism‑Leninism‑Mao Zedong Thought: “What do we mean by national democratic cultural revolution of a new type in the field of art? It means overthrowing the art of the exploiting classes which is promoted by U.S. imperialism and its running dogs. It means building up a new kind of art that serves the people, especially the toiling masses of workers and peasants, in their revolutionary struggle. It means affirming the revolutionary leadership of the proletariat and its vanguard. It is the depiction of the masses of workers, peasants and Red fighters as the real heroes and makers of history. It is the casting away of the old selfish types of bourgeois and feudal heroes; it is the projection of the revolutionary types of workers, peasants and Red fighters. Among art workers, constant efforts are exerted to remould themselves so as to become better and more effective servants of the people and revolution.” He takes up the matter of form in art: “The wall poster is as sharp and as powerful as the slogan that the wordsmith mints. But this is not the only art form available to you, although emphasis has been correctly put on it for obvious reasons. Our guiding revolutionary ideology impels us to seize so many other art forms available to the furtherance of the revolutionary struggle. You are expected today to discuss the multifarious forms of art and how to put them into the service of the people and revolution.” (Sison: 1971, 53‑4).

Another important event in laying down the groundwork for a revolutionary aesthetics in the Philippines was the holding of the First National Congress of Panulat para sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan (PAKSA) or Literature for National Progress, in December 1971 at the University of the Philippines. The PAKSA was a progressive and patriotic organization of writers, critics, teachers and students of literature. The women’s liberation movement also emerged as an important part of the national democratic revolution with the founding of the Makabayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (MAKIBAKA) or Nationalist Movement of the New Women which held its first congress in 1972.

While Mao Zedong’s revolutionary theory was a major influence in these political organizations, it has necessarily undergone adjustment and transformation in its application to the Philippine context with its specific conditions.

Revolutionary peasant art and literature

In the Philippines, the guerrilla fronts of the New People’s Army in the countryside constitute the principal ground for the flourishing of revolutionary art and literature in the Philippines. This is explained by the fact that it is in the countryside where the peasants and farm workers who comprise the main force of the revolution live and from whose ranks comes the bulk of recruits for the New People’s Army. It is in the countryside that the main form of struggle, armed struggle, is being carried out and where the fledgling forms of the revolutionary organs of political power are being nurtured from the village level to the national level. Based on the strategy of protracted people’s war, the countryside is the principal economic, political, and cultural arena of the Philippine revolution.

To quote a succinct summary by a people’s writer, “The present characteristics of revolutionary art and literature are primarily determined by the conditions existing in the countryside. These latter include the level of development of people’s war, which is still in the strategic defensive and which demands the concentration by the revolutionary forces, including the artists and writers among them, on their primary tasks in the armed struggle and the revolutionary peasant mass movement; the general poverty, exploitation and illiteracy of the peasant masses, and the destructive incursions of government military and paramilitary forces in the villages within the guerrilla fronts. Consequently, the high level of political, organizational, and ideological work and the rich oral traditions in local culture provide artistic and literary works their militant and mass character. Secondly, given the mobility of the revolutionary forces and the vulnerability of the guerrilla fronts to enemy depredations, artistic and literary works are, in general, those that require less time, logistics and personnel to accomplish and which can easily be disseminated to large and far‑flung audiences. The production of these works under the most difficult conditions of struggle, militarization, poverty and illiteracy proves the creativity of the revolutionary forces and the importance of revolutionary art and literature in the national democratic movement.” (Montanez: 1988, 32).

Indigenous traditions

The culture of the Filipino masses is largely based on oral tradition. While it is true that a large number of the population are literate, the level of literacy has declined in recent years, accompanied by the tendency to revert to orality because of the paucity, if not the unaffordable cost, of reading materials. Such a condition results in further widening the educational and cultural gap between the urban and the rural populations. Given the widespread oral culture, cultural cadres must necessarily work from these folk oral traditions, which include epics, narrative songs, and poetic jousts, stimulate and transform them so that they can take on new progressive content.

Complementing these efforts is the literacy campaign primarily in the production of reading materials, mostly illustrated or in the familiar comics form, for peasants and workers. To be sure, literacy is of great importance and cannot be neglected because it is through literacy and diligent study that the masses will be able to assume governing powers themselves. Organic intellectual in the Gramscian sense should emerge as leaders from the ranks of organized workers and peasants, as well as from respected community elders. There has always been a warm response to literary materials because they fill a deep hunger for learning and information. From these efforts, the oppressed and marginalized may find their voice and assert themselves as self‑determining subjects. New forms have come out of the struggle. For instance, testimonial literature which is a first‑person account of experience in struggle, usually by veteran fighters, is an important vehicle with which to share personal and political insights valuable to the community.

Corresponding to this in the visual arts are the surviving indigenous traditions of ethnic and folk art, such as weaving, woodcarving, basketry, pottery, etc. In music, there are likewise rich indigenous musical instruments, structures, and forms which now bear new content based on contemporary experience. The people’s living traditions shape the common identity and thus are not to be regarded as mere “residues” of earlier periods or modes of production to be eventually superseded in the course of historical development. The living traditions include ethnic art which refers to the productions of the cultural communities who show little or no Spanish colonial or Western influence because they isolated themselves or vigorously resisted colonial encroachment. Non‑Christian, these include the animist Filipinos who preserve their epic traditions, and the large Muslim ethnic groups of the South. Folk art refers to the productions of the Christianized lowland peasant populations and which fuse indigenous and colonial elements. All these fall under Philippine indigenous arts, specific to the Philippines and excluded from Western artistic canons, especially of the academies.

In cultural work these marginalized groups which have suffered from government neglect, if not prejudice, require a different approach and a different aesthetics, since their people are wary about attempts to assimilate them into the mainstream culture as this would entail loss of identity. However, one of the strongest guerrilla zones is found among the highland groups of the North. It is also among them that is seen the most successful transformation of oral traditions in the revolutionary context.

Colonial legacy

The Philippines also has a long colonial history under Spain for almost four hundred years and under the United States for half a century. Spain introduced figurative painting on a two‑dimensional surface, for while there was woodcarving with human figures, there were no paintings in precolonial times. Spain also left a legacy of religious culture in the form of churches, holy images, religious festivals, and with it the spirit of folk piety which remains pervasive in Philippine society. Again, this area has called for revolutionary transformation.

Religion as terrain of contention

In the Philippines with its strong religious component in culture, religion is a terrain of contention between conflicting discourses, the reactionary and the revolutionary. Despite the long dominance of the conservative institutional Church, the Philippines has a tradition of revolutionary clergy and nuns that goes back to the Spanish Colonial Period. This is continued to the present by priests and religious who organized the ecumenical Christians for National Liberation based on the tenets of the theology of struggle, the Filipino counterpart of the Latin American theology of liberation. Inspired by the progressive directions opened by Vatican II and the Medellin conference which instituted the Basic Christian Communities in Latin America and in the Philippines, the CNL, which is an organization of the National Democratic Front, seeks to recuperate the progressive aspects of Christianity, radicalize these into an “option for the poor” and articulate these into the revolutionary discourse. In the countryside where people suffer from military abuses stemming from counterinsurgency operations, the Basic Christian Communities provide shelter for the people, defend and support them in their struggle.

In a paper on “Theological Issues in the Philippine Context” presented in the Second EATWOT Assembly in Mexico City in December 1986, the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologies (EATWOT)‑Philippines, declared: “Struggle becomes in this situation a major thematic issue of theological consideration. Here, too, the question is not a matter of delineating a priori the moral and theological parameters of struggle so that one is immediately pulled into the discussion of the morality of violence and non‑violence. It is a matter of recognizing the violent and intolerable situation within which the poor suffer and of affirming the freedom and the space within which they could decide for themselves the modes of action that they can take that is commensurate to the demands of justice and liberation…. A theology of struggle, in this context, focuses attention on the process by which liberation is attained within every concrete situation of oppression and exploitation. Thus, the revolutionary process becomes an organized, active, and liberating process aimed at the attainment of justice and the building of a new order of economic, social and political relations. Thus, too, the revolutionary struggle is essentially a “people’s struggle” in which the poor and the oppressed are and should be the active agents and immediate beneficiaries.”

In art, the traditional religious images undergo a semantic transformation. For instance, the Madonna and Child are contextualized in a setting of revolutionary struggle. The Pieta becomes translated into a human rights situation. The Magnificat theme is the raising up of the lowly to triumph over the kings of the earth.

To combat the spread of the theology of struggle, the reactionary camp, financed by U.S. extreme rightwing groups, has been sending wave upon wave of evangelists and sponsoring churches and fanatic sects and cults with the support of armed vigilantes or paramilitary groups. Mass hysteria in miracles and apparitions have also been provoked, with the incidental effect of boosting tourism.

Language

The national language, as an important part of the Filipino cultural identity should be developed and its literature promoted, at the same time that the vernacular languages and literature should be maintained and encouraged. The contributions to people’s literature of 19th century progressive works written in Spanish and recent progressive/revolutionary works in English should likewise be recognized. In these texts, one may have to do, not necessarily with the extrinsic employment of a foreign language, but with its internalized appropriation into a progressive discourse. It does not also mean that all works written in the national language are, as such, of a progressive character, an idea that some scholars promote.

Language, to be sure, is a tool and medium of communication, and more than the simple use of the national language, what is important is that it be infused with liberative content. This is especially important because the use of the national language lends a populist character to the text, hence carrying a strong appeal to the masses. The well‑funded reactionary manipulators of ideology know this only too well and their strategies involve the use of the national language and folk traditions under the guise of nationalism in order to disseminate the most backward anti‑people ideology to the masses. Even language has become a medium of contention between the liberative forces and those aggressively seeking to maintain a firm base for U.S. imperialist interest. Language itself is fast becoming politicized. All the more is their an urgent necessity to significantly enlarge the body of works in the national language with a progressive/revolutionary content so that the liberative meanings will be indelibly fused with the language.

Realism and modernism

In the Philippines, figurative painting of secular subjects began in the nineteenth century with studio portraits and landscapes by local artists, followed by large academic canvases by Filipino expatriates in Spain. In the first decades of the twentieth century these gave way to a proto‑impressionist school of landscape and genre painting of countryside idylls conveying conservative values. Modernism was introduced in the late Thirties and took root after the Second World War. Thus, when the revolutionary movement gained ground in the late Sixties, several generations of artists were already trained in the modernist styles, such as cubism, expressionism, surrealism, etc. The first group of student artists, the United Progressive Artists and Architects, did illustrative paintings of political work in the countryside and posters patterned after Chinese art during the Cultural Revolution and which showed Russian socialist realist influence. Their work, however, easily fell into stereotypes because of the limited illustrative style and the lack of concrete experience. Other artists took up progressive and revolutionary subjects but in the different modernist styles. The social realist trend which developed was not based on any particular style but on common progressive principles. The artists produced work in a variety of styles, including expressionism, surrealism, even conceptual art in different media or in mixed media. Among these figurative styles, realism was only one of them. But whatever style they were in, their subject and content reflected the socio‑political conditions of Philippine society, although not done in the realist style of recording reality and being strictly faithful to observed material detail. It seemed that the variety and inventiveness of the modernist style made flexibile by the artists could produce more striking images in their discovery of expressive form. Form itself assumed a semiotic meaning‑conveying capacity and approached the desired fusion of form and content.

In the countryside, a lively grassroots theater took the form of skits and short plays in which peasant performers dramatized their experiences and drew lessons from them with the help of cultural cadres. In the urban center, Brechtian influence has been evident, as seen in the productions of the Philippine Educational Theater Association which has a wide repertoire of plays by Bertolt Brecht. The principal concept of his aesthetic theory is that art and literature, instead of reflecting or recording reality, defamiliarizes it and reverses our expectations by means of the “alienation effect”. By “baring the process of the text” and eliciting audience participation, it aims to sharpen critical responses and discourage passive empathy. Although not realist, Brechtian theater is highly political with a strong educational and didactic intent.

Working within a varied cultural situation as prevails in the Philippines, the revolutionary artist is not only concerned with widening the public of his art but also with addressing different classes and sectors. The sophisticated urban audience exposed to world art demands a specialist art which makes use of the most progressive and technically refined aspects of various art traditions and contributions, both local and foreign. The raising of artistic standards can also lie in this area in which the reading literacy, as well as the visual literacy, of the large public is expanded and enriched in the progressive use of the vast resources of art in terms of materials and technologies. Experimentation in mediums and techniques is an important part of artistic activity but in the revolutionary context it is not pursued for the mere sake of novelty but in order to gain a new richness of expression.

The often‑heard expression of “bringing art to the people” as has been expressed by some leading bourgeois artists is a distortion of the relationship between the artist and the people, as it also smacks of patronizing attitude. What is necessary is not to bring bourgeois artistic productions to the people but to adapt the principle of “from the masses to the masses” from which stems much of the concreteness, variety, and liveliness of the new art and culture. The practice of this principle “entails intimate knowledge of the day‑to‑day life, struggles and aspirations of the masses, their language and their culture. Only in this manner can the writer achieve what is truly typical of the masses, that is, to discover where, based on their revolutionary program interests and practice as a class, they are going; and to avoid pitfalls in revolutionary writing, such as tailism or adventurism, sloganeering, stereotyping, imposition of petty bourgeois sentiments on the revolutionary masses, and elitist tendency to look down on the masses and belittle their achievements and potentials.” (G. Guillermo: 1990, 44).

Features of the New Culture

Mao Zedong’s formulations on culture have also been of influence on the Philippine cultural revolution, particularly his description of the people’s new culture as national, scientific, and mass in an article in 1940 entitled “The Culture of New Democracy”. This has been adapted as the orientation in art and culture and has served as guide for cultural work, at the same time that it has been locally defined in Philippine terms and according to Philippine needs. It is important to note that these values or qualities are viewed not as separate descriptive elements in an enumerative series but as necessary and integral components which constitute the progressive/revolutionary discourse.

National

“National” as a political value in art and culture asserts the people’s sovereignty and independence in the context of the anti‑colonial and anti‑imperialist struggle. It promotes the dignity and self‑respect of the Filipino people who gain their national consciousness as a self‑determining Subject in active struggle. It united the broad masses of the people‑‑the workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, national bourgeoisie, all progressive sectors against the power bloc of imperialism, mainly U.S. imperialism and its agents in the big landlord and comprador classes.

Likewise, the concept of national binds together the regional ethnicities and unites all progressive forces from all parts of the country with their cultural traditions and religious beliefs. At the same time, it addresses the problems of the indigenous peoples, victims of colonial and neocolonial prejudice, exploitation, and neglect, while respecting their culture and expressions. This involves preserving their identity and safeguarding the various ethnic interpellations in their specificity as these are articulated into the revolutionary discourse.

The formulation of the new culture necessitates the refocusing and sharpening of the concept of nationalism. It would be a function of metaphysical idealism to hypostasize it into an absolute and ahistorical entity consisting of ethnic, linguistic and cultural moments. On the contrary, it is necessary to historicize the concept of nationalism and to demonstrate its historicity by investigating the changing configurations that it has taken within different ideological discourses. Within what ideologies, for instance, did the nineteenth century articulate nationalism or for that matter, its concept of culture? In Philippine history, the definition of nationalism changes from the nineteenth century Propaganda Movement led by the reformist elites to the anti‑colonial revolution of 1896, to the American Occupation, the post‑World War II era during which was acutely posed the issue of national identity, to the politicized Sixties, the First Quarter Storm which was a high point of open mass protest, the martial law regime of former President Marcos, and finally the post‑Marcos era of the Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos governments. The high moments in the definition of Filipino nationalism are found in the formulations of the 19th century Propagandists, most eminently, Dr. Jose Rizal; the 19th century revolutionary Katipunan led by the mass leader Andres Bonifacio; the anti‑colonial statesman Apolinario Mabini in the early American Period; Claro M. Recto’s anti‑imperialist campaign in the postwar period; and in the Sixties, Jose Ma. Sison with his articulation of nationalism into the discourse of the national democratic movement with a socialist perspective.

The content of nationalism shifts according to the ideology and political discourse into which it is articulated, with class interest as the articulating principle. In the Philippines the ruling elites have always mobilized the concept of nationalism to its use because of its strong emotional appeal to the sense of country, and implicitly, to home and family and to “all one holds sacred.” Nationalism has always served as a potent rallying point for unity. This is why the concept has often been fertile ground for ideological mystification. When it is equated solely with patriotism or love of country, its class content is glossed over to give way to its purely emotional connotations. The mystification is carried further when “country” becomes synonymous to “government”. A form of ideological manipulation common to fascist regimes consists in foregrounding the common racial and cultural heritage and invoking these to make populist appeals for unification, thus obscuring exploitative and neocolonial relations and perpetuating, if not strengthening, their operation. The reactionary state sponsors or approves of a nationalism that is purely based on culture and tradition, but when this moves towards economic nationalism and independence, strong interventions are made to suppress it.

Indeed, nationalism as an ideological element with no definite class‑belonging has been articulated into a wide variety of discourse, such as the discourse of the reformist ilustrado and that of the revolutionary Katipunan, both of the nineteenth century. In our time, it is found in authoritarian or fascist discourse and also at the same time in the revolutionary (or in the Philippines, the revolutionary national‑democratic discourse‑‑two antagonistic discourses. The difference lies in their respective articulating principles: in the first, where nationalism is combined with the feudal‑colonial and bourgeois comprador ideology, with authoritarianism linked with a coercive military component, the principle is ruling class conservatism, perpetuating elite privilege and neo‑colonial relations; in the second, where it is associated with anti‑imperialism and the popular aspirations towards justice and equality, the principle is proletarian (mass)radicalism, advancing the people’s revolution. In its historical dimension, nationalism in the national democratic discourse articulates the progressive and national‑popular aspects of the culture of all periods, past and present, into the new people’s democratic culture, thereby delineating the historical continuity of the people’s identity as anti‑colonial and self‑determining Subject, particularly as it brings to the fore the long tradition of the people’s struggle against colonialism/imperialism and for independence and sovereignty expressed in the many forms that make up the Filipino cultural heritage.

National identity, a concept allied to nationalism, is also often subject to ideological distortion. For one, it does not consist in a static enumeration of qualities on the social, moral, and aesthetic planes which purportedly constitute the Filipino identity. Such a concept would only reify the Filipino character to an ahistorical and idealist essence. While the existence of common traits is recognized, national identity, however, is necessarily viewed in perspective as developing in a dynamic and dialectical relationship to the historical process. Its definition, therefore, cannot be pegged to a particular period, such as the indigenous precolonial period or the nineteenth century Propaganda and Revolution.

There is likewise, a continuing dialectical relationship between the national and the regional. This is seen, for instance, in the relationship of the national language, Filipino, with the regional languages. While the support and development of the Filipino language is a national campaign, the many vernacular languages should be preserved and encouraged to flourish as well, through programs for regional literatures.

It is only clear that the concept of national is not defined solely in terms of the urban cultural experience or in terms of the middle class alone, which is often the case, but in terms of the broad masses and their interests and aspirations. It is the national democratic articulation of the concept of national identify which alone can bring together the rich pluralities of the people’s culture‑‑the ethnic, linguistic, and religious‑‑in a true unity. The key to the meaning of national identity lies in a politicized and decolonized consciousness fully self‑aware, critical, and engaged in the pursuit and praxis of national liberation.

Scientific

The scientific character of the new culture rejects the metaphysical and idealist world view with its mystifications regarding human nature, the economic and political structures, and the historical process that perpetuate exploitative relations. It opposes superstition which makes man live uncritically within a closed mold of unfounded beliefs, values, practices, and prejudices rendering them resistant to change. In a Third World country, however, superstition is not to be construed as synonymous to folk traditions which contain usable grassroots technologies suited to local conditions and resources and which also include valuable forms of cultural expression. What is to be discarded has to do with ways of thought and behavior which hinder the development of social and political consciousness, which constrict the productive forces and obstruct technological invention and scientific growth, and those which, because of their strong emotional charge, foster blind fanaticism.

Also to be opposed are all forms of obscurantism, dogmatism, and prejudice which block the perception of one’s rights, interests, and tasks. Education, along with the drive for literacy, can do much to instill the scientific outlook. Teaching, guided by democratic rather than oppressive pedagogy, needs to develop the critical and investigative frame of mind. Contrary to metaphysical obscurantism, the scientific outlook holds that the material world exists and is knowable, and that truth is derived from the study and investigation of concrete reality. Things and phenomena do not exist in isolation and do not have an absolute and fixed nature or properties. On the contrary, all phenomena, natural and social, are relative to one another in complex and ever‑changing relationships. At the same time, the dynamic contradictions embedded in the heart of things as opposing properties, aspects, tendencies, characteristics, and movements, generate continual transformation and change. Applied to history, the dynamics of the historical process lies in the development of the basic contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production manifested in the struggle in the economic, political, and cultural spheres.

Within this framework, normative criticism involves recognizing and exposing ideological deceptions and opting for liberative, pro‑people values. Practice involves social investigation and exposure to the life of the basic masses from whose experience of struggle is derived the principal content of the new culture.

Still in this context, art and culture are viewed as perspectival within social and historical coordinates. Rather than stressing the dichotomy and separation of form and content in art, one perceives their true dialectical relationship in which they dynamically interact and interpenetrate. While art has its specificity‑‑its vocabulary and particular resources of medium and technique‑‑the values that it conveys necessarily reestablish it in the ground of lived reality and hence it becomes related, directly or indirectly, through various mediations, overtly or covertly, to the class‑linked ideological struggle. Aesthetics, likewise, is not absolute, eternal, nor given once and for all times, but is historically situated and originates from particular ideological discourses.

Mass

The mass character of the new culture signifies its espousal of the true interests and aspirations of the people, particularly the exploited and oppressed classes of Philippine society from the workers and the proletariat to the national bourgeoisie, all of which suffer from the domination of imperialism and foreign monopoly capital. It also derives from the fact that the new culture is created and enriched by the efforts and contribution of the broad alliance of progressive forces, led by the organized revolutionary masses.

Clearly, this culture is to be sharply dissociated from the artificial mass culture produced by the culture industry of the dominant classes for the consumption of the masses in order to keep them uncritical, ignorant, and unfree. This kind of culture exploits the masses as a large market of consumers at the same time that it greatly underestimates, if it does not stifle, their capacities, as well as breeds and perpetuates ignorance. it perpetuates values, such as escapism and consumerism, which do not further the people’s interests. In contradistinction, the new culture which is based on democratic premises combats the degraded popular culture and encourages alternative expressions and forms in line with the revolutionary campaign in culture. At the same time, the new culture opposes the elitist conception of culture which defines it as the preserve of the privileged few, that is, the wealthy and cosmopolitan elite, and which proffers the tastes and values of the dominant class for emulation.

An important element of this culture is the production of progressive artists, intellectuals, specialists, and cultural workers from the petty bourgeoisie. Part of their output is addressed to the urban professional sector in politicizing, widening, and strengthening the base of the people’s solidarity. At the same time, they join the mainstream of the people’s struggle in which they create the new art and culture with the masses from whom they learn and with whom they share experiences and skills in a mutual relationship.

The practice of popularization and raising of standards

The development of the new culture involves the complementary activities and raising of standards. Popularization includes both content and form. Progressive content in the arts, whether in literature, the visual arts, music and theater, is more effectively disseminated through the use of popular, indigenous, and readily accessible forms, the use and propagation of which will stimulate creativity on a wider scale as well as counteract elitism. An important aspect of popularization is the development of an effective national network of communication and inter‑regional exchange.

The use of oral indigenous forms is particularly striking in music in which the salidom‑ay, balitaw and composo, as well as other folk song patterns have in recent times acquired new content reflecting experiences in an atmosphere of militarization and resistance. In theater, stage and street theater, including skits and short but effective dramatic forms, have been developed to suit the large needs but meager finances of the countryside. They crystallize in artistic form the life‑and‑death experiences of the struggle, with the masses themselves creating their own theater with the initial help of specialists. In literature, poetry in both traditional and free verse, as well as stories, have constituted a significant part of recent production. People’s literature has found venues in regional mass newspapers and other publications, a number realized by means of urban resources. In the visual arts, popularization has called for the development of popular and accessible forms, such as posters, comics, portable murals, calendars, postcards, comics, together with paintings which are reproduced through slide showings. For the visual artists, it has also meant the search for alternative venues for exhibition other than the traditional museums and commercial galleries which exclude a sizeable part of the population. It has also meant the exploration and development of technical reproduction processes in order to veer away from exclusive and elitist conditions towards a democratic, pro‑people system.

To be sure, the task of popularization is not only in the field of literary and artistic expression, but also in other aspects of general culture, such as health programs, and literary programs that take into account the many vernacular languages, and the grassroots campaign in scientific education. Thus, there are field researches into folkways, such as herbal remedies and indigenous healing methods in order to systematize and enhance their use and application. In general, popularization means the widest dissemination of the national democratic outlook both in the theory and practice of struggle.

Along with popularization, the raising of standards became a felt need and moves were undertaken to make culture, specifically in its literary and artistic forms, meet the demand for the raising of standards, both in the countryside and in the urban centers. This second task involved the reassessment of cultural work and the enhancement of its productions. Stereotypes, outworn techniques, and sloganeering were discarded for a realism derived from actual experiences and investigations into the conditions obtaining in the fields and factories. Both elementary and complex forms were developed in response to different needs and situations. The artist, whether he be of the basic masses or of the petty bourgeoisie, strives to intimately know and understand social reality both in his immediate environment and in the larger context of the struggle.

Mao Zedong and the Contemporary World

The political and aesthetic ideas of Mao Zedong have an influence and importance that extends from their original context in the Chinese Revolution to the people’s struggles of the present time. Springing from the rich experiences of the Chinese people, they have a continued relevance to Asia and to the rest of the world.

Despite the reverses of socialism in Russia and Eastern Europe which the United States and its allies have dwelt upon gloatingly in the western press, Marxism remains a firm anchor and intellectual center, offering a genuine vision for revolutionary change at a time when class exploitation and imperialism take on new and increasingly sophisticated forms. Struggles for national liberation continue in the Third World, and the events in Russia and Eastern Europe, while deeply disturbing to countries in struggle, cannot lead to the abandonment of the revolutionary cause.

There are, however, lessons to be learned from recent experience, and while they are basically political they necessarily have a bearing on art, culture, and aesthetic theory. One basic need is the more refined adaptation and indigenization of the Marxist vision to each particular society with its unique and concrete conditions, history, and culture. As Mao Zedong himself said, “Dogmatic Marxism is not Marxism, it is anti‑Marxism.” Even in the Yenan Forum he warned of the dangers of rigidification and the reification of Marxism into absolute tenets, which in itself would be inimical to the very spirit of revolutionary dynamism and change inherent in Marxist thought. The Philippine experience has not been wanting in this respect, although there is always the need, in the light of changing political events and conditions, to continually reexamine the relationship of theory to practice. Viewed in a positive way, Marxism continually poses a challenge to the revolutionaries’ adaptability and creativity in order to effectively address the needs of particular societies in revolution.

Class struggle

Recent political theory going under the term “post‑Marxist” tries to undermine the basic Marxist principle of class struggle. But downplaying or doing away with this principle only results in masking or concealing the intense though covert conflicts of interest which continually occur beneath the surface. More particularly in the Third World, but also in advanced capitalist countries like the United States which is now experiencing the decay and criminality of the inner cities, class conflict remains a reality, although it can be strikingly overdetermined by the factors of ethnicity and race. Without the cogency of the notion of class struggle, the poor are further marginalized and their issues regarded as peripheral, thereby bolstering the power of the dominant classes. It is the consciousness of the class struggle which generates revolutionary change; without it, there can only be piecemeal reform within a closed structure.

The principle of contradiction, particularly as elaborated on by Mao Zedong, is an important analytical tool in historical conjunctures, such as revolutionary crises and situations. The classes in conflict, however, are not just solid homogeneous blocs but are divided into groups and fractions with their own interests, so that conflict can become exceedingly complex, including principal and numerous secondary contradictions occurring both on the level of the material (economic) base as on the superstructure, including its political and ideological instances.

Nationalism and democracy

In recent times, the ideological concept nationalism, often at the heart of cultural/artistic production, has become a highly charged concept and a rallying point for states aspiring to independence and sovereignty. If nationalism is based on the affirmation of a common history and cultural heritage, as well as racial homogeneity, this results in the intensification of ethnic rivalry to the point of armed conflict in the desire to gain dominance. Indeed, the concept of nationalism involves unity, the affirmation of a common or shared identity, often vis‑a‑vis a threatening external interventionist force. As a concept, it is both inclusive and exclusive. It is possible, however, that, instead of a narrow, exclusive concept, there can be formed a multi‑ethnic nationalism based on the interests of all oppressed classes. When nationalism is articulated into the revolutionary Marxist discourse, ethnic conflicts are alleviated with the adaptation of the proletarian class standpoint which cuts across ethnic groups, at the same time that the working class seeks hegemony in society as a whole not just by advancing its own corporate interests but also by espousing the other classes’ progressive interests with which it can find common cause.

Like nationalism, democracy as an ideological element should also be articulated into the revolutionary discourse. In itself, the core of the concept is egalitarianism and “equal opportunity for all”; it also foregrounds populist values in programs for the people. Yet such egalitarianism and populism remain unfocused and diffuse, indeed vulnerable to elite strategies, when they are not directed by the proletarian standpoint. Likewise, an ideological strategy of U.S. imperialism is to have a monopoly on the definition of democracy to suit its hegemonic interests. It seeks to disarticulate democracy as an ideological concept from the revolutionary discourse with a socialist perspective and to fix it firmly in a liberal‑conservative discourse governed by the principle of monopoly capital. It plans to immediately coopt under its global zone of influence countries which have recently thrown off authoritarian rule by convening them under the rubric of “newly‑restored democracies”. But it is only when democracy is articulated into the revolutionary Marxist discourse guided by the proletarian standpoint that it can become truly realized in society.

U.S. imperialist strategies in culture and ideology

It is also in the past decades that U.S. imperialist strategies to undermine the course of socialism have intensified and assumed the numerous and complex forms of a Medusa’s head. Their forms range from overt aggression and interventionism as in the United States’ bombing of Iraq to covert psychological warfare in populations engaged in revolutionary struggle and in socialist states. Their operations are so insidious that the “target populations” are often kept unaware of their machinations. The more successful their strategies are the more invisible their operations so that the eventual crisis or collapse will be ascribed only to internal forces, without taking into account the long period of penetration and quiet sabotage by inimical imperialist agents into the social fabric.

Among these ideological strategies which have been effected in the Third World, particularly the Philippines and Latin American countries, is the Low Intensity Conflict formulated by the Pentagon and the CIA. Salient to the definition of LIC is its character as a war on all fronts, parallel to the “total war” which former Philippine President Corazon Aquino, following U.S. tutelage, declared on the revolutionary forces, especially the politicized peasantry in the countryside. It emphasizes psychological warfare and integrates the economic, socio‑cultural, and political with the military counterinsurgency operations. LIC is to wage war on the economic, psychological, social, and cultural fronts; it has a strong ideological slant, that is, an anti‑communist orientation. On the economic front, civic operations of LIC include giving assistance and incentives to blockading food supplies to guerrilla zones. On the political front, US pressure is brought to bear on the target country through the traditional channels of diplomacy, including regular visitations to observe and proffer advice, and even more, through covert CIA manipulations. On the cultural front, it makes use of cultural expressions and folk traditions which they manipulate towards a reactionary orientation. LIC involves, as part of its psychological operations, the propagation and intensification of public interest in occult religions, pseudo‑oriental philosophies, and superstition as nonrational ideologies to subvert and obstruct the advances in people’s culture with a scientific outlook.

A strategy during the past Corazon Aquino government and one which was also adapted for Latin American countries was the Doctrine of the Third Force. Here the U.S. government is favorable to a government which takes a “centrist” position between the forces of the Left, the progressive‑revolutionary forces, and the Right, the conservative‑reactionary camp. It is a position that suits LIC well because of its humanitarian guise while promoting US interests. This doctrine can be unmasked as a rightwing strategy as it ultimately aims to marginalize the Left. Related to this is the strategy of “pluralism” which ostensibly gives equal value to contending social forces, be these classes, political parties, ethnic groups. However, this again serves as a benign mask for traditionally privileged groups to take the opportunity to coopt new and less advantaged groups and to exploit their weaknesses. At the bottom, the Doctrine of the Third Force and the bourgeois concept of “pluralism” serve to diffuse the perception of contradiction in society which is central to revolutionary thought.

Updating the cultural revolution

While many of the issues of the cultural revolution remain valid to the present, there are new contents that have emerged, new issues that must be addressed and which will be dealt with as themes in revolutionary art and literature. In the eyes of the Third World in struggle, the West is drifting into a postmodernist meaninglessness, an obsession with pure surface and image, an eclecticism without historical sense, the decentering of the human subject and a general loss of moorings, with an art and literature that conveys this loss of meaning. There are, however, issues that have acquired a renewed urgency and immediacy in the present day. The most important of these are ethnicity, ecology, and women’s liberation.

The issue of ethnicity has come to the fore in many countries today. Ethnic rivalries are rending societies apart in bloody “ethnic cleansing”. Because they often have a long history, the solution is not easy. Ethnic communities resist assimilation, especially forced assimilation, into the dominant groups, with a corresponding loss of identity. On the contrary, ethnic interpellations should be preserved and aligned with national interpellations, so that in the Philippines, for instance, one can be both an Ifugao or a Maranao (members of a different ethnic groups) and a Filipino. During the Spanish and American colonial periods, there prevailed prejudicial attitudes on the part of the dominant Christian population towards the many non‑Christian groups which resisted Western encroachment. The awakening of political anti‑colonial consciousness gave rise to a progressive attitude towards the indigenous peoples with efforts to espouse their interests. In the context of national democratic movement, the indigenous peoples are assured of the preservation of their identity and even of their right to self‑determination. Balance is maintained between the national mainstream and the indigenous communities whose distinct contribution to the national culture are recognized and valued.

Ecology and the preservation of the natural environment is an urgent contemporary concern. For this issue to be genuinely addressed beyond lip service and media coverage, it needs to be politicized to show the role of imperialism in the ravaging of Third World environments, as in the dumping of nuclear wastes, the exporting of banned drugs, chemicals, fertilizers, and insecticides. The protection of the environment is an important issue in the ongoing cultural revolution which seeks to create a keen awareness on the part of the population for ecological concerns.

While the women’s liberation movement is not a new issue, there is a pressing need to hasten its progress all over the world. The women’s liberation movement has made considerable gains since the Sixties when the first women’s organizations were founded. Its success depends on its rootedness in the actual conditions of the society. In the Philippines, a genuine women’s movement necessarily links up with the national democratic revolution led by the proletariat and the peasantry as its closest ally. The women’s mass movement in the cities necessarily interacts dynamically with their mass movement in the countryside which is the arena of the armed struggle and in which women have made significant contributions. The favorable conditions for the liberation of women from patriarchy and feudal values can only be achieved with the realization of the radical agenda for a just and egalitarian order. This awakening feminist consciousness is now increasingly reflected in art and literature, not only in its personal and individual aspects but also and more especially in its social and political dimension.

Despite the setbacks in Russia and Western Europe, Marxism, particularly the contributions of Mao Zedong, continue to proffer the vision of a new human order of justice and equality, and with its attainment, lasting peace and freedom for all people. Marxism poses a challenge to creativity, which is the ability to adapt principles sensitively and flexibly to unique social and historical conditions, the ability to correctly conceptualize and realize a genuine leadership of the people working towards the goal of eradicating class exploitation and oligarchic privilege, and the ability to consistently pursue its liberating vision through all vicissitudes of history.

D. Y. Hsu and P. Y. Ching

Under Mao Zedong’s leadership, China had one unique experience during the socialist transition; the Chinese Communist Party sponsored a sequence of mass movements during the period between 1949 and 1978. Mass movements accompanied all major changes during this period: the Land Reform, the Three‑anti, the Five‑anti movements, the Anti‑rightist movement in the early 1950′s; the Great Leap Forward in 1958; and the Cultural Revolution in 1966‑1976. The analysis in this essay focuses on how and why mass movement was a socialist strategy for change during the first three decades of the People’s Republic.

There have been two opposing views on the issue of mass movement. One view regards mass movements as events artificially and deliberately agitated by Mao Zedong as a means to discredit his opponents. This viewpoint regards mass movements as wasted time and energy which should have been spent developing China’s productive forces. This view is held and publicized by the current regime in China. Since Deng Hsioping and his supporters began their reform in 1979, they have suspended all party sponsored mass movements. On the contrary, we (the authors of this essay,) believe that party‑sponsored mass movements in the past helped maintain the link between the Chinese Communist Party and the masses. Each mass movement was organized to express the principal contradiction at the time within Chinese society, and it was a process to resolve that contradiction.[1] When the Chinese Communist Party mobilized the masses in movements for the resolution of contradictions, it became the agent for continual change in the transformation of the society. Participation in movements raised the consciousness of workers and peasants and appropriated new ideology. All major economic, political, and ideological changes in China between 1949 and 1978 were accompanied by mass movements. In addition, the implementation of major government policies was repeatedly tested in movements among the workers and peasants for their validation. We believe any mass movement sponsored by the party in power is unusual, because the authority fears not only that the movements might end in chaos, but also that the authorities themselves might become the targets of mass action. Moreover, mass movement proved to be a viable vehicle for socialist democracy, and it was the only countervailing force which existed to challenge the structural rigidity of China’s bureaucratic system. This essay will present an analysis from this perspective.

Since Deng and his supporters seized power in 1979, he and his supporters have steadfastly pushed forward a set of projects fitted well together in the broad framework of the Reform. These projects, all capitalist in nature, [2] have been carried out by passing legislation, issuing decrees, administrative orders ‑‑ all through legal action imposed on the masses from above. In 1979 the reformers amended the Constitution and abolished the workers’ right to strike and the right of freedom of expression.³ Later, the reformers passed the Contract Labor Law to legally abolish the permanent employment system in state enterprises.⁴ Deng’s Reform created many new contradictions in Chinese society. Above all, the contradiction between the Party bureaucrats and the masses stood out as the principal one. Without a mass movement these contradictions had no outlet for expression much less resolution. In the spring of 1989, these contradictions reached such a height that students began to demonstrate in China’s major cities. Many millions of urban residents also joined in to express their discontent and to voice their complaints. When the current Chinese regime decided that such direct confrontation could no longer be tolerated, they moved in the troops and ended it with the June 4th Tiananmen massacre. Now, four years after the massacre ,the abuse of power and privileges by the bureaucrats, which was the main target of the demonstration, has not only continued but has become more excessive. Even though the propaganda in newspapers repeatedly announced that those who committed economic crimes would be duly punished by law.  People in China are well aware that only those who committed minor crimes were persecuted, because the guilty one in these cases did not have any backing from the higher up, while major corruption’s involving the embezzlement of billions (of RMB) of public fund are covered up and the guilty ones are well protected.

The Material Base of Mass Movement

The ways to examine a post‑revolutionary society are not different from the ways to examine any other society. Mao wrote about the two different world outlooks concerning the law of development: the metaphysical world outlook and the materialist‑dialectical world outlook. In the beginning of his essay, “On Contradiction,” Mao Zedong explained, “They (those with the metaphysical outlook) contend that a thing can only keep on repeating itself as the same kind of thing and cannot change into anything different. In their opinion, capitalist exploitation, capitalist competition, the individualist ideology of capitalist society, and so on, can all be found in ancient slave society, or even in primitive society, and will exist for ever unchanged.”⁵ On the other hand, the materialist‑dialectical world outlook sees development as a unity of opposites. In other words, contradiction exists in the process of the development of all things. While the opposites of a contradiction continually transform themselves, a new process emerges from the transformation. This new process is not a repetition of the old, but rather, a qualitative change. He explained, “This dialectical world outlook teaches us primarily how to observe and analyze the movement of opposites in different things and, on the basis of such analysis, to indicate the methods for resolving contradiction. It is therefore most important for us to understand the law of contradiction in things in a concrete way.”⁶

Contradictions in post‑revolutionary society of China after 1949 were the material base of mass movement, a socialist strategy to resolve them. What were the contradictions? And, among the contradictions in the society, what was the principal contradiction at different stages of development? After seizing power, the Chinese Communist Party immediately faced these important questions. In analysis of post‑revolutionary Chinese society and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) role, Mao Zedong and Liu Shao‑chi (and Deng Hsioping) had (has) fundamental differences. After the CCP seized power and transferred the means of production to the state, Liu and Deng viewed the principal contradiction, to be between the “advanced social system” and the “backward social productive forces,” as expressed in the “Resolution of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China” in 1956⁷. Therefore, according to Liu (and now Deng), after the ownership of the means of production was legally transferred to the state, the main task of the CCP was to devote itself to the development of productive forces. Mao, on the other hand, believed that the social system (the relations of production) was far from being advanced, and contradictions existed within the economic base as well as between the economic base and the superstructure.⁸ Even though the feudalistic ideology had lost its economic base after the Land Reform, Mao believed that it still had its staying power, if it was left unchallenged, it could easily lodge itself in the new economic base.

Policies which Liu (and now Deng’s) implemented or attempted to implement regarded the productive forces as the dominant aspect in the contradiction between relations of production and productive forces.⁹ Mao criticized this conception which mechanically decides, “in the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect; in the contradiction between economic base and the superstructure, the economic base in the principal aspect; and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the mechanical materialist conception, not the dialectical materialist conception. True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role, whoever  denies this is not a materials, but it must also be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory and superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role. When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal and decisive role.”¹⁰ Mao did not believe that with the transfer of ownership of production, the change in the economic base (and the relations of production within the economic base) was complete or “advanced”. Rather, he saw that contradiction existed within the economic base as well as between the economic base and the superstructure. Within the economic base, he believed that the relations of production at times could be the principal aspect of the contradiction; without further changes in the relations of production, productive forces could not be developed. He also saw that the transformation of Chinese society involved struggle on all fronts: economic, political and ideological, each of which would play a dominant role at different times. It was through resolving these contradictions that the productive forces developed. Mao’s conception of socialist construction was not so different from his conception of revolutionary war. During the long period of revolutionary war Mao never thought that final victory would be determined by who had more superior firearm, rather, military victory depended on the careful and patient work on the political, the economic, and the ideological fronts; the soldiers had to understand the reasons behind the revolution before they became revolutionaries. Similarly, during the period of socialist construction, Mao did not believe economic development could be separated from political and ideological struggles. Only when working people understood the objective of and reasoning behind their work would they devote themselves to the long hard struggle of building the economy.

One example illustrating the difference between Mao and Liu”s views of the development of the Chinese society was the issue of collectivization and mechanization of agriculture and the question of which should come first. As Liu saw it, all efforts should be devoted to the development of productive forces. Conditions for collectivization be mature.only when China could produce enough steel to make tractors and other agricultural machinery and equipment. Therefore, any attempt to collectivize before China had move advanced productive forces would be doomed to fail. Mao, on the other hand, believed that it was possible to collectivize without an advanced development of productive forces. Mao saw the energy and the enthusiasm of Chinese working people as the source f0r future development. When peasants were mobilized and their consciousness was raised beyond that of small producers, it created the possibility of organized production on a larger scale. When elementary co‑ops progressed to advanced co‑ops and later to the formation of the communes, peasants were able to join their small pieces of land together and build infrastructure on the land for the preparation of mechanization.¹¹ The accumulation fund which the production team saved every year from their joint labor enabled the peasants to buy machinery and equipment from the state. Based on the worker‑peasant alliance, the production of agricultural machinery was given high priority in the industrial development plan. Worker‑peasant alliance expressed a clear class stand of the Chinese Communist Party. Without this class stand, industrial development would be directed toward more profitable projects rather than agricultural machinery, as we have witnessed during the past 14 years under Deng’s Reform. In the process of collectivization, the poor and lower middle peasants took control of their lives. In the contradiction between the poor, lower middle peasants and the upper middle and rich peasants, the power of the poor and lower middle peasants grew and transformed themselves to the principal aspect, while the rich and upper middle peasants became the non‑dominant aspect. Each aspect of the contradiction transformed to the other. A new process of development emerged in the society.

These two fundamentally different analyses of Chinese society determined how Mao and Liu viewed the role of the Chinese Communist Party. From Liu’s perspective, the main task of CCP was to develop the productive forces. To speed up such development, he believed, the CCP should create a stable environment for economic growth and promote the development of new technology, relying on the expertise of technical personnel for this task. However, to ensure the spirit of communism, members of the Communist Party should purify themselves by following a set of standard moral principles instructed by Liu.¹². On the contrary, Mao regarded the masses as the creators of history and their enthusiasm as the driving force for resolving contradictions and transforming the society. To be the catalyst for change, the CCP had to keep close touch with the masses and mobilize them as well as direct their energy and enthusiasm toward resolving the contradictions in the society. Mao did not think the members of the Communist Party could transform themselves unless they involved themselves in struggles, interacted with the masses and accepted their criticism. If the members of the Communist Party were to become an elite group above the masses, it would lose its credibility and cease to be the agent for change along the mass line. Then, even if the CCP could pursue policies to advance the productive forces and develop the economy, it would no longer be the vanguard of the proletariat. Moreover, the CCP’s representation of workers and peasants would remain self‑proclaimed, unless the CCP could initiate changes that would promote the class interests of the workers and peasants.

Mass Movements ‑‑ Some Concrete Cases

Mao was able to point out the principal contradiction at differebt points in time. He worked out appropriate strategy and tactics to resolve each throughout the three decades of development, as he had done during the period of revolutionary war. Soon after the liberation, Mao wrote the essay, “Don’t Hit Out in All Directions” (June, 1950) in which he warned that since the agrarian reform had not yet been completed, the remnant Kuomintang forces, secret agents and other reactionary forces still remained. The principal contradiction was still between the Chinese people and the land lord class and remaining reactionary elements. Thus, it was not yet time to attack the national capitalists and made them enemies. The Land Reform resolved the contradiction between the small number of landlords and the majority of land‑poor peasants and hired farm hands, and it strengthened the worker‑peasant alliance. Two years later, at the completion of the Land Reform, Mao wrote, “With the overthrow of the landlord class and the bureaucratic‑capitalist class, the contradiction between the working class and the national bourgeoisie has become the principal contradiction in China; therefore the national bourgeoisie should no longer be defined as an intermediate class.”¹³

In the cities, after the Chinese Communists confiscated the bureaucratic capital of the Kuomintang in 1949, it nationalized eighty percent of the productive assets in industry, mining, transportation and communication. The new government had to rely still on the tens of thousands of bureaucrats at different levels to run the daily business of the government. Former Kuomintang officials, however, were notorious for their corruption and abuse of power, and the masses had strong resentment toward them. Moreover, there were reported incidence of corruption and waste among high level party officials. If this were allowed to continued, party members, who had just tasted real power, could easily become new bureaucrats, controlling and abusing power. The three‑anti movement targeted corruption, waste and bureaucracy. The movement mobilized all levels of government personnel and broad based masses in the cities to expose bribery and other  corruption. Those who had committed crimes were duly punished according to the seriousness of their crimes. Among those punished were two high level party officials, Liu Chin‑shen and Zhang Zi‑shan who had made great contributions in the anti‑Japanese war and the liberation  war. They embezzled large amounts of public funds by taking large kickbacks from construction and other dealings. Despite of their high positions and previous contributions, Liu and Zhang, received no protection from the government and were both put to death.¹⁴

Since public corruption could not be committed without the participation of private capitalists, the Three‑anti movement also exposed the collaboration between government officials and the private sector in stealing public property and other economic crimes. Some private capitalists seized the opportunity provided by the Korean War to make illegal profits by cheating on government contracts; they were able to bribe government officials to get what they wanted. Immediately following the Three‑anti movement, the Party launched the Five‑anti movement and targeted bribery, tax evasion, theft of state property, cheating on government contracts and stealing economic information. These campaigns were necessary and timely to make a clean break with the past as private capital was soon to join the state owned enterprises requiring closer cooperation between state bureaucrats and private capitalists. At this point, the contradiction between the Chinese people and the corrupt officials and capitalists who did not abide by the laws of the state was the principal contradiction. It was not possible to proceed to nationalization until this contradiction was resolved. In these movements, the corrupt officials and the criminal elements among the capitalists were set up as the opposites.

It may be helpful at this point to explain the meaning of setting up opposites in a mass movement. According to Mao, a mass movement was to resolve the contradiction in the society. Both sides of the contradiction existed objectively in the society. Mao explained: “The Right exists in our society. Whether we want to set them up as the opposite is a matter of policy. If we decide to set them up (in a movement) and let the masses to speak up against them and debate with them, their power will decrease.” and he continued to explain that, “Other opposites do not exist in the objective world but there is the material conditions to set it up. For example the waterfall exists in the natural world. Without a opposite the waterfall does not create anything. Building a dam is setting up the opposite to the waterfall. Then, energy can be created to generate electricity.”¹⁵ Similarly, setting up the opposite in a mass movement can direct the energy and the enthusiasm for social change. Without the opposite or when the opposite is not well focused, energy created in a mass movement is often diverted to different directions and eventually dissipated, as we have witnessed in the many spontaneous mass movements in the past several decades in Western societies.

The corrupt officials and criminal capitalists and the resentment and anger from the masses existed objectively in society. It was not imagined or dreamed up. These movements created the climate for the masses to participate in change. Without them, people would have felt powerless to do anything about the situation and their resentment and anger would turn into disappointment and despair. Almost four million people participated in the Three‑anti movement by writing letters, by telling what they knew, thus exposing the corruption, waste, and bureaucracy of the officials.¹⁶ The masses were enthusiastic, when they involved themselves in solving the problem. The Three‑anti and Five‑anti movements demonstrated that, with the help of the masses, the new government was in firm control. They set the precedent and forced government officials and private capitalists to pay close attention to the watchful eyes of the masses, and recognize that they would be held accountable for their actions. Moreover, historically in the contradiction between the people and government officials, government officials ( and their collaborative merchants) were always the principal (or dominant) aspect of the contradiction. These movements transformed the government officials into the non‑principal (or subordinate) side and transformed the people into the principal (or dominant) side. As a result, an entirely new ideology emerged and has lasted to this day; it was the urgent need felt by the students and the masses to  speak up against the abuse of power by high level government officials that spurred the demonstration in Beijing and other major cities in China in the Spring and Summer of 1989.

Setting up opposites in a mass movement requires a thorough understanding of the principal contradiction as well as the skill of translating such understanding into practice at an operational level. It is an extremely difficult task. As Chinese society developed economically, different interest groups began to appear among the masses Therefore, other sets of contradictions (though minor compared to the principal contradiction) became very important to these groups with opposing interests. Examples of other contradictions were: contradiction between rich and poor communes, between the production brigades within the communes, contradiction between workers and peasants, and contradiction between workers and intellectuals. Therefore, the struggle became more sophisticated and the task of setting up the opposite also became increasingly difficult. This partially explains why factionalism had developed to such an extent during the latter part of the Cultural Revolution. When factionalism developed, group interests were placed above class interests distracting the movement from its main course.

The land reform program, as carried out in China, was not simply an economic policy of land redistribution: taking the land deeds from landlords and handing them out to the peasants. Rather, it was a mass movement sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party for economic, political and ideological change.¹⁷ The CCP mobilized the poor, lower middle peasants and organized them to seize the land from the landlords and in expose their crimes. The enthusiasm of the peasants swept across the countryside ‑ they were the main actors in the land reform. The land reform turned passive peasants into active participants, and then their action went beyond the land reform to the cooperative movement that followed. The opposite set up in the land reform movement was the landlords and the rich peasants. Throughout the land reform, a new ideology was appropriated among the peasants. Even though the peasants always experienced exploitation and suffering, the ideology of feudalism ‑‑ like the ideology of any exploitative society ‑‑ justified such exploitation. The mass movement turned the old ideology upside down articulated and appropriated the new ideology. The new ideology professed that it was wrong for the landlords and the rich peasants to take the products of the labor from the poor and lower middle peasants, and it was wrong for privileged few who held the power to abuse and to enslave the under‑privileged majority. It was the trend and the atmosphere which was created in the land reform that encouraged the poor peasants to express themselves for the first time in their lives. When these peasants finally dared to speak their minds, serious crimes committed by some landlords were exposed. Land appropriation changed the dominant ‑ dominated economic relationship between the landlord and the peasants, the appropriation of new ideology reversed the master ‑ surf (or super ordinate ‑ subordinate) relationship between the landlord and the peasants.¹⁸ Mass participation in the land reform gave the land‑less peasants the determination to right past wrongs, sparked their enthusiasm, and empowered them to carry the land reform to its completion and beyond.

The above analysis gives only a sketch of each of the three mass movements that occurred during the early years of the People’s Republic. More careful and detailed studies are needed for a better understanding of these movements. Moreover, we need to study and analyze the two most important and most controversial mass movements: the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural Revolution. From Liu’s and Deng’s perspective, the Great Leap Forward was a total disaster and the Cultural Revolution destroyed the opportunity for China to become an economic super power. In a recent conversation, a high level manager in a joint venture enterprise in China, expressed his frustration in managing the workers. He said that if there had not been the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese workers would be as obedient as their counterparts in Japan and the managers would be able to push for a higher  productivity doubling the current production per worker. We, on the other hand, believe that without the Great Leap Forward there was little chance for the coopertive movement to continue and lead to the formation of the communes. More over, we believe that if there had not been the Cultural Revolution, the Reform, as Deng currently carries out, would have implemented in the 1960s with little resistance. If that had been the case, the opportunity to reverse the capitalist transition would be forever lost.

Mass Movement ‑‑ The Socialist Strategy for Change

During the decades of armed struggle, the Chinese Communist Party worked very close with the masses; it was the support of the workers and the peasants that led the revolution to victory in 1949. The guerrilla soldiers were analogized to be the fish while the masses were to be the water, because the fish needed the water to swim in and survive. After the CCP seized power, its survival (at least in the short‑run) no longer depended on the masses. The CCP had such high prestige that its members could have enjoyed as many privileges as those who seized power and established new dynasties in China’s long feudal history. Mao saw that the only way the CCP could maintain a close link with the masses and continue to be the agent for change was through mass movements. Moreover, mass movement provided an open forum where the masses could voice their opinions and express their discontent, criticizing party members for any wrongdoing and abuses of power. Mass movement also made it possible to test whether party members and others in authority actually practiced the mass line.

The mass line as expressed by the slogan, “from the masses, to the masses,” meant that cadres should do their best to find out the thoughts and concerns of the masses. Cadres were urged to talk to the masses, take surveys or even live with them for periods of time. These findings helped the CCP analyze the society and determine the principal contradiction at the time. Policies could then be formulated to resolve it. To implement the policies, the cadres were again urged to go back to the masses and explain the policies. The process of policy implementation involved a mass movement where new ideas were propagandized and important issues debated. If the policies truely promoted the interests of the masses, the masses would eventually adopt them. Mass movements in the past provided the only opportunity to validate government policies. Policies so validated by the masses had a better chance for success. We need to make clear here, however, the practice of “from the masses, to the masses” very often did not match the ideal as described. Instead of soliciting opinions and ideas from the masses, cadres often saw themselves as carrying out orders from above. This attitude of the cadres helped promote commandism and bureaucracy

The participation of workers and peasants in movements, where important political, economic and social issues were openly discussed and debated, was a very important form of democracy in China during the transition. In the mass movement the four “Da’s” were practiced as the socialist form of democracy. The four “Da’s” were Da min (big voice,) Da fang (big openness,) Da bianlun (big debate,) and Da zibao (Big character posters.) The masses had the opportunity during the mass movement to openly express themselves in these four ways. The popular Western view on Chinese mass movements during that time often emphasized the suppression of ideas and opinions. This view is not entirely incorrect; ideas and opinions that were not in favor of the masses were often suppressed during the periods of mass movements. For example, during the land reform, when the landlords as a class were under attack, it was detrimental to the movement to praise the good deeds of some individual  landlords. (However, distinctions between good and bad landlords were drawn ‑‑ only those who committed serious crimes were punished.) As stated earlier, during the mass movement, the two sides of a contradiction transformed to the other. The creation of new ideology played an important role in this transformation. It is a myth that  an ideology can be neutral in terms of its class stand. This fueled the creation and appropriation of the ideology favoring the working class. This was crucial to raise the class consciousness of workers and peasants and the reproduction of these classes.

It is important, however, to address the issue of using mass movement to appropriate ideology. Critics charged that during mass movements ideas were often imposed on the masses from the top, and that such ideas had little relevance to the problems and concerns of the masses. This is a valid criticism. Workers and the peasants had a hard time grasping the meaning of ideas that were detached from the reality, let alone adopting or owning them. This happened during the latter part of the Cultural Revolution and possibly happened in other mass movements as well. When it did happen, open discussion and debate disappeared and indoctrination set in, discarding the practice of “from the masses, to the masses.” Interpretation of Marxism and Leninism became dogmatic. However, one can hardly conclude that in order not to make the same mistakes again, mass movement should be avoided altogether. The only way workers and peasants can learn about these mistakes is through practice and struggle. It is through repeated practice and struggle that the workers and peasants gain a better understanding of the objective world.

Since the Reform began in 1979, the reformers have appropriated their own new ideology. They have promoted ideas such as “eating from a big pot breeds laziness,” “iron rice bowl creates inefficiency,” and “let a few get rich first.” Later, when the reformers were pushing through the contract labor system, the People’s Daily gave this new system high praise, because this system, according to the newspaper’s official line, would motivate workers to work harder by creating a sense of crisis and insecurity among the workers. Since these ideas are obviously insulting to Chinese workers, the reformers have not promoted them through a mass movement where ideas can be discussed and debated. Rather, such ideas have been promoted through the propaganda machine of the Party, namely the Party‑controlled media. Just as their reform policies were pushed through the legal channels and not validated by the masses, the masses could not the propagandized ideology. Common folk in China have been circulated many interesting verses and rhymes among them. These verses and rhymes reflect what the masses are thinking and the ideology they reflect is direct opposite to that of the official propaganda.

One of the utmost concerns of the students and urban residents who demonstrated in the spring of 1989 was the corruption of high level government officials. The reform has opened up new opportunities for corruption, because officials in individual enterprises were given more autonomy to manage their own affairs. Many government bureaucrats seized this opportunity and rewarded themselves with the “profits” made in their enterprises, thus turning their power into material wealth. Moreover, high government officials turned state properties into their own private companies (set up in their relatives’ names) and reaped large sums of money. Government officials also made “profits” by taking advantage of the multi‑tier prices and selling their products illegally above the regulated prices. A very important component of the reform has been “opening up” the Chinese economy to foreign trade and foreign investment. Individual enterprises have also been encouraged to take initiative to explore export opportunities and in forming joint ventures with foreign capital. To encourage exports, enterprises with exporting plans are now entitled to foreign exchange at official rates for the importing of necessary equipment and raw material. This two‑tier (sometimes three or more tier) pricing system and the multiple exchange rates have provided fertile ground for bribery and profiteering. However, only those in power can take advantage of these opportunities to enrich themselves and their relatives. Such practices have created deep resentments among university students, because these students, though they themselves belong to a privileged group, do not see nepotism as fair play.

Without a mass movement for an anti‑corruption campaign,  there is little possibility that the house of the government will be rid of corruption. It is usually the lower level government workers who know about the bribery, embezzlement of public funds, favoritism, and tax evasions. It is well known among the urban residents that managers in enterprises keep two sets of account books, one for the central government’s tax assessment and the other is for its own use. These managers also keep an account (called “the little gold mine” by the workers) to stash their own discretionary funds. In the past, a mass movement would have been able to expose these government bureaucrats, because lower level workers and common folk would have dared to speak up against them. Any mass movement today, however, would greatly threaten those in power. Thus,the current regime has not organized any mass movement and suppressed (and continues to suppress) any grass roots movements organized from below.

The most crucial issue during socialist transition is whether direct producers will gain more control over the means of production. In an underdeveloped country like China, the issue also includes whether the worker‑peasant alliance will be solidified. Party‑sponsored mass movement is part of this crucial issue, because, in the past, these mass movements were used as a socialist strategy to push for policies that gave workers more representation and instituted policies that solidified the worker‑peasant alliance. Without the mass movements, Liu and Deng would have been successful in implementing their capitalist projects long before 1979. The Chinese Communist Party, under Mao Zedong’s leadership, sponsored a sequence of mass movements which continued to resolve the contradictions in China between 1949 and 1976, resulting in fundamental and qualitative changes in Chinese society. These changes have made the reformer uneasy, because of the workers and peasants’ persistent resistance to their Reform. After the uprisings in the cities were put down by violent force in 1989, there have been many open rebellions in China’s countryside. As the reform “deepens,” it will create more contradictions. The principal contradiction will reveal itself as being the one between the small number high level party officials and government bureaucrats and the vast number of Chinese people.

[2]

From the Writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin

SELECTED AND EDITED

WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES

by

HOWARD SELSAM AND HARRY MARTEL

NEW YORK

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS

Prefatory Note

The materials from Marx, Engels, and Lenin presented in this volume are divided into seven parts, plus two lengthy Appendices. The reason for the latter is explained in the General Introduction. The editors have also supplied a separate introduction for each part and for each of the two Appendices.

In the main body of the work, the editors have frequently departed from a chronological presentation in the interests of the logical-development of Marxist philosophy. Since, however, the chronology is often significant, the year in which the work was completed-though not necessarily published-is given after each entry.

The Contents gives the source of all entries, which is repeated, for the convenience of the reader, at the end of each selection in the text, together with page references. Inasmuch as many of these works have appeared in numerous editions, the list of Sources at the end identifies the editions used. Throughout, the editors have sought to use those most readily available in the United States today. In most cases these are also the best and most authentic translations.

All cuts within a given selection are marked with three dots. All footnotes not marked “-Ed.” are from the original texts. Inserts within square brackets [ ] in the text are by the editors.

A biographical index identifies persons referred to. The major concepts are, for the most part, contained in the detailed table of contents.

THE EDITORS

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

This volume is a systematic presentation of the principal philosophical statements of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. The materials were selected to give the student and the general reader a clear understanding of the Marxist world-outlook as a whole, and at the same time the Marxist approach to such special branches of philosophy as logic, theory of knowledge, theory of history, and ethics. Most of the selections, we believe, are relatively self-explanatory, but the reader must remember that, as in all scientific and philosophical innovations, there is a distinctive terminology which must be understood. Such terms as “materialism,” “idealism,” ”ideology,” “metaphysics,” “alienation,” or even “philosophy” itself, are used  differently in Marxist thought than they are conventionally.

The problem of selection was difficult, for the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin at times deal simultaneously with the most immediate tactical and political considerations, and with the broadest historical and philosophical generalizations. Some of Marxism’s most basic concepts were formulated in the course of discussions on monopolies, the labor theory of value, trade unions, the organization of political parties, and a host of other practical problems. Thus it was necessary to examine virtually all of the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and not rely exclusively on those relatively few works wherein they deal explicitly with philosophy.

Some scholars, guided by their professional interests, have not sufficiently understood this interrelation of the theoretical and practical in Marxism. This accounts for the frequent complaint that Marx, Engels, and Lenin failed to deal with this or that philosophical question in a systematic way. The complaint would have a certain justification if we were examining the work of professional philosophers, of men whose main concern was philosophy as a specialized discipline. But the classic Marxists were not philosophers of that kind. On the contrary, although they knew philosophy well (Marx, it should be remembered, had a Doctorate in philosophy) and always gave due recognition to the thinkers who had preceded them, from Aristotle to Hegel, they insisted that a radically different way of dealing with philosophical questions was imperative. They came to believe that philosophy, in the old sense of the term, had come to an end, and that the solutions offered by conventional philosophy, brilliant as many of them  were, were nevertheless infected with an alienation from reality. The time had come, they maintained, for the emergence of a new type of philosopher, one whose feet were on the ground, and who regarded the social practice of mankind as both the source of philosophical concepts and the criterion of their truth. Because Marx, Engels, and Lenin rejected the traditional modes of philosophical thinking, the editors had to employ nontraditional procedures in order to present a more or less systematic grasp of Marxist  philosophy.

In limiting the selections to Marx, Engels, and Lenin, there is no implication that many others did not contribute to the expansion and development of this philosophy. No one can deny that Joseph Dietzgen, Paul Lafargue, George Plekhanov, and in more recent times Antonio Gramsci, enriched Marxism with specialized contributions. Nor that Joseph Stalin, especially in his Dialectical and Historical Materialism and his Marxism and Linguistics made contributions of considerable pedagogical significance. One must also mention Mao Tse-tung’s penetrating studies of knowledge theory and of dialectical contradiction.

The formulations of Marxist philosophy included here are today, even more than in the past, the basis for a tremendous amount of philosophical work, both in the socialist countries and in the capitalist world. More and more this work is covering the whole gamut of philosophical questions, from re-interpretations of the history of philosophy and major thinkers to problems of the relation of formal logic to dialectics, from the basis of moral judgments to cybernetics. Unfortunately, most of this work is unknown in our country. The increasing number of books and periodical literature reveals a new flourishing of Marxist philosophy accompanied by a decided attack on those who in the past tended to make a new form of scholasticism out of Marxism.

There were many problems in the organization of these selections. The same passage sometimes could be placed in different parts of the work. In a few instances the editors found it desirable to break up a passage, using different portions of the same statement under different headings. These problems were accentuated by the fact that many statements of philosophical import appear in a discussion of contemporary problems, as already indicated. Such philosophical reflections, however, when Linked to  broader and more generalized statements reveal the breadth and scope of Marxist philosophical thought.

Originally, the editors planned to open the volume with such materials as now appear in appendix I under the title “The Formative Period.” But further consideration forced a change of mind. Even though this section comes first chronologically, the editors feared that the reader would find it too formidable an obstacle, not only because of its content, but even more because of its language. This material, dating from 1844 to 1845, was written in the Hegelian German of that period. The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, written by Marx when he was barely 26, is exciting as one of the first presentations of some of his major philosophical, sociological, and economic concepts. These can best be understood in the light of Marx’s mature thinking, and not the other way around, as some maintain. The most varied conclusions have been drawn from the Manuscripts, based fundamentally on a complete separation of the young Marx from the later Marx. Once this separation is achieved-always at the expense of the mature Marx-it is then possible to remake the young Marx into an existentialist, a pragmatist, a Freudian, or even a believer in religion. One can indeed find many isolated statements to support the pet notions of some of these commentators. But the editors believe that careful study will confirm the conclusion that the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts reveal Marx approaching his final separation from all traces of the speculative philosophizing of Hegel and the Young Hegelians. He, together with Engels, reached this goal in The German Ideology, as Marx himself stated. The materials of this Appendix do add a new dimension to the later thought of Marx and Engels, namely a passionate humanism that they do not explicitly discuss later – in the interest of an objective, scientific approach to their problems–but which nevertheless underlies and pervades all their subsequent thought.

Then there was the problem of Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks, which first appeared in English in 1961. They consist of scattered, often cryptic notes in connection with passages Lenin copied from Hegel’s  Logic, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and other philosophical works. The entries are almost always too short to be incorporated into other sections of the book. yet their importance for the understanding of dialectical materialism cannot be overestimated. For not only do they illuminate certain problems, resolved and unresolved, in that philosophy; they at times present new problems and new insights for its further development. We have placed virtually all excerpts from the Notebooks that can stand alone in a separate section, Appendix II, for the benefit of the more advanced student. Notes in the body of the work refer to Lenin’s passages wherever relevant.

One cannot know the world we live in today without knowing Marxist philosophy. The editors have sought to provide the essential materials for such knowledge in the most cogent passages they could find in the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Only through first-hand acquaintance can one understand why this particular philosophy has become a world phenomenon that is shaping the destinies of a third of mankind and influences both intellectuals and unlettered people everywhere. It safely can be said that no other philosophy has ever been studied so assiduously by so many people under such different circumstances. It is studied in universities, in rice fields, in factory schools, and on sugar plantations. In one land it is an authoritative creed; in another it is anathematized and persecuted. It arouses passionate loyalty or heated condemnation, but it is recognized, even by opponents, to be one of the most significant developments in modern thought.

January, 1963

THE EDITORS

PART ONE

WHAT MARXISM IS

The philosophers have only interpreted the world differently, the point is to change it.

—MARX, Theses on Feuerbach, XI (1845).

Introduction

THE FIRST question that must be asked of any philosophy is:  What does it conceive itself to be doing? Is it what it professes to be? Does it succeed in accomplishing its stated aims? These questions can be answered only in the light of a philosophy’s basic conception of itself. Marxism began with a clear idea of what it aimed to be and do. Earlier even than the opening selection from The Poverty of Philosophy, written in the winter of 1846-47, in answer to Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty, Marx and Engels regarded themselves as the theoreticians or philosophers of a new kind of socialism. This was to be scientific rather than based on blueprints of the future society or any expression of utopianism. In their minds, as we see two years later in the Communist Manifesto, they were neither inventing nor discovering anything, but only giving expression to the actual realities of the world as it then existed. They believed that for this they needed a definite, clear-cut world-outlook and methodology.

The main principles of this philosophy were not formulated until later, but its outlines were already clear. The essential fact for the reader to bear in mind is that the “new materialism” was intended by Marx and Engels from the beginning to be objectively and scientifically true and, at the same time, thoroughly revolutionary. For them it would be revolutionary because it was true, and true because it was revolutionary.

The socialist movement became scientific, Engels explained many years later in Anti-Duhring, by embracing the best philosophical achievements to date–notably materialism as developed by the eighteenth century French philosophers and the dialectics of the German philosopher Hegel. Philosophy, in turn, fulfilled itself and began to move towards its “withering away” by identifying itself with the cause of the proletariat, the class that was destined to do away with classes.

Marxist philosophy thus appears in these opening selections as a world-view and a scientific method, as the product of past history and as predicting and creating future history, as both objective truth and a fighting partisan in the working class and socialist struggles. One danger facing any theory that claims so much is its hardening into dogma. This problem is discussed in the last entry in this section from post-revolutionary Russia where Lenin warns the youth against any temptation to believe that Marxism is something that can be learned by rote.

[1]

MARXISM: THE THEORY

OF THE PROLETARIAT

A.   SCIENCE BECOMES REVOLUTIONARY

Just as the economists are the scientific representatives of the bourgeois class, so the Socialists and the Communists are the theoreticians of the proletarian class. So long as the proletariat is not yet sufficiently developed to constitute itself as a class,  and consequently so long as the struggle itself of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie has not yet assumed a political character, and the productive forces- are not yet sufficiently developed in the bosom of the bourgeoisie itself as to enable us to catch a glimpse of the material conditions necessary for the emancipation of the proletariat and for the formation of a new society, These theoreticians are merely utopians who, to meet the wants of the oppressed classes, improvise systems and go in search of regenerating science. But in the measure that history moves forward, and with it the struggle of the proletariat assumes clearer outlines, they no longer need to seek science in their minds; they have only to take note of what is happening before their eyes and to become the mouth piece of this. So long as they look for science and merely make systems, so long as they are at the beginning of the struggle, they see in poverty nothing but poverty, without seeing in it the revolutionary, subversive side, which will overthrow the old society. From this moment, science, produced by the historical movement and associating itself with it in full recognition of its cause, has ceased to be doctrinaire and has become revolutionary.

— MARX, The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), pp. 140f.

B.   MODERN SOCIALISM REFLECTS AN ACTUAL CONFLICT

The new forces of production have already outgrown the bourgeois form of using them; and this conflict between productive forces and mode of production is not a conflict which has risen in men’s heads, as for example the conflict between original sin and divine justice; but it exists in the facts, objectively, outside of us, independently of the will or purpose even of the men who brought it about. Modern socialism is nothing but the reflex in thought of this actual conflict, its ideal reflection in the minds first of the class which is directly suffering under it-the working class.

—ENGELS, Anti-Duhring. (1878), p. 293.

[2]

“THE MOST RADICAL RUPTURE

WITH TRADITIONAL IDEAS”

The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.

They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property relations at all a distinctive feature of communism.

All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions. The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favor of bourgeois property.

The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity, and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage labor, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is therefore not a personal, it is a social, power.

When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character….

All objections urged against the communist mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the communist modes of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture.

That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine. But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property;  just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your class.

The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason,  the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property- historical relations that rise and disappear in the progress of production-this misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of property….

The charges against communism made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.

Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views, and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?

What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its

ruling class. When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the old society the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.

When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity- when Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death-battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience. merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.

“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religion, moral, philosophical and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”

“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, tic., that are common to all states of society. But communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality. instead of constituting them on a flew basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historical experience-”

What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms,, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.

But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz.; the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.

The communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.

—MARX and ENGELS, Communist Manifesto (1848), pp. 23f, 26, 28f.

[3]

THE GENESIS OF MARXISM: HOW

SOCIALISM BECAME A SCIENCE

Modern socialism is, in its content, primarily the product of the perception on the one hand of the class antagonisms existing in modern society between possessors and non-possessors. wage workers and bourgeois; and on the other hand, of the anarchy ruling in production. In its theoretical form, however, it originally appears as a further and ostensibly more consistent extension of the principles established by the great French philosophers of the eighteenth century. Like every new theory, it had at first to link itself on to the intellectual material which lay ready to its hand, however deep its roots lay in economic facts.

The great men who in France were clearing the minds of men for the coming revolution themselves acted in an extremely revolutionary fashion. They recognized no external authority of any kind. Religion, conceptions of nature, society, political systems, everything was subjected to the most merciless criticism; everything had to justify its existence at the bar of reason or renounce all claim to existence, The reasoning intellect was applied to everything as the sole measure. It was the time when, as Hegel -says, the world was stood upon its head; first, in the sense that the human head and the principles arrived at by its thought claimed to be the basis of all human action and association; and then later on also in the wider sense, that the reality which was in contradiction with these principles was in fact turned upside down from top to bottom.. All previous forms of society and government, all the old ideas handed down by tradition, were flung into the lumber room as irrational; the world had hitherto allowed itself to be guided solely by prejudices; everything in the past deserved only pity and contempt. Now for the first time appeared the light of day; henceforth, superstition, injustice, privilege and oppression were to be superseded by eternal truth, eternal justice, equality grounded in Nature, and the inalienable rights of man.

We know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie:  that eternal justice found its realization in bourgeois justice; that equality reduced itself to bourgeois equality before the law; that bourgeois property was proclaimed as one of the essential rights of man; and that the government of reason, the Social Contract of Rousseau, came into existence and could only came into existence as a bourgeois democratic republic- No more than their predecessors could the great thinkers of the 18th century pass beyond the limits imposed on them by their own epoch.

But side by side with the antagonism between the feudal nobility and the bourgeoisie was the general antagonism between the exploiters and the exploited, the rich idlers and the toiling poor.

And it was precisely this circumstance that enabled the representatives of the bourgeoisie to put themselves forward as the representatives not of a special class but of the whole of suffering humanity. Still more; from its origin the bourgeoisie had been saddled with its antithesis: that capitalists cannot exist without wage workers, and in the Same degree as the medieval burgher of the guild developed into the modern bourgeois. so the guild journeyman and the day laborer outside the guilds developed into the proletarian. And although, on the whole,  the bourgeoisie in their struggle with the nobility could claim to represent at the same time the interests of the different sections of workers of that period, yet in every great bourgeois movement there were independent outbursts of that class which was the more or less developed forerunner of the modern proletariat. For example, the Thomas Munzer tendency in the period of the reformation and peasant war in Germany; the Levellers in the great English revolution: in the great French revolution, Babeuf. Alongside of these revolutionary armed uprisings of a class which was as yet undeveloped, the corresponding theoretical manifestations made their appearance; in the 16th and 17th centuries, utopian portrayals of ideal social conditions; in the 18th century, actual communistic theories (Morelly and Mably). The demand for equality was no 1onger limited politica1 rights, but was extended also to the social conditions of individuals; it was not merely class privileges that were to be abolished, but class distinctions themselves. An ascetic communism, linked to Spartan conceptions, was the first form in which the new doctrine made its appearance. Then came the three great utopians Saint-Simon, with whom bourgeois tendencies still had a certain influence, side by side with proletarian; Fourier, and Owen, who, in the country where capitalist production was most developed. and under the influence of the antagonisms begotten of this, worked out his schemes for the removal of class distinctions systematically and in direct relation to French materialism.

It is common to all three of these that they do not come forward as representatives of the interests of the proletariat which in the meantime history has brought into being. ‘Like the philosophers of the Enlightenment they aim at the emancipation not of a definite class but of all humanity. ‘Like them, they wish to establish the kingdom of reason and eternal justice; but their kingdom is ‘spheres apart from that of the French philosophers. To them the bourgeois world based on the principles of these philosophers is also irrational and unjust, and therefore finds its way to the rubbish bin just as readily as feudalism and all earlier forms of society. If pure reason and justice have not hitherto ruled the world, this has been due only to the fact that until now, men have not rightly understood them. What was lacking was just the individual man of genius,. who has now arisen and has recognized the truth; the fact that he has now arisen, that the truth has been recognized precisely at this moment, is not an inevitable event, following of necessity in. the chain of historical development, hut a mere happy accident. Be might just as well’ hare been born 500 years earlier, and would then have saved humanity 500 years of errors- strife and suffering.

This mode of outlook is essentially that of all English and French and of the first German Socialists, including Weitling. To all these socialism is the expression of absolute truth,  reason, and justice, and needs only to be discovered to conquer the world by virtue of its own power; as absolute truth is independent of time and space and of the historical development of man, it is a mere accident when and where it is discovered. At the same time absolute truth, reason, and justice are different for the founder of each different school; and as each one’s special kind of absolute truth, reason and justice is in turn conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of existence, the measure of his knowledge and intellectual training. so the only solution possible in this conflict of absolute truths is that they should grind each other down. And from this nothing could emerge but a kind of eclectic average socialism,  such as in fact dominated the minds of most socialist workers in France and England up to the present time; a mixture, admitting of the most manifold shades, of such of the critical observations, economic doctrines and delineations of future society made by the various founders of sects as excite the least opposition; a mixture which is the more easily produced the more its individual constituents have the sharp edges of precision rubbed off in the stream of debate, as pebbles are rounded in a brook. In order to make socialism into a science it had first to be placed upon a real basis.

Meanwhile, along with, and after the French philosophy of the 18th century, the newer German philosophy had arisen, culminating in Hegel. Its greatest merit was the re-adoption of dialectics as the highest form of thinking. The old Greek philosophers were all natural born dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopedic intellect of them, had even already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought. The newer philosophy,  on the other hand, although it too included brilliant exponents of dialectics (e.g., Descartes and Spinoza),  had become especially under English influence, more and more rigidly fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode or reasoning, by which also the French of the 18th century, at all events in their special philosophical works, were almost exclusively dominated. But outside philosophy in the restricted sense, the French were nevertheless able to produce masterpieces of dialectic: we need only recall Diderot’s Le Neven de Rameau [Rameau's Nephew] and Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men. We give here, in brief, the essential character of these two modes of thought; we shall have to return to them later in greater detail.

When we reflect on nature, or the history of mankind, or our own intellectual activity. the first picture presented to us is of an endless maze of relations and interactions, in which nothing remains what, where and as it was, but everything moves, changes, comes into being. and passes out of existence. This primitive, naive, yet intrinsically correct conception of the world was that of ancient Greek philosophy. and was first clearly formulated by Heraclitus: everything is and also is not, for everything is in flux, is constantly changing, constantly coming into being and passing away.. But this conception,  correctly as it covers the general character of the picture of phenomena as a whole, is yet inadequate to explain the derails of which this total picture is composed; and so long as we do not understand these, we also have no clear idea of the picture as a whole. In order to understand these details,. we must detach them from their natural or historical connections, and examine each one separately, as to its nature, its special causes and effects, etc. This is primarily the task of natural science and historical research; branches of science which the Greeks of the classical period, on very good grounds, relegated to a merely subordinate position, because they had first of all to collect materials for these sciences to work upon. The beginnings of the exact investigation of nature were first developed by the Greeks of the Alexandrian period, and later on, in the Middle Ages, were further developed by the Arabs. Real natural science, however, dates only from the second half of the 15th century, and from then on it has advanced with constantly increasing rapidity.

The analysis of nature into its individual parts,  the grouping of the different natural processes and natural objects in definite classes. the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms— these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of nature which have been made during the last 400 years. But this method of investigation has also left us as a legacy the habit of observing natural objects and natural processes in their isolation, detached from the whole vast interconnection of things;  and therefore not in their motion, but in their repose; not as essentially changing, but as fixed constants; not in their life, but in their death. And when, as was the case with Bacon and Locke, this way of looking at things was transferred from natural science to philosophy, it produced the specific narrow-mindedness of the last centuries, the metaphysical mode of thought.

To the metaphysician, things and their mental images, ideas, are isolated, to be considered one after the other apart from each other, rigid, fixed objects of investigation given once for all. He thinks in absolutely discontinuous antitheses. His communication is, “Yea; yea, Nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” For him a thing either exists. or it does not exist: it is equally impossible for a thing to be itself and at the same time something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand in an equally rigid antithesis one to tile other.

At first sight this mode of thought seems to us extremely plausible, because it is the mode of thought of so-called sound common sense. But sound common sense, respectable fellow as he is within the homely precincts of his own four walls, has most wonderful adventures as soon as he ventures out into the wide world of scientific research. Here the metaphysical mode of out-look, justifiable and even necessary as it is in domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the object under investigation, nevertheless sooner or later always reaches a limit beyond which it becomes one-sided, limited, abstract, and loses its way in insoluble contradictions. And this is so because in considering individual things it loses sight of their connections: in contemplating their existence it forgets their coming into being and passing away; in looking at them at rest it leaves their motion out of account; because it cannot see the wood for the trees. For everyday processes we know, for example, and can say with certainty whether an animal is alive or not; but when we look more closely we find that this is often an extremely complex question, as jurists know very well. They have cudgelled their brains in vain to discover some rational limit beyond which the killing of a child in its mother’s womb is murder; and it is equally impossible to determine the moment of death, as physiology has established that death is not a sudden, instantaneous event. but a very protracted process. In the same way every organic being is at each moment the same and not the same;  at each moment it is assimilating matter drawn from without, and excreting other matter; at each moment the cells of its body are dying and new ones are being formed; in fact within a longer or shorter period the matter of its body is completely renewed and is replaced by other atoms of matter, so that every organic being is at all times itself and yet something other than itself. Closer investigation also shows us that the two poles of an antithesis, like positive and negative, are just as inseparable from each other as they are opposed, and that despite all their opposition they mutually penetrate each other. It is just the same with cause and effect;  these are conceptions which only have validity in their application to a particular case as such, but when we consider the particular case in its general connection with the world as a whole they merge and dissolve in the conception of universal action and interaction, in which causes and effects are constantly changing places, and what is now or here an effect becomes there or then a cause, and vice versa.

None of these processes and methods of thought fit into the frame of metaphysical thinking. But for dialectics, which grasps things and their images, ideas, essentially in their interconnection, in their sequence, their movement, their birth and death, such processes as those mentioned above and so many corroborations of its own method of treatment. Nature is the test of dialectics, and it must be said for modern natural science that it has furnished extremely rich and daily increasing materials for this test, and has thus proved that in the last analysis nature’s processes is dialectical and not metaphysical. But the scientists who have learnt to think dialectically are still few and far between,  and hence the conflict between the discoveries made and the old traditional mode of thought is the explanation of the boundless confusion which now reigns in theoretical natural science and reduces both teachers and students, writers and readers to despair.

An exact representation of the universe, of its evolution and that of mankind. as well as of the reflection of this evolution in the human mind, can therefore only be built up in a dialectical way, taking constantly into account the general actions and reactions of becoming and ceasing to be, of progressive or retrogressive changes. And the more recent German philosophy worked with this standpoint from the first. Kant began his career by resolving the stable solar system of Newton and its eternal permanence—after the famous initial impulse had once been given— into a historical process: the formation of the sun and of all the planets out of a rotating nebulous mass.[*] Together with this he already drew the conclusion that given this origin of the solar system, its ultimate dissolution was also inevitable. Half a century later his views were given a mathematical basis by Laplace, and another 50 years later the spectroscope proved the existence in space of such incandescent masses of gas in various stages of condensation.

This newer German philosophy culminated in the Hegelian system, in which for the first time —and this is its great merit —the whole natural, historical, and spiritual world was presented as a process,  that is, as in constant motion, change, transformation, and development; and the attempt was made to show the internal interconnections in this motion and development. From this standpoint the history of mankind no longer appeared as a confused whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable before the judgment seat of the now matured philosophic reason, and best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of development of humanity itself. It now became the task of thought to follow the gradual stages of this process through all its devious ways, and to trace out the inner regularities running through all its apparently fortuitous phenomena.

That Hegel did not succeed in this task is here immaterial. His epoch-making service was that he propounded it. It is indeed a task which no individual will ever be able to solve. Although Hegel with Saint-Simon was the most encydopedic mind of his age, yet he was limited, in the first place, by the necessarily restricted compass of his own knowledge, and, secondly, by the similarly restricted scope and depth of the knowledge and ideas of his age. But there was also a third factor. Hegel was an idealist,  that is to say, the thoughts within his mind were to him not the more or less abstract images of real things and processes, but, on the contrary, things and their development were to him only the images made real of the “Idea” existing somewhere or other already before the world existed. This mode of thought placed everything on its head, and completely reversed the real connections of things in the world. And although Hegel grasped correctly and with insight many individual interconnections, yet, for the reasons just given, there is also much that in point of detail also is botched, artificial, labored, in a word, wrong. The Hegelian system as such was a colossal miscarriage-but it was also the last of its kind. It suffered, in fact, from an internal and insoluble contradiction. On the one hand,  its basic assumption was the historical outlook, that human history is a process of evolution, which by its very nature cannot find intellectual finality in the discovery of any so-called absolute truth; but on the other hand, it laid claim to being the very sum-total of precisely this absolute truth. A system of natural and historical knowledge which is all-embracing and final for all time is in contradiction to the fundamental laws of dialectical thinking;  which, however, far from excluding, on the contrary includes, the idea that the systematic knowledge of the external universe can make giant strides from generation to generation.

The realization of the entire incorrectness of previous German idealism led necessarily to materialism, but, it must be noted, not to the simple metaphysical and exclusively mechanical material. ism of the 18th century. Instead of the simple and naively revolutionary rejection of all previous history, modern materialism sees history as the process of the evolution of humanity, and its own problem as the discovery of laws of motion of this process. The conception was prevalent among the French of the 18th century, as well as with Hegel, of nature as a whole, moving in narrow circles and remaining immutable, with its eternal celestial bodies, as Newton taught, and unalterable species of organic beings, as Linnaeus taught. In opposition to this conception,  modern materialism embraces the more recent advances of natural science, according to which nature also has its history in time, the celestial bodies, like the organic species which under favorable circumstances people them, coming into being and passing away, and the recur-rent circles, in so far as they are in any way admissible, assuming infinitely vaster dimensions. In both cases modern materialism is essentially dialectical, and no longer needs any philosophy standing above the other sciences. As soon as each separate science is required to get clarity as to its position in the great totality of things and of our knowledge of things, a special science dealing with this totality is superfluous. What still independently survives of all former philosophy is the science of thought and its laws-formal logic and dialectics. Everything else is merged in the positive science of nature and history.

While, however, the revolution in the conception of nature could only be carried through to the extent that research furnished the corresponding positive materials of knowledge, already much earlier certain historical facts had occurred which led to a decisive change in the conception of history. In 1831, the first working class rising had taken place in Lyons; between 1838 and 1842 the first national workers’ movement, that of the English Chartists, reached its height. The class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie came to the front in the history of the most advanced European countries, in proportion to the development there, on the one hand, of large-scale industry, and on the other, of the newly-won political domination of the bourgeoisie. Facts more and more forcibly stamped as lies the teachings of bourgeois economics as to the identity of the interests of capital and labor, as to the universal harmony and universal prosperity that free competition brings. All these things could no longer be ignored, any more than the French and English socialism which was their theoretical, even though extremely imperfect, expression. But the old idealist conception of history, which was not yet displaced, knew nothing of class struggles based on material interests, in fact knew nothing at all of material interests-, production and -all economic relations appeared in it only incidentally, as subordinate elements in the “history of civilization.” The new facts made imperative a new examination of all past history,  and then it was seen that all past history was the history of class struggles, that these warring classes of society are always the product of the conditions of production and exchange, in a word, of the economic conditions of their time; that therefore the economic structure of society always forms the real basis from which, in the last analysis, is to be explained the whole superstructure of legal and political institutions, as well as of the religious, philosophical, and other conceptions of each historical period. Now idealism was driven from its last refuge, the philosophy of history; now a materialist conception of history was propounded, and the way found to explain man’s consciousness by his being, instead of, as heretofore, his being by his consciousness.

But the socialism of earlier days was just as incompatible with this materialist conception of history as the French materialist conception of nature was with dialectics and modern natural science. It is true that the earlier socialism criticized the existing capitalist mode of production and its consequences, but it could not explain them. and so also could not get the mastery over them; it could only simply reject them as evil. But what had to be done was to show this capitalist mode of production on the one hand in its historical sequence and in its inevitability for a definite historical period,  and therefore also the inevitability of its downfall, and on the other hand -also to lay bare its essential character, which was still hidden, as its critics had hitherto attacked its evil consequences rather than the process of the thing itself. This was done by the discovery of surplus value. It was shown that the appropriation of unpaid labor is the basic form of the capitalist mode of production and of the exploitation of the worker effected through it;  that even if the capitalist buys the labor power of his laborer at its full value as a commodity on the market, he yet extracts more value froth it than he paid for; and that in the ultimate analysis this surplus value forms those sums of value from which are heaped up the constantly increasing masses of capital in the hands of the possessing classes. The process both of capitalist production and of the production of capital was explained.

These two great discoveries, the materialist conception of history and the revelation of the secret of capitalist production by means of surplus value, we owe to Marx. With these discoveries socialism, became a science, which had in the first place to be developed in all its details and relations.

ENGELS, Anti-Duhring (1878), pp. 23-33.

[4]

THE THREE COMPONENT

PARTS OF MARXISM

Throughout the civilized world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost hostility and. hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal). which regards Marxism as a kind of “pernicious sect.” And no other attitude is to be expected, for there can be no “impartial” social science in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official and liberal science defends wage slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on wage slavery. To expect science to be impartial in a wage-slave society is as silly and naive as to expect impartiality from manufacturers on the question whether workers’ wages should be increased by decreasing the profits of capital.

But this is not all. The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling “sectarianism” in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the highroad of development of world civilization. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists precisely in the fact that he furnished answers to questions which had already engrossed the foremost minds of humanity- His teachings arose as a direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy; political economy and socialism.

The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is complete and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world conception which is irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defense of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor of the best that was created by humanity in the 19th century in the shape of German philosophy, English political economy, and French socialism.

On these three sources of Marxism, which are at the same tine its component parts, we shall briefly dwell.

I.

The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern history of Europe, and especially at the end of the 18th century in France, which was the scene of a decisive battle against every kind of medieval rubbish, against feudalism in institutions and ideas, materialism has proved to be the only philosophy that is consistent, true to all the teachings of natural science and hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of democracy therefore tried in every way to “refute,” undermine, and defame materialism, and advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts to an advocacy or support of religion.

Marx and Engels always defended philosophical materialism in the most determined manner and repeatedly explained the profound erroneousness of every deviation from this basis. Their views are most clearly and fully expounded in the works of Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-Duhring, which, like the Communist Manifesto, are handbooks for every class-conscious worker.

But Marx did not stop at the materialism of the 18th century; he advanced philosophy. He enriched it with the acquisitions of German classical philosophy, especially of the Hegelian system, which in its turn led to the materialism of Feuerbach. The chief of these acquisitions is dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development in its fullest and deepest form, free of one-sidedness–doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge. which provides us with a reflection of eternally developing matter. The latest discoveries of natural science–radium, electrons, the transmutation of elements–have remarkably confirmed Marx’s dialectical materialism despite the teachings of the bourgeois philosophers with their “new” reversions to old and rotten idealism.

Deepening and developing philosophical materialism, Marx completed it, extended its knowledge of nature to the knowledge of human society. Marx’s historical materialism was one of the greatest achievements of scientific thought. The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously reigned in the views on history and politics gave way to a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in consequence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social life another and higher system develops –how capitalism, for instance, grows out of feudalism.

Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (i.e., the various views and doctrines—philosophical, religious, political, and so forth) reflect the economic system of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, that the various political forms of the modern European states serve to fortify the rule of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.

Marx’s philosophy is finished philosophical materialism, which has provided humanity, and especially the working class, with powerful instruments of knowledge.

II.

Having recognized that the economic system is the foundation on which the political superstructure is erected, Marx devoted most attention to the study of this economic system. Marx’s principal work, Capital, is devoted to a study of the economic system of modern, i.e., capitalist society.

Classical political economy, before Marx, evolved in England. the most developed of the capitalist countries. Adam Smith and David Ricardo, by their investigations of the economic system, laid the foundations of the labor theory of value. Marx continued their work. He rigidly proved and consistently developed this theory. He showed that the value of every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labor time spent on its production.

Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation of things (the exchange of one commodity for another), Marx revealed a relation of men. The exchange of commodities expresses the tie by which individual producers are bound through the market. Money signifies that this tie is becoming closer -and closer, inseparably binding the entire economic life of the individual producers into one whole. Capital signifies a further development of this tie: man’s labor power becomes a commodity. The wage worker sells his labor power to the owner of the land, factories and instruments of labor. The worker uses one part of the labor day to cover the expenses of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while the other part of the day the worker toils without remuneration, creating surplus value for the capitalist, the source of profit, the source of the wealth of the capitalist class.)

The doctrine of surplus value is the cornerstone of Marx economic theory.

Capital created by the labor of the worker, presses on the worker by ruining the small masters and creating an army of unemployed. The industry, the victory of large-scale production is at once apparent, but we observe the same phenomenon in agriculture as well: the superiority of large-scale capitalist agriculture increases, the application of machinery grows, peasant economy falls into the noose of money capital, it declines and sinks into ruin, burdened by its backward technique. In agriculture, the decline of small-scale production assumes different forms, but the decline itself is an indisputable fact.

By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labor and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more social—hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound together in a systematic economic organism—but the product of the collective labor is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. The anarchy of production grows, as do crises, the furious chase after markets, and the insecurity of existence of the mass of the population.

While increasing the dependence of the workers on capital, the capitalist system creates the great power of united labor.

Marx traced the development of capitalism from the first germs of commodity economy, from simple exchange, to its highest forms, to large-scale production.

And the experience all capitalist countries, old and new, is clearly demonstrating the truth of this Marxist doctrine to increasing numbers of workers every year.

Capitalism has triumphed all over the world but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labor over capital.

III.

When feudalism was overthrown, and “free” capitalist society appeared on God’s earth, it at once became apparent that this freedom meant a new. system of oppression and exploitation of the toilers. Various socialist doctrines immediately began to arise as a reflection of and protest against. this oppression. But early socialism, was utopian socialism. It criticized capitalist society, it condemned and damned it, it dreamed of its destruction, it indulged in fancies of a better order and endeavored to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation.

But utopian socialism could not point the real way out. It could not explain the essence of wage slavery under capitalism, nor discover the laws of its development, nor point to the social force which is capable of becoming the creator of a new society.

Meanwhile, the stormy revolutions which everywhere in Europe and especially in France, accompanied the fall of feudalism, of serfdom, more and more clearly revealed the struggle of classes as the basis and the motive force of the whole development.

Not a single victory of political freedom over the feudal class  was won except against desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country evolved on a more or less free and democratic basis except by a life and death struggle between the various classes of capitalist society.

The genius of Marx consists in the fact that he was able before anybody else to draw from this and consistently apply the deduction that world history teaches. This deduction is the doctrine of the class struggle.

People always were and always will be the stupid victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of some class behind all moral; religious, political. and social phrases, declarations, and promises. The supporters of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realize that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is maintained by the forces of some ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of these classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, and to enlighten and organize for the struggle, the forces which can and, owing to their social position, must constitute a power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new.

Marx’s philosophical materialism has alone shown the proletariat the way out of the spiritual slavery in which all oppressed classes have hitherto languished. Marx’s economic theory has alone explained the true position of the proletariat in the general system of capitalism.

Independent organizations of the proletariat are multiplying all over the world, from America to Japan and from Sweden to                South Africa. The proletariat is becoming enlightened and educated by waging its class struggle; it is ridding itself of the prejudices of bourgeois society; it is rallying its ranks ever more closely and is learning to gauge the measure of its successes; it is steeling its forces and is growing irresistibly.

—Lenin, “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts  of Marxism” (1913).

Selected Works vol. XI, pp. 3-8.

[5]

COMMUNISM CANNOT BE

LEARNED BY ROTE

What do we need in order to learn communism? What must be singled out from the sum total of general knowledge of to acquire a knowledge of communism? Here a number of dangers threaten us, which invariably crop up whenever the task of learning communism, is presented incorrectly, or when it is interpreted too one-sidedly.

Naturally, the first thought that enters one’s mind is that learning communism means imbibing the sum total of knowledge that is contained in communist textbooks, pamphlets, and books. But such a definition of the study of communism would be too crude and inadequate.

If the study of communism solely consisted in imbibing what is contained in communist books and pamphlets, we might all too easily obtain communist text-jugglers or braggarts,  and this would very often cause us harm and damage, because such people, having learned by rote what is contained in communist books and pamphlets would be incapable of combining this knowledge, and would be unable to act in the way communism really demands.

One of the greatest evils and misfortunes bequeathed to us by the old capitalist society is the complete divorcement of books from practical life;  for we have had books in which everything was described in the best possible manner, yet these books in the majority of cases were most disgusting and hypocritical lies that described communist society falsely. That is why the mere routine absorption of what is written in books about Communism would be utterly wrong. In our speeches and articles we do not now merely repeat what was formerly said about communism, because our speeches and articles are connected with daily, all-around work. Without work, without struggle, a routine knowledge of communism obtained from Communist pamphlets and books would be worthless, for it would continue the old divorcement of theory from practice, that old separation which constituted the most disgusting feature of the old bourgeois society…

The old school was a school of cramming: it compelled pupils to imbibe a mass of useless, superfluous, barren knowledge, which clogged the brain and transformed the younger generation into officials turned out to pattern. But you would be committing a great mistake if you attempted to draw the conclusion that one can become a Communist without acquiring what human knowledge has accumulated. It would be a mistake to think that it is enough to imbibe communist slogans, the conclusions of communist science, without acquiring the sum total of knowledge of which communism itself is a consequence.

Marxism is an example of how communism arose out of the sum total of human knowledge.

You have read and heard that communist theory,  the science of communism, mainly created by Marx, that this doctrine of Marxism has ceased to be the product of a single Socialist of the 19th century, even though he was a genius, and that it has become the doctrine of millions and tens of millions of proletarians all over the world, who are applying this doctrine in their struggle against capitalism.

And if you were to ask why the Marxist doctrine was able to capture the hearts of millions and tens of millions of the most revolutionary class,  you would receive only one answer: It was because Marx took his stand on the firm foundation of the human knowledge acquired under capitalism. Having studied the laws of development of human society, Marx realized that the development of capitalism was inevitably leading to communism. And the principal thing is that he proved this only on the basis of the most exact, most detailed and most profound study of this capitalist society; and this he was able to do because he had fully assimilated all that earlier science had taught.

We studied critically everything that had been created by human society, not ignoring a single item- We studied everything that had been created by human thought, criticized it, put it to the test of the working class movement, and drew conclusions which people hemmed in by bourgeois limitations or hound by bourgeois prejudices could not …..

We must not take from the old school the system of loading young people’s minds with an immense amount of knowledge, nine-tenths of which was useless and one-tenth distorted. But this does not mean that we can confine ourselves to communist conclusions and imbibe Only communist slogans.. You will not create communism that way. You can become a Communist only by enriching your mind with the knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind.

We do not need cramming; but we do need to develop and perfect the mind of every student by a knowledge of the principal facts. For communism would become a void, a mere signboard, and a Communist would become a mere braggart, if all the knowledge he had obtained were not digested in his mind. You must not only assimilate this knowledge, you must assimilate it critically, so as not to cram your mind with useless lumber, but enrich it with all those facts that are indispensable to the modern man of education.

If a Communist took it into his head to boast about his communism because of the ready-made conclusions he had absorbed, without putting in a great deal of serious and hard work, without understanding the facts which he must examine critically, he would be a very sorry Communist. Such superficiality would be decidedly fatal. If I know that I know little, I shall strive to learn more; but if a man says that he is a Communist and that he need know nothing thoroughly, he will never be anything like a Communist.

–LENIN, “Address at Congress of Russian Young Communist

League” (1920), The Young Generation, pp. 28-32.

PART TWO

MATERIALISM VERSUS IDEALISM

The materialistic outlook on nature means no more than

simply conceiving nature just as it exists without any foreign admixture.

—ENGELS, Ludwig Feuerbach (1888), p.68.

Introduction

THE BASIC principles of Marxist materialism are easy to understand. Like all previous materialism, it holds that the world exists independent of our knowing it, and that it is material–not mental or spiritual–in origin and nature. Marxism differs from previous materialism in three major respects.

First, it has no commitments as to what matter is. Matter is simply the name for what exists objectively, with the one proviso that mind, thought, consciousness are its products. All further questions as to the nature of matter, its structure or composition, the relation of mass, energy, space, time, etc. are not primarily philosophical but are to be resolved by the natural sciences themselves.

Secondly, unlike virtually all previous materialism, it is not reductive. It does not deny qualities; Neither does it seek to reduce higher levels of organization, or “integration” as are now called, to lower ones. In conceiving nature “as it is, without reservations,” to use Engel’s expression. Marxist or dialectical materialism accepts the myriad qualities we find in our world as having an objective basis that the sciences can ascertain. In short, we have here a materialism which loses nothing of the qualitative richness of our experience.

Finally, in addition to a world of infinite qualitative variety, we have in this materialism a world of infinitely complex inter-action. Unlike most previous materialism. thanks to its dialectical method, Marxist materialism holds to no “billiard-ball” universe, in which A strikes B, B strikes C, and so on in an endless succession of mechanical causes. Things interact in such ways that an organism which is a product of its environment may also react upon and change its environment, and man can be a product of history and in turn make history and change himself in the process.

Thus its founders called it a “new” materialism, and later “dialectical” materialism, to distinguish it from traditional materialism which in their eyes was bogged down in a “mechanical” or “metaphysical” approach. It could have been designated by many other names, such as evolutionary naturalism! scientific materialism, or naturalistic humanism. These and other possible appellations correctly designate aspects and leading features of this philosophy. but Engels at least would have found them insufficiently precise and insufficiently inclusive, even though he once referred to it simply as “modern materialism.” Marx and Engels had the highest respect and admiration for Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, the great materialists of the ancient world. But they believed, there had to be added to the permanent foundations of materialism these men had laid “the whole thought content of two thousand years of development of philosophy and natural science” and of history too. (Engels, Anti-Duhring, p.152.)

This was not a mere “addition,”‘ however, but a radical transformation. This new or modern materialism would have been all but unrecognizable by its ancient forebears. It was no longer a whole system of the world, with atoms in infinite motion in an infinite void, and the attempt to explain all things, inducting human thought. by their motions. This new materialism “is in fact.” wrote Engels, “no longer a philosophy. but a simple world outlook which has to establish its validity and be applied not in a science of sciences [i.e., a philosophical system] standing apart, but within the positive sciences.” (idem.)

One feature of most of the materials in this section that strikes the unprepared reader with special force is their intense partisanship. Two considerations concerning this must be borne in mind. The first is that from the very beginning of philosophy, at least in the West, philosophers have taken their positions with great earnestness, passionately contending for one kind of outlook on the world against another. In the second place, it must be remembered that Marx, Engels, and Lenin were not academic philosophers but fighters in what they regarded as the greatest revolutionary struggle of all history. For them the philosophical issues of materialism and idealism were deeply intertwined with the class struggle. The philosophical agnostics who avoid a commitment to either materialism or idealism seemed to them to be nothing but fence-sitters in the class struggle Engels calls them “shamefaced materialists.” In a different period, Lenin regards them as helpers of “reactionary idealism” and clericalism. This latter view appears here in the selections from Lenin’s Materialism’ and Empirio-Criticism, in which work, early in this century, he defended Marxist materialism against prevailing forms of positivism and empiricism.

[1]

MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM: THE TWO

BASIC SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY

The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being. From the very early times when men,  still completely ignorant of the structure of their own bodies, under the stimulus of dream apparitions, came to believe that their thinking and sensation were not activities of their bodies, but of a distinct soul which -inhabits the body and leaves it at death-from this time, men have been driven to reflect about the relation between this soul and the outside world….

This question could for the first time be put forward in its whole acuteness, could achieve its full significance, only after European society had awakened from, the long hibernation of the Christian Middle Ages The question of the position of thinking in relation to being. a question which, by the way, had played a great part also in the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the question, which is primary spirit or nature–that question, in relation to the Church, was sharpened into this: “Did God create the world or has the world been in existence eternally?”

The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature and, therefore, in the last instance, assumed world creation in some form or other–(and among the philosophers, Hegel, for example, this creation often becomes still more intricate and impossible than in Christianity)–comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.

These two expressions, idealism and materialism, primarily signify nothing more than this: and here also they are not used in any other sense. What confusion arises when some other meaning is put into them will be seen below.

But the question of the relation of thinking and being has yet another side: In what relation do our thoughts about the world surrounding us stand to this world itself? Is our thinking capable of the cognition of the real world? Are we able in our ideas and notions of the real world to produce a correct reflection of reality? In philosophical language this question is called the question of the “identity of thinking and being,” and the overwhelming majority of philosophers give an affirmative answer to this question. With Hegel, for example, its affirmation is self-evident; for what we perceive in the real world is precisely its thought-content –that which wakes the world a gradual realization of the absolute idea which absolute idea has existed somewhere from eternity, independent of the world and before the world. But it is manifest without more ado that thought can know a content which is from the outset a thought-content. It is equally manifest that what is here to be proved is already tacitly contained in the presupposition. But that in no way prevents Hegel from drawing the further conclusion from his proof of the identity of thinking and being that his philosophy, because it is correct for his own thinking,  is therefore the only correct one, and that the identity of thinking and being must prove its validity by mankind immediately translating his philosophy from theory into practice and transforming the whole world according to Hegelian principles This is an illusion which he shares with well-nigh all philosophers.

In addition there is yet another set of different philosophers–those who question the possibility or any cognition (or at least of an exhaustive cognition) of the world, To them, among the moderns, belong Hume and Kant, and they have played a very important role in philosophical development. What is decisive in the refutation of this view has already been said by Hegel–in so far as this was possible from an idealist standpoint. The materialistic additions made by Feuerbach are more ingenious than profound: The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical fancies is practice, viz. experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and using it for our own purposes into the bargain. then there is an end of the Kantian incomprehensible “thing-in-itself” The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained just such “thing-in-themselves” until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the “thing-in-itself” became a thing for us, as, for instance, alizarin, the coloring matter of the madder, which we no longer trouble to grow in the madder roots in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply from coal tar. If,  nevertheless, the Neo-Kantians are attempting to resurrect the Kantian conception in Germany and the agnostics that of Hume in England (where in fact it had never ceased to survive), this is–in view of their theoretical and practical refutation accomplished long ago–scientifically a regression and practically merely a shamefaced way of surreptitiously accepting materialism, while denying it before the world.

But during this long period from Descartes to Hegel and from Hobbes to Feuerbach , the philosophers were by no means impelled as they thought they were, solely by the force of pure reason. On the contrary, what really pushed them forward was the powerful and ever more rapidly onrushing progress of natural science and industry. Among the materialists this was plain on the surface, but the idealist systems also filled themselves more and more with a materialist content and attempted pantheistically to reconcile the antithesis between mind and matter. Thus, ultimately, the Hegelian system represents merely a materialism idealistically turned upside down in method and content.

The course of evolution of Feuerbach is that of a Hegelian–a never quite orthodox Hegelian, it is true–into a materialist; an evolution which at a definite stage necessitates a complete rupture with the idealist system of his predecessor. With irresistible force Feuerbach is finally forced to the realization that the Hegelian pre-mundane existence of the “absolute idea,” the “preexistence of the logical categories”[†] before the world existed,  is nothing more than the fantastic survival of the belief in the existence or an extra-mundane creator; that the material, sensuously perceptible world to which we ourselves belong is the only reality; and that our consciousness and thinking, however suprasensuous they may seem, are the product of a material, bodily organ, the brain. Matter is not a product of mind, but mind itself is merely the highest product of matter. This is, of course, pure materialism. But, having got so far, Feuerbach stops short. He cannot overcome the customary philosophical prejudice, prejudice not against the thing but against the name materialism. He says: “To me materialism is the foundation of the edifice of human essence and knowledge,  but to me it is not what it is to the physiologist, to the natural scientist in the narrower sense, for example, Moleschott, and necessarily so: indeed from their standpoint and profession, the building itself. Backwards I fully agree with the materialists; but not forwards.”

Here Feuerbach lumps together the materialism that is a general world outlook resting upon a definite conception of the relation between matter and mind, and the special form in which this world outlook was expressed at a definite stage of historical development, viz., in the eighteenth century. More than that, he confuses it with the shallow and vulgarized form in which the materialism of the 18th century continues to exist today in the minds of naturalists and physicians, the form which was preached on their tours in the ‘fifties by Buchner, Vogt and Moleschott. But just as idealism underwent a series of stages of development, so also did materialism. With each epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural science it has to change its form; and after history also was subjected to materialistic treatment, here also a new avenue of development has opened.

The materialism of the last century was predominantly mechanical, because at that time, of all natural sciences, mechanics and indeed only the mechanics of solid bodies–celestial and terrestrial–in short, the mechanics of gravity had come to any definite close. Chemistry at that lime existed only in its infantile, phlogistic form. Biology still lay in swaddling clothes; vegetable and animal organists had been only roughly examined and were explained as the result of purely mechanical causes. As the animal was to Descartes, So was man a machine to the materialists of the 18th century.[‡] This exclusive application of the standards of mechanics to processes of a chemical and organic nature–in which processes,  it is true, the laws of mechanics are also valid, hut are pushed into the background by other and higher laws constitutes a specific but at that time inevitable limitation of classical French materialism.

The second specific limitation of this materialism lay in its inability to comprehend the universe as a process as matter developing in an historical process. This was in accordance with the level of the natural science of that time and with the metaphysical, i.e., anti-dialectical manner of philosophizing connected with it. Nature, it was known, was in constant motion, But according to the ideas of that time, this motion turned eternally in a circle and therefore- never moved from the spot; it produced the same results over and over again. This conception. was at that time inevitable. The Kantian theory of the origin of the solar system[§] had been put forward but recently and was regarded merely as a curiosity. The history of the development of the earth, geology was still totally unknown and the conception that the animate natural beings of today are the result of a long sequence of development from the simple to the complex could not at that time scientifically be put forward at all. The unhistorical view of nature was therefore inevitable. We have the less reason to reproach the philosophers of the 18th century on this account, since the same thing is found in Hegel. According to him,  nature, as a mere “alienation” of the idea, is incapable of development in time–capable only of extending its manifoldness in space, so that it displays simultaneously and alongside of one another all the stages of development comprised in it, and is condemned to an eternal repetition of the same process. This absurdity of a development in space, but outside of time the fundamental condition of all development–Hegel imposes upon nature just at the very dine when geology, embryology. the physiology of plants and animals, and organic chemistry were being built up, and when everywhere on the basis of these new sciences brilliant foreshadowings of the later theory of evolution were appearing (e.g., Goethe and Lamarck). But the system demanded. it; hence the method, for the sake of the system, had to become untrue to itself.

This same unhistorical conception prevailed also in the domain of history. Here the struggle against the remnants of the Middle Ages blurred the view. The Middle Ages were regarded as a mere interruption of history by a thousand years of universal barbarism. The great progress made in the Middle Ages–the extension of the area of European culture, the bringing into existence there of great nations, capable of survival, and finally, the enormous technical progress of the 14th and 15th centuries –all this was not seen. Consequently a rational insight into the great historical interconnections was made impossible, and history served at best as a collection of examples and illustrations for the use of philosophers.

The vulgarizing pedlars who in Germany in the ‘fifties busied themselves with materialism by no means overcame the limitations of their teachers. All the advances of natural science which had been made in the meantime served then, only as new proofs against the existence of a creator of the world; and, in truth, it was quite outside their scope to develop the theory any further. Though idealism was at the end of its tether and was dealt a death blow by the Revolution of 1848, it had the satisfaction of seeing that materialism had for the moment fallen lower still. Feuerbach. was unquestionably right when he refused to take responsibility for this materialism; only he should not have con-founded the doctrines of these hedge-preachers with materialism in general….

Here, however, two things must be pointed out.

First, during Feuerbach’s lifetime, natural science was still involved in a process of violent fermentation-which only during the last 15 years has reached a relatively dear conclusion. New scientific data were acquired to a hitherto unheard of extent, but the establishing or inter-relations, and thereby the bringing of order into this chaos of discoveries following closely upon each other’s heels has only quite recently become possible for the first time. It is true that Feuerbach had lived to we all three of the decisive discoveries – that of the cell, the transformation of energy, and the theory of evolution named after Darwin. But how could the lonely philosopher, living in rural solitude, be able sufficiently to follow scientific developments in order to appreciate at their full value discoveries which scientists themselves at that time either contested or did not adequately know how to make use of? The blame for this falls solely upon the wretched conditions in Germany. in consequence of which cobweb-spinning eclectic flea-crackers had taken possession of the chairs of philosophy while Feuerbach, who towered above them all, had to rusticate and grow sour in a little village. It is therefore not Feuerbach’s fault that the historical conception of nature, which had now become possible and which removed all the one-sidedness of French materialism, remained inaccessible to him.

Secondly, Feuerbach is quite correct in asserting that the exclusively natural-scientific materialism was indeed “the foundation of the edifice of human… knowledge but . . . not …the building itself.” For we live not only in nature but also in human society and this also no less than nature has its history of development and its science. It was therefore a question of bringing the science of society (i.e., the sum total of the so-called historical and philosophical sciences) into harmony with the materialist foundation, and of reconstructing it thereupon. But it did not fall to Feuerbach’s lot to do this. In spite of the “foundation,” he remained here bound by the traditional idealist fetters, a fact which he recognizes in these words: “Backwards I… agree with the materialists: but not forwards!”

-Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach (1888), pp. 20-29.

[2]

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN

MATERIALISM IN FRANCE

AND ENGLAND

The French Enlightenment of the 18th century, in particular French materialism,  was not only a struggle against the existing political institutions and the existing religion and theology; it was just as much an open struggle against metaphysics of the 17^th century, and against all metaphysics, in particular that or Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza and Leibniz. Philosophy was opposed to metaphysics as Feuerbach, in his first decisive attack on Hegel opposed sober philosophy to drunken speculation. Seventeenth century metaphysics, beaten off the field by the French Enlightenment, to be precise, by French materialism of the 18th century, was given a victorious and solid restoration in German philosophy, particularly in speculative German philosophy of the 19th century. After Hegel linked it in so masterly a fashion with all subsequent metaphysics and with German idealism and founded a metaphysical universal kingdom, the attack on speculative metaphysics and metaphysics in general again corresponded; as in the 18th century to the attack on theology. It wilt be defeated forever by materialism which has now been perfected by the work of speculation itself and coincides with humanism. As Feuerbach represented materialism in the theoretical domain, French and English socialism and communism in the practical field represent materialism which now coincides with humanism.

There are two trends in French materialism; one traces its origin to Descartes, the other to Locke. The latter is mainly a French development and leads direct to socialism. The former, mechanical materialism, merges with what is properly French natural science. The two trends cross in the course of development. We have no need here to go deep into French materialism. which comes direct from Descartes, any more than into the French Newton school or the development of French natural science in general.

We shall therefore just note the following:

Descartes in his physics endowed matter with self-creative power and conceived mechanical motion as the act of its life. He completely separated his physics from his metaphysics. Within his physics matter is the only substance, the only basis of being and of knowledge.

Mechanical French materialism followed Descartes’ physics in opposition to his metaphysics. His followers were by profession anti-metaphysicists, i.e., physicists.

The school begins with the physician Leroy, reaches its zenith with the physician Cabanis, and the physician Lamettrie is its center. Descartes was still living when Leroy, like Lamettrie in the 18th century. transposed the Cartesian structure of animals to the human soul and affirmed that the soul is a modus of the body and ideas are mechanical motions. Leroy even thought Descartes had kept his real opinion secret. Descartes protested. At the end of the 18th century Cabanis perfected Cartesian materialism in his treatise: Les Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’homme [Relationships of the Physical and Moral in Man].

Cartesian materialism still exists today in France. It had great success in mechanical natural science which will be least of all reproached with romanticism.

Metaphysics of the 17th century, represented in France by Descartes, had materialism as its antagonist from its very birth.

It personally opposed Descartes in Gassendi, the restorer of Epicurean materialism. French and English materialism was always closely related to Democritus and Epicurus. Cartesian metaphysics had another opponent in the English materialist Hobbes. Gassendi and Hobbes were victorious over their opponent long after their death when metaphysics’ was already officially dominant in all French schools.

Voltaire observed that the indifference of Frenchmen to the disputes between Jesuits and Jansenists in the 18th century was due less to philosophy than to Law’s financial speculation. And, in fact, the downfall of 17th century metaphysics can he explained by the materialistic theory of the 18th century only as far as that theoretical movement itself is explained by the practical nature of French life at the time. That life was turned to the immediate present, worldly enjoyment and worldly interests, the earthly world. Its anti-theological, anti-metaphysical. and materialistic practice demanded corresponding anti-theological, anti-metaphysical and materialistic theories. Metaphysics had in practice lost all credit. Here we have only to indicate briefly the theoretical process.

In the 17th century metaphysics (cf. Descartes. Leibniz, and others) still had an element of positive, profane content. It made discoveries in mathematics, physics and other exact sciences which seemed to come within its pale. This appearance was done away with as early as the beginning of the 18th century. The positive sciences broke off from it and determined their own separate fields. The whole wealth of metaphysics was reduced to beings of thought and heavenly thing,. although this was the very time when real beings and earthly things began to be the center of all interest. Metaphysics had gone stale. In the very year in which Malebranche and Arnauld, the last great French metaphysicians of the 17th century, died, Helvetius and Condillac were born.

The man who deprived 17th century metaphysics of all credit in the domain of theory was Pierre Bayle. His weapon was skepticism which he forged out of metaphysics’ own magic formulae. He at first proceeded from Cartesian metaphysics. As Feuerbach was driven by the fight against speculative theology to the fight against speculative philosophy precisely because he recognized in speculation the last prop of theology, because he had to force theology to turn back from pretended science to coarse, repulsive faith, so Bayle too was driven by religious doubt to doubt about metaphysics which was the support of that faith. He therefore critically investigated metaphysics from its very origin. He became its historian in order to write the history of its death. He mainly refuted Spinoza and Leibniz.

Pierre Bayle did not only prepare the reception of materialism and the philosophy of common sense in France by shattering metaphysics with his skepticism. He heralded atheistic society, which was soon to come to existence. by proving that a society consisting only of atheists is. possible, that an atheist can be a respectable man and that it is not by atheism but by superstition and idolatry that man debases himself.

To quote the expression of a French writer, Pierre Bayle was “the last metaphysician in the 17th century sense of the word and the first philosopher in the sense of the 18th century.”

Besides the negative refutation of 17th century theology and metaphysics, a positive, anti-metaphysical system was required. A book was needed which would systematize and theoretically justify the practice of life of the time. Locke’s treatise on the origin of human reason came from across the Channel as if in answer to a call. It was welcomed enthusiastically like a long awaited guest

To the question: Was Locke perchance a follower of Spinoza? “profane” history may answer: Materialism is the son of Great Britain by birth. Even Britain’s scholastic Duns Scotus wondered: “Can matter think?”

In order to bring about that miracle he had recourse to God’s omnipotence, i.e., he forced theology itself to preach materialism. In addition he was a nominalist. Nominalism is a main component of English materialism and is in general the first expression of materialism.

The real founder of English materialism and all modern experimental science was Bacon. For him, natural science was true science and physics based on perception was the most excellent part of natural science. Anaxagoras with his homoeomeria[**] and Democritus with his atoms are often the authorities he refers to. According to his teaching the senses are infallible and are the source of all knowledge. Science is experimental and consists in applying a rational method to the data provided by the senses. Induction, analysis, comparison, observation, and experiment are the principal requisites of rational method. The first and most important of the inherent qualities of matter is motion, not only mechanical and mathematical movement, but still more impulse, vital life-spirit, tension, or, to use Jacob Boehme’s expression, the throes (Qual) of matter. The primary forms of matter are the living, individualizing forces of being inherent in it and producing the distinctions between the species.

In Bacon, its first creator, materialism contained latent and still in a naive way the germs of all-round development. Matter smiled at man with poetic sensuous brightness. The aphoristic doctrine itself on the other hand, was full of the inconsistencies of theology.

In its further development materialism became one-sided. Hobbes was the one who systematized Bacon’s materialism. Sensuousness lost its bloom and became the abstract sensuousness of the geometrician. Physical motion was sacrificed to the mechanical or mathematical, geometry was proclaimed the principal science. Materialism became hostile to humanity. In order to overcome the anti-human incorporeal spirit in its own field, materialism itself was obliged to mortify its flesh and become an ascetic. It appeared as a being of reason, but it also developed the implacable logic of reason.

If man’s senses are the source of all his knowledge, Hobbes argues, proceeding from Bacon, then conception, thought, imagination, etc., are nothing but phantoms of the material world more or less divested of its sensuous form. Science can only give a name to these phantoms. One name can be applied to several phantoms. There can even be names of names. But it would be a contradiction to say,  on the one hand, that all ideas have their origin in the world of the senses, and to maintain, on the other hand, that a word is more than 2 word, that besides the beings represented, which are always individual, there exist also general beings. An incorporeal substance is just as much a nonsense as an incorporeal body. Body, being, substance, are one and the same real idea. One cannot separate the thought from matter  which thinks.

Matter is the subject of all changes. The word infinite is meaningless unless it means the capacity of our mind to go on adding without end. Since only what is material is perceptible, knowable, nothing is known of the existence of God. I am sure only of my own existence. Every human passion is a mechanical motion ending or beginning. The objects of impulses are what is called good. ‘Man is subject to the same laws as nature; might and freedom are identical.

Hobbes systematized Bacon, but did not give a more precise proof of his basic principle that our knowledge and our ideas have their source in the world of the senses.

Locke proved the principle of Bacon and Hobbes in his essay on the origin of human reason.

Just as Hobbes did away with the theistic prejudices in Bacon’s materialism, so Collins, Dodwell, Coward, Hartley, Priestley, and others broke down the last bounds of Locke’s sensualism. For materialists, at least, deism is no more than a convenient and easy way of getting rid of religion.

We have already mentioned how opportune Locke’s work was for the French. Locke founded the philosophy of bon sens, of common sense; i.e., he said indirectly that no philosopher can be at variance with the healthy human senses and reason based on them.

Locke’s immediate follower, Condillac, who also translated him into French, at once opposed Locke’s sensualism to 17th century metaphysics. He proved that the French had quite rightly rejected metaphysics as the mere bungling of fancy and theological prejudice. He published a refutation of the systems of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Malebranche.

In his Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines he expounded Locke’s ideas and proved that not only the soul, but the senses too, not only the art of creating ideas, but also the art of sensuous perception are matters of experience and habit. The whole development of man therefore depends on education and environment. It was only by eclectic philosophy that Condillac was ousted from the French schools.

The difference between French and English materialism follows from the difference between the two nations. The French imparted to English materialism wit, flesh and-blood, and eloquence. They gave it the temperament and grace that it lacked. They civilized it.

In Helvetius, who also based himself on Locke, materialism became really French. Helvetius conceived it immediately in its application to social life (Helvetius, De l’homme, de ses facultes intellectuelles et de son education). Sensuous qualities and self-love, enjoyment and correctly understood personal interests are the bases of morality. The natural equality of human intelligence, the unity of progress of reason and progress of industry, the natural goodness of man and the omnipotence of education are the main points of his system.

In Lamettrie’s work we find a combination of Descartes’ system and English materialism. He makes use of Descartes’ physics in detail. His Alan Machine is a treatise after the model of Descartes’ beast-machine. The physical part of Holbach’s Systeme de la Nature is also a result of the combination of French and English materialism, while the moral part is based substantially on the ethics of Helvetius. Robinet (De la Nature), the French materialist who had the most connection with metaphysics and was therefore praised by Hegel, refers explicitly to Leibniz.

We need not dwell on Volney, Dupuis, Diderot and others any more than on the physiocrats, having already proved the dual origin of French materialism from Descartes’ physics and English materialism, and the opposition of French materialism to 17th century metaphysics and to the metaphysics of Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibniz. The Germans could not see this opposition before they came into the same opposition with speculative metaphysics.

As Cartesian materialism merges into natural science proper, the other branch of French materialism leads direct to socialism and communism.

There is no need of any great penetration to see from the teaching of materialism on the original goodness and equal intellectual endowment of man,  the omnipotence of experience, habit, and education, and the influence of environment on man, the great significance of industry, the justification of enjoyment, etc.,  how necessarily materialism is connected with communism and socialism.[††] If man draws all his knowledge, sensation, etc., from the world of the senses and the experience gained in it, the empirical world must be arranged so that in it man experiences and gets used to what is really human and that he becomes aware of himself as man. If correctly understood interest is the principle of all morality, man’s private interest must be made to coincide with the interest of humanity. If man is unfree in the materialist sense, i.e., is free not through the negative power to avoid this or that, but through the positive power to assert his true individuality, crime must not be punished in the individual, but the antisocial source of crime must be destroyed, and each man must be given social scope for the vital manifestation of his being. If man is shaped by his surroundings, his surroundings must be made human. If man is social by nature, he will develop his true nature only in society, and the power of his nature must be measured not by the power of separate individuals but by the power of society.

This and similar propositions are to be found almost literally even in the oldest French materialists. This is not the place to assess them. Fable of the Bees or Private Vices Made Public Benefits by Mandeville, one of the early English followers of Locke, is typical of the social tendencies of materialism. He proves that in modern society vice is indispensable and useful. This was by no means an apology for modem society.

Fourier proceeds immediately from the teaching of the French materialists. The Babouvists were coarse, uncivilized materialists, but mature communism too comes directly from French materialism. The latter returned to its mother country, England, in the form Helvetius gave it. Bentham based his system of correctly understood interest on Helvetius’s ethics, and Owen proceeded from Bentham’s system to found English communism. Exiled to England, the Frenchman Cabet came under the influence of communist ideas there and on his return to France became the most popular, although the most superficial, representative of communism. Like Owen, the more scientific French communists, Dezamy, Gay and others, developed the teaching of materialism as the teaching of real humanism and the logical basis of communism.

-MARX and ENGELS, The Holy Family (1845), pp. 168-77.

[3]

THE RELATION OF AGNOSTICISM,

MATERIALISM, AND RELIGION

TO MODERN CLASS

STRUGGLES

I am perfectly aware that the contents of this work will meet with objection from a considerable portion of the British public. But if we Continentals had taken the slightest notice of the prejudices of British “respectability,” we should be even worse off than we are. This book defends what we call “historical materialism,” and the word materialism grates upon the ears of the immense majority of British readers. “Agnosticism” might be tolerated, but materialism is utterly inadmissible.

And yet the original home of all modem materialism, from the 17th century onwards, is England.

“Materialism is the natural-born son of Great Britain…” [‡‡]

Thus Karl Marx wrote about the British origin of modem materialism. If Englishmen nowadays do not exactly relish the compliment he paid their ancestors, more’s the pity. It is none the less undeniable that Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke are the fathers of that brilliant school of French materialists which made the l8th century, in spite of all battles on land and sea won over Frenchmen by Germans and Englishmen, a preeminently French century, even before that crowning French Revolution, the results of which we outsiders, in England as well as in Germany, are still trying to acclimatize.

There is no denying it. About the middle of this century, what struck every cultivated foreigner who set up his residence in England was what he was then bound to consider the religious bigotry and stupidity of the English respectable middle class. We, at that time, were all materialists, or, at least, very advanced freethinkers, and to us it appeared inconceivable that almost all educated people in England should believe in all sorts of impossible miracles and that even geologists like Buckland and Mantell should contort the facts of their science so as not to clash too much with the myths of the book of Genesis; while, in order to find people who dared to use their own intellectual faculties with regard to religious matters, you had to go amongst the uneducated, the “great unwashed,” as they were then called, the working people, especially the Owenite socialists.

But England has been “civilized since then. The exhibition of 1851 sounded the knell of English insular exclusiveness. England became gradually internationalized, in diet, in manners, in ideas; so much so that I begin to wish that some English manners and customs had made as much headway on the Continent as other Continental habits have made here. Anyhow, the introduction and spread of salad oil (before 1851 known only to the aristocracy) has been accompanied by a fatal spread of continental skepticism in matters religious, and it has come to this, that agnosticism, though not yet considered “the thing,” quite as much as the Church of England, is yet very nearly on a par, as far as respectability goes, with Baptism, and decidedly ranks above the Salvation Army. And I cannot help believing that under these circumstances it will be consoling to many who sincerely regret and condemn this progress of infidelity, to learn that these “new-fangled notions” are not of foreign origin, are not “made in Germany,” like so many other articles of daily use, but are undoubtedly Old English, and that their British originators 200 years ago went a good deal further than their descendants now dare to venture.

What, indeed, is agnosticism, but, to use an expressive Lancashire term, “shamefaced” materialism? The agnostic’s conception of nature is materialistic throughout. The entire natural world is governed by law, and absolutely excludes the intervention of action from without. But, he adds, we have no means either of ascertaining or of disproving the existence of some supreme being beyond the known universe. Now, this might hold good at the time when Laplace, to Napoleon’s question, why in the great astronomer’s Wcanique celeste the Creator was not even mentioned, proudly replied: “Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothese” [I had no need for that hypothesis.] But nowadays, in our evolutionary conception of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a creator or a ruler; and to talk of a supreme being shut out from the whole existing world implies a contradiction in terms, and as it seems to me, a gratuitous insult to the feelings of religious people. . . .

As soon, however, as our ‘agnostic has made these formal mental reservations, he talks and acts as the rank materialist he at bottom is. He may say that, as far as we know, matter and motion, or as it is now called, energy, can neither be created nor destroyed, but that we have no proof of their not having been created at some time or other. But if you try to use this admission against him in any particular case, he will quickly put you out of court. If he admits the possibility of spiritualism in abstracto, he will have none of it in concreto. As far as we know and can know, he will tell you there is no Creator and no Ruler of the universe; as far as we are concerned, matter and energy can neither be created nor annihilated; for us, mind is a mode of energy, a function of the brain; all we know is that the material world is governed by immutable laws, and so forth. Thus, as far as he is a scientific man, as far as he knows anything, he is a materialist; outside his science, in spheres about which he knows nothing, he translates his ignorance into Greek and calls it agnosticism.

At all events, one thing seems clear: even if 1 were an agnostic, it is evident that 1 could not describe the conception of history sketched out in this little book, as “historical agnosticism.” Religious people would laugh at me, agnostics would indignantly. ask, was I going to make fun of them? And thus I hope even British respectability will not be overshocked if I use, in English, as well as in so many other languages the term “historical materialism,” to designate that view of the course of history, which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, in the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these classes against one another.

-ENGELS, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific,

Intro. to 1st Eng. ed. (1892), pp. 10-13, 15f.

[4]

LENIN DEFENDS MARXIST MATERIALISM

AGAINST REVISIONISTS

A number of writers, would-be Marxists, have this year undertaken a veritable campaign against the philosophy of Marxism In the course of less than half a year four books devoted mainly and almost exclusively to attacks on dialectical materialism have made their appearance. These include first and foremost Studies in (?-it would have been more proper to say “against”) the Philosophy of Marxism (St. Petersburg, 1908), a symposium by Bazarov, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Berman, Helfond, Yushkevich and Suvorov; Yushkevich’s Materialism and Critical Realism, Berman’s Dialectics in the Light of the Modern Theory of Knowledge and Valentinov’s The Philosophical Constructions of Marxism.

All these people could not have been ignorant of the fact that Marx and Engels scores of times termed their philosophical views dialectical materialism. Yet all these people, who, despite the sharp divergence of their political views, are united in their hostility toward dialectical materialism, at the same time claim that in philosophy they are Marxists! Engels’ dialectics is “mysticism,” says Berman. Engels’ views have become “antiquated.” remarks Bazarov casually, as though it were a self-evident fact. Materialism thus appears to be refuted by our bold warriors, who proudly allude to the “modern theory of knowledge,”  “Recent philosophy” (or “recent positivism”), the “philosophy of modem natural science,” or even the “philosophy of natural science of the twentieth century.” Supported by all these supposedly recent doctrines, our destroyers of dialectical materialism proceed fearlessly to downright fideism[§§] (in the case of Lunacharsky it is most evident, but by no means in his case alone!). Yet when it comes to an explicit definition of their attitude towards Marx and Engels, all their courage and all their respect for their own convictions at once disappear. Indeed a complete renunciation of dialectical materialism, i.e.,  of Marxism; in word-endless subterfuges, attempts to evade the essence of the question, to cover their retreat, to put some materialist or other in place of materialism in general, and a determined refusal to make a direct analysis of the innumerable materialist declarations of Marx and Engels. This is truly “mutiny on one’s knees,” as it was justly characterized by one Marxist. This is typical philosophical revisionism, for it was only the revisionists who gained a sad notoriety for themselves by their departure from the fundamental views of Marxism and by their fear, or inability, to “settle accounts” openly, explicitly, resolutely, and clearly with the views they had abandoned. When orthodox Marxists had occasion to pronounce against some antiquated views of Marx (for instance, Mehring when he opposed certain historical propositions), it was always don-, with such precision and thoroughness that no one has ever found anything ambiguous in such literary utterances.

For the rest, there is in the Studies “in” the Philosophy of Marxism one phrase which resembles the truth, This is Lunacharsky’s phrase: “Perhaps we [i.e., all the collaborators of the Studies evidently' have gone astray, but we are seeking" (p. 161). That the first half of this phrase contains an absolute and the second a relative truth, I shall endeavor to demonstrate circumstantially in the present book. At the moment I would only remark that if our philosophers had spoken not in the name of 'Marxism but in the name of a few "seeking" Marxists, they would have shown more respect for themselves and for 'Marxism.

As for myself, I too am a "seeker" in philosophy. Namely, the task 1 have set myself in these comments is to seek for the stumbling block to people who under the guise of Marxism are offering something incredibly muddled, confused, and reactionary.

--LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp. 9f.

[5]

“REFUTATION OF MATERIALISM” FROM

BERKELEY TO THE MACHIANS

Anyone in the least acquainted with philosophical literature must know that scarcely a single contemporary professor of philosophy (or of theology) can be found who is not directly or indirectly engaged in refuting materialism. They have declared materialism refuted a thousand times, yet are continuing to refute it for the thousand and first time. All our revisionists are engaged in refuting materialism,  pretending, however, that actually they are only refuting the materialist Plekhanov, and not the materialist Engels, nor the materialist Feuerbach, nor the materialist views of Dietzgen-and, moreover, that they are refuting materialism from the standpoint of “recent” and “modern” positivism, natural science, and so forth….

The materialists, we are told, recognize something unthinkable and unknowable-”things-in-themselves” matter “outside of experience” and outside of our knowledge. They lapse into genuine mysticism by admitting the existence of something beyond, something transcending the bounds of “experience” and knowledge. When they say that matter, by acting upon our sense organs, produces sensations, the materialists take as their basis the “unknown,” nothingness; for do they not themselves declare our sensations to be the only source of knowledge? The materialists lapse into “Kantianism” (Plekhanov, by recognizing the existence of “things-in-themselves,” i.e.,  things outside of our consciousness); they “duplicate” the world and preach “dualism,” for the materialists hold that beyond the appearance there is the thing-in-itself; beyond the immediate sense data there is something else, some fetish, an “idol,” an absolute, a source of “metaphysics,” a double of religion (“holy matter,” as Bazarov says).

Such are the arguments levelled by the Machians against materialism, as repeated and retold in varying keys by the aforementioned writers.

In order to test whether these arguments are new, and whether they are really directed against only one Russian materialist who “lapsed into Kantianism,” we shall give some detailed quotations from the works of an old idealist, George Berkeley. This historical inquiry is all the more necessary in the introduction to our comments since we shall have frequent occasion to refer to Berkeley and his trend in philosophy, for the Machians misrepresent both the relation of Mach to Berkeley and the essence of Berkeley’s philosophical line.

The work of Bishop George Berkeley, published in 1710 under the title Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge[***], begins with the following argument:

“It is evident to anyone who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses; or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind; or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination. . . . By sight I have the ideas of light and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance. . . . Smelling furnishes me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds. . . .

“And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple; other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things. . .” (§ 1).

Such is the content of the first section of Berkeley’s work.

We must remember that Berkeley takes as the basis of his philosophy hard, soft, heat, cold, colors, tastes, odors, etc. For Berkeley, things are “collections of ideas,” this expression designating the aforesaid, let us say, qualities or sensations, and not abstract thoughts.

Berkeley goes on to say that besides these “ideas or objects of knowledge” there exists something that perceives them “mind, spirit, soul or thyself” 2). It is self-evident, the philosopher concludes, that ideas” cannot exist outside of the mind that perceives them. In order to convince ourselves of this it is enough to consider the meaning of the word “exist.”

“The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed; meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it.” That is what Berkeley says in § 3 of his work; and thereupon he begins a polemic against the people whom he calls materialists (§§ 18, 19, etc.).

“I cannot conceive,” he says, “how it is possible to speak of the absolute existence of things without their relation to the fact that somebody perceives them. To exist means to be perceived” (their esse is percipi, § 3–a dictum of Berkeley’s frequently quoted in textbooks on the history of philosophy).

“It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding” (§ 4).

This opinion is a “manifest contradiction,” says Berkeley. “For, what are the aforementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived-” (§ 4).

The expression “collection of ideas” Berkeley now replaces by what to him is an equivalent expression, combination of sensations, and accuses the materialists of an “absurd” tendency to go  still further, of seeking some source of this complex-that is, of this combination of sensations. In § 5 the materialists are accused of trifling with an abstraction, for to divorce the sensation from the object, according to Berkeley, is an empty abstraction. “In truth,” he says at the end of §5, omitted in the second edition, “the object and the sensation are the same thing, and cannot therefore be abstracted from each other.” Berkeley goes on:

“But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance. I answer an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. . .  I ask whether those supposed originals, or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If they are,  then they are ideas and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to anyone whether it be sense to assert a colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest” (§ 8).

As the reader sees, Bazarov’s “arguments” against Plekhanov concerning the problem of whether things can exist apart from their action on us do not differ in the least from Berkeley’s arguments against the materialists whom he ‘does not mention by name. Berkeley considers the notion of the existence of “matter or corporeal substance” (§ 9) such a “contradiction,” such an “absurdity,” that it is really not worth wasting time exposing it. He says:

“But because the tenet of the existence of Matter seems to have taken so deep a root in the minds of philosophers, and draws after it so many ill consequences,  I choose rather to be thought prolix and tedious than omit anything that might conduce to the full discovery and extirpation of that prejudice” (§ 9).

We shall presently see to what “ill consequences” Berkeley is referring. Let us first finish with his theoretical arguments against the materialists. Denying the “absolute” existence of objects, that is. the existence of things outside human knowledge, Berkeley deliberately represents the views of his opponents as though they recognized the “thing-in-itself.” In 24 Berkeley writes in italics that the opinion which he is refuting recognizes “the absolute existence of sensible objects in themselves, or without the mind” (pp. 167-68, op. cit.). The two fundamental lines of philosophical outlook are here depicted with the straightforwardness, clarity and precision that distinguish the classical philosophers from the inventors of “new” systems in our day. Materialism is the recognition of “objects in themselves,” or outside the mind; ideas and sensations are copies or images of these objects. The opposite doctrine (idealism) claims that objects do not exist “without the mind”; objects are “combinations of sensations.”

This was written in 1710, fourteen years before the birth of Immanuel Kant, yet our Machians, supposedly on the basis of “recent” philosophy, mad-, the discovery that the recognition of “objects in themselves” is a result of the infection or distortion of materialism by Kantianism! The “new” discoveries of the Machians are the product of an astounding ignorance of the history of the basic philosophical trends.

Their next “new” thought consists in this: that the concepts matter” or “substance” are remnants of old uncritical views. Mach and Avenarius, you see, advanced philosophical thought, deepened analysis and eliminated these “absolutes,” “unchangeable entities,” etc. If you wish to check such assertions with the original sources, go to Berkeley and you will see that they are pretentious fictions. Berkeley says quite definitely that matter is “nonentity” 68), that matter is nothing      “You may,” thus Berkeley ridicules the materialists, “if so it shall seem good use the word matter in the same sense as other men use nothing’, (pp. 196-97). At the beginning, says Berkeley, it was believed that colors, odors, etc., “really exist,” but subsequently such views were renounced, and it was seen that they only exist in dependence on our sensations. But this elimination of old erroneous concepts was not completed; a remnant is the concept “substance” (§ 73), which is also a “prejudice” (p. 195), and which was finally exposed by Bishop Berkeley, in 1710! In 1908 there are still wags who seriously believe Avenarius, Petzoldt, Mach and the rest, when they maintain that it was only “recent positivism” and “recent natural science” which at last succeeded in eliminating these “metaphysical” conceptions.

These same wags (among them Bogdanov) assure their readers that it was the new philosophy that corrected the error of the “duplication of the world” in the doctrine of the eternally refuted materialists,  who speak of some sort of a “reflection” by the human consciousness of things existing outside the consciousness. A mass of sentimental verbiage has been written by the above named authors about this “duplication.” Owing to forgetfulness or ignorance, they failed to add that these new discoveries had already been discovered in 1710. Berkeley says:

“Our knowledge of these [i.e., ideas or things] has been very much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very dangerous errors by supposing a two-fold existence of the objects of sense-the one intelligible or in the mind, the other real and without the mind” (i.e., outside consciousness) (§ 86).

And Berkeley ridicules this “absurd” notion, which admits the possibility of thinking the unthinkable! The source of the ‘absurdity,” of course, “follows from our supposing a difference between things and ideas … the supposition of external objects” 87). This same source-as discovered by Berkeley in 1710 and rediscovered by Bogdanov in 1908–-engenders a faith in fetishes and idols.

“The existence of Matter,” says Berkeley, “or bodies unperceived, has not only been the main support of Atheists and Fatalists, but on the same principle both Idolatry likewise in all its various forms depend” (§ 94). Here we arrive at those “ill consequences” derived from the “absurd” doctrine of the existence of an external world which compelled Bishop Berkeley not only to refute this doctrine theoretically, but passionately to persecute its adherents as enemies.

“For as we have shewn the doctrine of Matter or corporeal Substance to have been the main pillar and support of Scepticism, so likewise upon the same foundation have been raised all the impious schemes of Atheism and Irreligion…. How great a friend material substance has been to Atheists in all ages were needless to relate. All their monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a dependence on it, that when this cornerstone is once removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground, insomuch that it is no longer worth while to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdities of every wretched sect of Atheists (§ 92, p. 203).

“Matter being once expelled out of nature drags with it so many sceptical and impious notions,  such an incredible number of dispute, and puzzling questions ["the principle of economy of thought," discovered by Mach in the 'seventies, "philosophy as a conception of the world according to the principle of minimum expenditure of effort [Avenarius in 18761] which have been thorns in the sides of divines as well as philosophers, and made so much fruitless work for mankind, that if the arguments we have produced against it are not found equal to demonstration (as to me they evidently seem), yet I am Sure all friends to knowledge, peace, and religion have reason to wish they were” (§ 96).

Frankly and bluntly did Bishop Berkeley argue! In our time these very same thoughts on the “economical” elimination of ‘matter” from philosophy are enveloped in a much more artful form, and confused by the use of a “new” terminology, so that these thoughts may be taken by naive people for “recent” philosophy!

But Berkeley was not only candid as to the tendencies of his philosophy, he also endeavored to cover its idealistic nakedness, to represent it as being free from absurdities and acceptable to .1 common sense.” Instinctively defending himself against the accusation of what would nowadays be called subjective idealism and solipsism, he says that by our philosophy “we are not deprived of any one thing in nature” 34). Nature remains, and the distinction between realities and chimeras remains, only “they both equally exist in the mind” (§ 34).

“I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which Philosophers [Berkeley's italics] call Matter or corporeal substance. And in doing this there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it. The Atheist indeed will want the colour of an empty name to support his impiety” (§ 35).

This thought is made still clearer in § 37, where Berkeley replies to the charge that his philosophy destroys corporeal substance:

“. .. if the word substance be taken in the vulgar sense, for a combination of sensible qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like-this we cannot be accused of taking away; but if it be taken in a philosophic sense, for the support of accidents or qualities without the mind-then indeed I acknowledge that we take it away, if one may be said to take away that which never had any existence, not even in the imagination.”

Not without good cause did the English philosopher Fraser, an idealist and adherent of Berkeleianism, who edited Berkeley’s works and supplied them with his own annotations, designate Berkeley’s doctrine by the term “natural realism” (op. cit., p. x).

This amusing terminology must by all means be noted, for it in fact expresses Berkeley’s intention to counterfeit realism. In our further exposition we shall frequently find the “recent positivists” repeating the same stratagem or counterfeit in a different form and in a different verbal wrapping. Berkeley does not deny the existence of real things! Berkeley, does not go counter to the opinion of all humanity! Berkeley denies “only” the teaching of the philosophers, viz., the theory of knowledge, which seriously and resolutely, takes as the foundation of all its reasoning the recognition of the external world and the reflection thereof in the minds of men. Berkeley does not deny natural science, which has always adhered (mostly unconsciously) to this, i.e., the materialist, theory of knowledge. We read in § 59:

“We may, from the experience*[†††] [Berkeley-a philosophy of "pure experience"] we have had of the train and succession of ideas in our minds . .. make … well-grounded predictions concerning the ideas we shall be affected with pursuant to a great train of actions, and be enabled to pass a right judgment of what would have appeared to us, in case we were placed in circumstances very different from those we are in at present. Herein consists the knowledge of nature, which [listen to this!] may preserve its use and certainty very consistently with what hath been said.”

Let us regard the external world, nature, as “a combination of sensations” evoked in our mind by a deity. Acknowledge this and give up searching for the “ground” of these sensations outside the mind, outside men, and I will acknowledge within the framework of my idealist theory of knowledge all natural science and all the importance and authenticity of its deductions. It is precisely this framework, and only this framework, that I need for my deductions in favor of “peace and religion.” Such is Berkeley’s train of thought. It correctly expresses the essence of idealist philosophy and its social significance, and we shall encounter it later when we come to speak of the relation of Machism to natural science.

Let its now consider another recent discovery that was borrowed from Bishop Berkeley in the 20th century by the recent positivist and critical realist, P. Yushkevich. This discover), is “empirio-symbolism.” “Berkeley,” says Fraser, “thus reverts to his favourite theory of a Universal Natural Symbolism” (op. cit., p. 190). Did these words not occur in an edition of 1871, one might have suspected the English fideist philosopher Fraser of plagiarism from both the modem mathematician and physicist Poincare and the Russian “Marxist” Yushkevich!

This theory of Berkeley’s, which threw Fraser into raptures, is set forth by the Bishop as follows:

“The connexion of ideas [do not forget that for Berkeley ideas and things are identical] does no, imply the relation of cause and effect, but only of a mark or sign with the thing signified” (§ 65).

“Hence, it is evident that those things, which under the notion of a cause cooperating or concurring to the production of effects, are altogether inexplicable, and run us into great absurdities, may be very naturally explained … when they are considered only as marks or signs for our information” (§ 66).

Of course, in the opinion of Berkeley and Fraser, it is no other than the deity who informs us by means of these “empirio-symbols.” The epistemological significance of symbolism in Berkeley’s theory, however, consists in this, that it is to replace “the doctrine” which “pretends to explain things by corporeal causes” (§ 66).

We have before us two philosophical trends in the question of causality. One “pretends to explain things by corporeal causes.” It is clear that it is connected with the “absurd doctrine of matter” refuted by Bishop Berkeley. The other reduces the ‘notion of causality” to the notion of a “mark or sign” which serves for “our information” (supplied by God). We shall meet these two trends in a 20th century garb when we analyze the attitude of Machism and dialectical materialism to this question.

Further, as regards the question of reality, it ought also to be remarked that Berkeley, refusing as he does to recognize the existence of things outside the mind, tries to find a criterion for distinguishing between the real and the fictitious. In § 36 he says that those “ideas” which the human mind evokes at pleasure “are faint, weak, and unsteady in respect to others they perceive by sense: which, being impressed upon them according to certain rules or laws of nature, speak themselves about the effects of a Mind more powerful and wise than human spirits. These latter are said to have more reality in them than the former; by which is meant that they are more affecting, orderly and distinct, and that they are not fictions of the mind perceiving them… “

Elsewhere (§84) Berkeley tries to connect the notion of reality with the simultaneous perception of the same sensations by many, people. For instance, how shall we resolve the question as to whether the transformation of water into wine, of which we are being told, is real’, “If at the table all who were present should see. and smell, and taste, and drink wine, and find the effects of it. within, there could be no doubt of its reality.” And Fraser explains: “The simultaneous consciousness of . . . the ‘same’ sense-ideas by different persons, as distinguished from the purely individual or personal consciousness of imaginary objects and emotions, is here referred to as a test of the reality of the former.”

From this it is evident that Berkeley’s subjective idealism is not to be interpreted as though it ignored the distinction between individual and collective perception. On the contrary, he attempts on the basis of this distinction to construct a criterion of reality.  Deriving “ideas” from the action of the deity upon the human mind,  Berkeley thus approaches objective idealism: The world proves to be not my idea but the product of a single supreme spiritual cause that creates both the “laws of nature” and the laws distinguishing “more real” ideas from those less real, and so forth.

In another work, The Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (1713), where he endeavors to present his views in an especially popular form, Berkeley sets forth the opposition between his doctrine and the materialist doctrine in the following way:

“I assert as well as you [materialists] that, since we are affected from without, we must allow Powers to be without, in a Being distinct from ourselves…. But then we differ as to the kind of this powerful being. I will have it to be Spirit, you Matter, or I know not what (I may add too, you know not what) third nature. . .” (p. 335).

Fraser comments:

“This is the gist of the whole question. According to the Materialists, sensible phenomena are due to material substance, or to some unknown ‘third nature’; according to Berkeley, to Rational Will; according to Hume and the Positivists, their origin is absolutely unknown, and we can only generalise them inductively, through custom, as facts.”

Here the English Berkeleian, Fraser, approaches from his consistent idealist standpoint the same fundamental “lines” in philosophy which were so clearly characterized by the materialist Engels. In his work Ludwig, Feuerbach Engels divides philosophers into “two great camps”–materialists and idealists. Engels -dealing with theories of the two trends much more developed, varied and rich in content than Fraser dealt with–sees the fundamental distinction between them in the fact that while for the materialists nature is primary and spirit secondary, for the idealists the reverse is the case. In between these two camps Engels places the adherents of Hume and Kant, who deny the possibility of knowing the world, or at least of knowing it fully, and calls them agnostics. In his Ludwig, Feuerbach Engels applies this term only to the adherents of Hume (those people whom Fraser calls, and who like to call themselves, “positivists”). But in his article “On Historical Materialism,” [‡‡‡]Engels explicitly speaks of the standpoint of “the Neo-Kantian agnostic,” regarding Neo-Kantianism as a variety of agnosticism.

We cannot dwell here on this remark-ably correct and profound judgment of Engels’ (a judgment which is shamelessly ignored by the Machians). We shall discuss it in detail later on. For the present we shall confine ourselves to pointing to this Marxian terminology and to this meeting of extremes: The views of a consistent materialist and of a consistent idealist on the fundamental philosophical trends. In order to illustrate these trends (with which we shall constantly have to deal in our further exposition) let us briefly note the views of outstanding philosophers of the 18th century who pursued a different path from Berkeley.

Here are Hume’s arguments. In his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in the chapter (XII) on skeptical philosophy, he says:

“It seems evident,  that men are carried, by a natural instinct or prepossession, to repose faith in their senses; and that, without any reasoning, or even almost before the use of reason, we always suppose an external universe, which depends not on our perception, but would exist though we and every sensible creature were absent or annihilated.

Even the animal creations are governed by a like opinion, and preserve this belief of external objects, in all their thoughts, designs, and actions. . . .

“But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us, that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object. The table, which we see, seems to diminish, as we remove farther from it: But the real table, which exists independent of us, suffers no alteration: It was, therefore, nothing but its image, which was present to the mind. These are the obvious dictates of reason; and no man, who reflects, ever doubted, that the existences, which we consider, when we say, ‘this house,’ and ‘that tree,’ are nothing but perceptions in the mind….

“By what argument can it be proved, that the perceptions of the mind must be caused by external objects. entirely different from them. though resembling them (if that be possible). and could not arise either from the energy of the mind itself, or from the suggestion of some invisible and unknown spirit, or from some other cause still more unknown to us’, . . .

“How shall the question be determined? By experience surely; as all other questions of a like nature. But here experience is, and must be entirely silent. The mind has never anything present to it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of their connection with objects. This supposition of such a connection is, therefore, without any foundation in reasoning.

“To have recourse to the veracity of the Supreme Being, in order to prove the veracity of our senses, is surely making a very unexpected circuit . . . if the external world be once called in question, we shall be at a loss to find arguments, by which we may prove the existence of that Being, or any of his attributes.” *[§§§]

He says the same thing in his Treatise of Human Nature (Part IV. Sec. IL “On Scepticism Towards Sensations”): “There is only a single existence, which I shall call indifferently objects or perceptions.” By skepticism Hume means the refusal to explain sensations as the effects of objects, spirit, etc., a refusal to reduce perceptions to the external world, on the one hand, and to a deity or to an unknown spirit, on the other. And the author of the introduction to the French translation of Hume, F. Pillona philosopher of a trend akin to Mach (as we shall see below)justly remarks that for Hume the subject and the object are reduced to “groups of various perceptions,” to “elements of consciousness, to impressions, ideas, etc.”; that the only concern should be with the “groupings and combinations of these elements.” [****] The English Humean, Huxley,  who coined the apt and correct term  “agnosticism,” in his Humc also emphasizes the fact that Hume, regarding “sensations” as the “primary and irreducible states of consciousness,” is not entirely consistent on the question how the origin of sensations is to be explained, whether by the effect of objects on man or by the creative power of the mind. “Realism and idealism are equally probable hypotheses” (i.e., for Hume).[††††] Hume does not go beyond sensations. “Thus the colors red and blue, and the odor of a rose, are simple impressions. . . . A red rose gives us a complex impression, capable of resolution into the simple impressions of red color, rose-scent, and numerous others” (pp. 64-65, op. cit.). Hume admits both the “materialist position” and the “idealist position” (p. 82); the “collection of perceptions” may be generated by the Fichtean “ego” or may be a “signification and even a symbol” of “something real.” This is how Huxley interprets Hume.

As for the materialists, here is an opinion of Berkeley given by Diderot, the leader of the Encyclopedists:

“Those philosophers are called idealists who. being conscious only of their existence and of the sensations which succeed each other within themselves, do not admit anything, else. An extravagant system which, to my thinking, only the blind could have originated; a system which, to the shame of human intelligence and philosophy, is the most difficult to combat, although the most absurd of all.”[‡‡‡‡]

And Diderot, who came very close to the standpoint of contemporary materialism (that arguments and syllogisms alone do not suffice to refute idealism, and that here it is not a: question for theoretical argument), notes the similarity of the premises both of the idealist Berkeley and the sensationalist Condillac. In his opinion, Condillac should have undertaken a refutation of Berkeley in order to avoid such absurd conclusions being drawn from the treatment of sensations as the only source of our knowledge….

For the present we shall confine ourselves to one conclusion. The “recent” Machians have not adduced a single argument against the materialists that had not been adduced by Bishop Berkeley.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp. 13-30.

[6]

MATERIALISM VERSUS IDEALISM: NON

PARTISANSHIP AND RECONCILIATION

IMPOSSIBLE

Throughout the preceding exposition.[§§§§] in connection with every problem of epistemology touched upon and in connection with every philosophical question raised by the new physics, we traced the struggle between materialism and idealism. Behind the mass of new terminological devices, behind the litter of erudite scholasticism, we invariably discerned two principal alignments, two fundamental trends in the solution of philosophical problems. Whether nature, matter. the physical, the external world be taken as primary, and mind, spirit, sensation (experience-as the widespread terminology. of our time has it), the psychical, etc., be regarded as secondary-that is the root question which in fact continues to divide the philosophers into two great camps. The source of thousands upon thousands of mistakes and of the confusion reigning in this sphere is the fact that beneath the envelope of terms, definitions, scholastic devices and verbal artifices, these two fundamental trends are overlooked. (Bogdanov, for instance, refuses to acknowledge his idealism, because, you see, instead of the “metaphysical” concepts “nature” and “mind,” he has taken the “experiential” physical and psychical. A word has been changed!)

The genius of Marx. and Engels consisted in the very fact that in the course of a long period, nearly half a century, they developed materialism, that they further advanced one fundamental trend in philosophy, that they did not confine themselves to reiterating epistemological problems that had already been solved, but consistently applied-and showed how to apply-this same materialism in the sphere of the social sciences, mercilessly brushing aside as litter and rubbish the pretentious rigmarole, the innumerable attempts to “discover” a “new” line in philosophy, to invent a–-new-trend and so forth. The verbal nature of such attempts, the scholastic play with new philosophical “isms,” the clogging of the issue by pretentious devices, the inability to comprehend and clearly present the struggle between the two fundamental epistemological trends-this is what Marx and Engels persistently pursued and combated throughout their entire activity.

We said, “nearly half a century.” And, indeed, as far back, as 1843, when Marx had only just become Marx,  i.e., the founder of scientific Socialism, the founder of modern materialism, which is immeasurably richer in content and incomparably more consistent than all preceding forms of materialism, even at that time Marx pointed out with amazing clarity the basic trends in philosophy. Karl Grun quotes a letter from Marx to Feuerbach dated October 30, 1843, in which Marx invites Feuerbach to -write an article for the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher against Schelling. This Schelling, writes Marx, is a shallow braggart with his claims to having embraced and transcended all previous philosophical trends. “To the French romanticists and mystics he [Schelling] says: I am the union of philosophy and theology; to the French materialists: I am the union of the flesh and the idea; to the French skeptics: I am the destroyer of dogmatism.” [*****]

That the “skeptics,”  be they called Humeans or Kantians (or, in the 20th century, Machians), cry out against the “dogmatism” of both materialism and idealism, Marx at that time already realized; and, without letting himself be diverted by any one of a thousand wretched little philosophical systems, he was able with the help of Feuerbach to take the direct materialist road against idealism. Thirty years later,  in the afterword to the second edition of the first volume of Capital, Marx just as clearly and definitely contrasted his materialism to Hegel’s idealism, the most consistent and developed idealism of all; he contemptuously brushed Comtian “positivism” aside and dubbed as wretched epigoni the modern philosophers who imagine that they have destroyed Hegel when in reality they have reverted to a repetition of the pre-Hegelian errors of Kant and Hume. In the letter to Kugelmann of June 27, 1870, Marx refers contemptuously to Buchner, Lange, Duhring, Fechner, etc., because they understood nothing of Hegel’s dialectics and treated him with scorn. And finally, take the various philosophical utterances by Marx in Capital and other works, and you will find an invariable basic motif. viz., insistence upon materialism and contemptuous derision of all obscurantism, of all confusion and all deviations towards idealism . All Marx’s philosophical utterances revolve within these fundamental opposites, and. in the eyes of professorial philosophy, their defect lies in this “narrowness”. and “one-sidedness.” As a ‘matter of fact, this refusal to recognize the hybrid projects for reconciling materialism and idealism constitutes the great merit of Marx, who moved forward along a sharply-defined philosophical road.

Entirely in the spirit of Marx, and in close collaboration with him, Engels in all his philosophical works briefly and clearly contrasts the materialist and idealist lines in regard to all questions, without, in 1878, 1888, or 1892,[†††††] taking seriously the endless attempts to “transcend” the “one-sidedness” of materialism and idealism, to proclaim a new trend-”positivism … .. realism,” or some other professorial charlatanism. Engels based his whole fight against Duhring on the demand for consistent adherence to materialism, accusing the materialist Duhring of verbally confusing the issue, of phrasemongering, of methods of reasoning which involved a compromise with idealism and adoption of the position of idealism. Either materialism consistent to the end, or the falsehood and confusion of philosophical idealism-such is the formulation of the question given in every paragraph of Anti-Duhring; and only people whose minds had already been corrupted by reactionary professorial philosophy could fail to notice it. And right down to 1894, when the last preface was written to Anti-Duhring, revised and enlarged by the author for the last time, Engels continued to follow the latest developments both in philosophy and science, and continued with all his former resoluteness to hold to his lucid and firm position, brushing away the litter of new systems, big and little.

That Engels followed the new developments in philosophy is evident from Ludwig Feuerbach. In the 1888 preface, mention is even made of such a phenomenon as the rebirth of classical German philosophy in England and Scandinavia, whereas Engels (both in the preface and in the text of the book) has nothing but contempt for the prevailing Neo-Kantianism and Humism. It is quite obvious that Engels, observing the repetition by fashionable German and English philosophy of the old pre-Hegelian errors of Kantianism and Humism,  was prepared to expect some good even from the turn to Hegel (in England and Scandinavia), hoping that the great idealist and dialectician would help to disclose petty idealist and metaphysical errors

Without undertaking an examination of the vast number of shades of Neo-Kantianism in Germany and of Humism. in England, Engels from the very outset refutes their fundamental deviation from materialism. Engels declares that the entire tendency of these two schools is “scientifically a step back-ward.” And what is his opinion of the undoubtedly “positivist,” according to the current terminology, the undoubtedly “realist” tendencies of these Neo-Kantians and Humeans, among whose number, for instance, he could not help knowing Huxley? That “positivism” and that “realism” which attracted, and which continue to attract, an infinite number of muddleheads, Engels declared to be at best a philistine method of smuggling in materialism while criticising and abjuring it publicly! One has to reflect only very little on such an appraisal of Thomas Huxley-a very great scientist and an incomparably more realistic realist and positive positivist than Mach, Avenarius and Co.-in order to understand how contemptuously Engels would have greeted the present infatuation of a group of Marxists with “recent positivism,” the “latest realism,” etc.

Marx and Engels were partisans in philosophy from start to finish; they were able to detect the deviations from materialism and concessions to idealism and fideism in each and every “new” tendency. They therefore appraised Huxley exclusively from the standpoint of his materialist consistency. They therefore rebuked Feuerbach for not pursuing materialism to the end, for renouncing materialism because of the errors of individual materialists, for combating religion in order to renovate it or invent a new religion, for being unable, in sociology, to rid himself of idealist phraseology and become a materialist….

Let us now examine Mach, Avenarius, and their school from the standpoint of. parties in philosophy. Oh, these gentlemen boast of their non-partisanship, and if they have an antipodes, it is the materialist … and only the materialist. A red thread that runs through all the writings of all the Machians is the stupid claim to have “risen above” materialism and idealism,  to have transcended this “obsolete” antithesis, but in fact the whole fraternity are continually sliding into idealism and are conducting a steady and incessant struggle against materialism. The subtle epistemological crochets of a man like Avenarius are but professorial inventions,  an attempt to form a small philosophical sect ‘of his own-; but, as a matter of fact, in the general circumstances of the struggle of ideas and trends in modern society, the objective part played by these epistemological artifices is in every case the same, namely, to clear the way for idealism and fideism, and to serve them faithfully. In fact, it cannot be an accident that the small school of empirio-criticists is acclaimed by the English spiritualists, like Ward, by the French neo-criticists, who praise Mach for his attack on material ism, and by, the German immanentists! Dietzgen’s expression, “graduated flunkeys of fideism,” hits the nail on the head in the case of Mach, Avenarius and their whole school.[‡‡‡‡‡]

It is the misfortune of the Russian Machians, who undertook to “reconcile” Machism and Marxism, that they trusted the reactionary professors of philosophy and as a result slipped down an inclined -plane. The methods of operation employed in the various attempts to develop and supplement Marx were not very ingenious. They read Ostwald, believe Ostwald, paraphrase Ostwald and call it Marxism. They read Mach, believe Mach, paraphrase Mach and call it Marxism. They read Poincare, believe Poincare, paraphrase Poincare and call it Marxism! Not a single one of these professors,  who are capable of making very valuable contributions in the special fields of chemistry, history, or physics, can be trusted one iota when it comes to philosophy. Why? For the same reason that not a single professor of political economy, who may be capable of very valuable contributions in the field of factual and specialized investigations, can be trusted one iota when it comes to the general theory. of political economy. For in modern society the latter is as much a partisan science as is epistemology. Taken as a whole, the Professors of economics are nothing but scientific salesmen of the capitalist class, while the professors of philosophy are scientific salesmen of the theologians.

The task of Marxists in both cases is to be able to master and adapt the achievements of these “salesmen” (for instance,  you will not make the slightest progress in the investigation of new economic phenomena unless you have recourse to the works of these salesmen) and to be able to lop off their reactionary tendency, to pursue one’s own line and to combat the whole alignment of forces and classes hostile to us. And this is just what our Machians were unable to do; they slavishly followed the lead of the reactionary professorial philosophy. “Perhaps we have gone astray, but we are seeking,” wrote Lunacharsky in the name of the authors of the Studies. The trouble is that it is not you who are seeking, but you who are being sought! You do not go with your, i.e., Marxist (for you want to be Marxists), standpoint to every change in the bourgeois philosophical fashion; the fashion comes to you, foists upon you its new surrogates got up in the idealist taste, one day A la Ostwald, the next day A la. Mach, and the day after A la Poincare. These silly “theoretical” devices (“energetics,” “elements … .. introjections , ” etc.) in which you so naively believe are confined to a narrow and tiny school, while the ideological and social tendency of these devices is immediately spotted by the Wards, the neo-criticists, the immanentists, the Lopatins and the pragmatists, and serves their purposes. The infatuation for empirio-criticism and “physical” idealism passes as rapidly , as the infatuation for Neo-Kantianism and “physiological” idealism, but fideism takes its toll from every such infatuation and modifies its devices in a thousand ways for the benefit of philosophical idealism.

The attitude towards religion and the attitude towards natural science excellently illustrate the actual class use made of empirio-criticism by bourgeois reactionaries.

Take the first question. Do you think it is an accident that in ‘a collective work directed against the philosophy of Marxism Lunacharsky went so far as to speak of the “apotheosis of the higher human potentialities,” of “religious atheism,” etc.? If you do, it is only because the Russian Machians have not informed the public correctly, regarding the whole Machian current in Europe and the attitude of this current to religion. Not only is this attitude in no way similar to the attitude of Marx,  Engels, J. Dietzgen and even Feuerbach, but it is its very opposite, beginning with Petzoldt’s statement to the effect that empirio-criticism “contradicts neither theism nor atheism” (EinfUhrung in die Philosophie der reinen Erfahrung, v. 1, p. 551), or Mach’s declaration that “religious opinion is a private affair,” and ending with the explicit fideism, the explicitly arch -reactionary views of Cornelius, who praises Mach and whom Mach praises, of Carus and of all the immanentists. The neutrality of a philosopher in this question is in itself servility to fideism, and Mach and Avenarius, because of the very premises of their epistemology, do not and cannot rise above neutrality.

Once you deny objective reality, given us in sensation, you have already lost every one of your weapons against fideism, for you have slipped into agnosticism or subjectivism-and that is all fideism wants. If the perceptual world is objective reality, then the door is closed to every other “reality” or quasi-reality (remember that Bazarov believed the “realism” of the immanentists, who declare God to be a “real concept”). If the world is matter in motion, matter can and must be infinitely studied in the infinitely complex and detailed manifestations and ramifications of this motion, the motion of this matter; but beyond it, beyond the “physical* , ” external world, with which everyone is familiar, there can be nothing. And the hostility to materialism and the showers of abuse heaped on the materialists are all in the order of things in civilized and democratic Europe. All this is going on to this day. All this is being concealed from the public by the Russian Machians, who have not once attempted even simply to compare the attacks made on materialism by Mach, Avenarius, Petzoldt and Co. with the statements made in favor of materialism by Feuerbach, Marx, Engels and J. Dietzgen. . . .

One must be blind not to see the ideological affinity between Lunacharsky’s “apotheosis of the higher human potentialities” and Bogdanov’s “general substitution” of the psychical for physical nature. This is one and the same thought; in the one case it is expressed from the esthetic standpoint, and in the other from the epistemological standpoint. “Substitution,” approaching the subject tacitly. and from a different angle, already deifies the “higher human potentialities,- by divorcing the “psychical” from man and by substituting an immensely extended, abstract, divinely lifeless “psychical in general” for all physical nature. And what of Yushkevich’s “Logos” introduced into the “IT rational stream of experience”?

A single claw ensnared, and the bird is lost. And our Machians have all become ensnared in idealism, that is, in a diluted and subtle fideism; they became ensnared from the moment they took, “sensation” not as the image of the external world but as a special “element.” It is nobody’s sensation, nobody’s mind, nobody’s spirit, nobody’s will-this is what one inevitably comes to if one does not recognize the materialist theory that the human mind reflects an objectively real external world.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp. 348-59.

[7]

DOES THE NEW PHYSICS

REFUTE MATERIALISM?

You cannot take up any of the Writings of the Machians or about Machism without encountering pretentious references to the new physics, which is  said to have refuted materialism, and so on and so forth. Whether these assertions are well-founded is another question, but the connection between the new physics, or rather a definite school of the new physics, and Machism and other varieties of modem idealist philosophy is beyond doubt. To analyze Machism, and at the same time to ignore this connection-as Plekhanov does-is to scoff at the spirit of dialectical materialism, i.e., to sacrifice the method of Engels to the letter of Engels. Engels says explicitly that “with each epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural science ["not to speak of the history of mankind"], it [materialism] has to change its form” (Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 26). Hence, a revision of the “form” of Engels’ materialism, a revision of his natural-philosophical propositions is not only not “revisionism,” in the accepted meaning of the term, but, on the contrary , is demanded by Marxism. We criticize the Machians not for making such a revision, but for their purely revisionist method of changing the essence of materialism under the guise of criticizing its form and of adopting the fundamental precepts of reactionary bourgeois philosophy without making the slightest attempt to deal directly, frankly and definitely with assertions, of Engels’ which are unquestionably extremely important to the given question, as, for example, his assertion that “. . . motion without matter is unthinkable” (Anti-Duhring, P. 71).

It goes without saving that in examining the connection between one of the schools of modern physics and the rebirth of philosophical idealism it is far from being our intention to deal with special physical theories. What interests us exclusively are the epistemological conclusions that follow from certain definite propositions and generally known discoveries. These epistemological conclusions are of themselves so insistent that many physicists are already reaching for them. What is more, there are already various trends among the physicists, and definite schools are beginning to be formed on this basis. Our object, therefore. will be confined to explaining clearly the essence of the difference between these various trends and the relation in which they stand to the fundamental lines of philosophy.

1.  THE CRISIS IN MODERN PHYSICS

In his book La valeur de la science, the famous French physicist Henri Poincare. says that there are “symptoms of a serious crisis” in Physics, and he devotes a special chapter to this crisis (Chap. VIII, c f. also p. 171). This crisis is not confined to the fact-that “radium, the great revolutionary,” is undermining the principle of the conservation of energy. “All the other principles are equally endangered” (p. 180). For instance, Lavoisier’s principle , or the principle of the conservation of mass, has been undermined by the electron theory of matter. According to this theory atoms are composed of very minute particles called electrons, which are charged with positive or negative electricity and “are immersed in a medium which we call the ether.” The experiments of physicists provide data for calculating the velocity of the electrons and their mass (or the relation of their mass to their electrical charge). The velocity proves to be comparable with the velocity of light (186,000 miles per second), attaining, for instance, one third of the latter. Under such circumstances the twofold mass of the electron has to be taken into account. corresponding to the necessity of overcoming the inertia. firstly. of the electron itself and, secondly, of the ether. The former mass will be the real or mechanical mass of the electron, the latter the “electrodynamic mass which represents the inertia of the ether.” And it turns out that the former mass is equal to zero. The entire mass of the electrons, or, at least, of the negative electrons, proves to be totally and exclusively electrodynamic in its origin. Mass disappears. The foundations of mechanics are undermined. Newton’s principle, the equality of action and reaction, is undermined, and so on.

We are faced, says Poincare with the “ruins” of the old principles of physics, “a debacle of principles.” It is true, he remarks, that all the mentioned departures from principles refer to infinitesimal magnitudes: it is possible that we are still ignorant of other infinitesimals counteracting the undermining of the old principles. Moreover, radium is very rare. But at any rate we have reached a “Period of doubt.” We have already seen what epistemological deductions the author draws from this “period of doubt”: “It is not nature which imposes on [or dictates to] us the concepts of space and time, but we who impose them on nature”; “whatever is not thought, is pure nothing.” These deductions are idealist deductions. The breakdown of the most fundamental principles shows (such is Poincares trend of thought) that these principles are not copies. photographs of nature, not images of something external in relation to man’s consciousness, but products of his consciousness. Poincare. does not develop these deductions consistently, nor is he essentially interested in the philosophical aspect of the question….

2.  “MATTER HAS DISAPPEARED”

Such, literally, is the expression that may be encountered in the descriptions given by modern physicists of recent discoveries. For instance, L. Houllevigue, in his book,, L’evolution des sciences, entitles his chapter on the new theories of matter: “Does Matter Exist?” He says: “The atom dematerializes, matter disappears.” To see how easily fundamental philosophical conclusions are drawn from this by the Machians, let us take Valentinov.[§§§§§] He writes: “The statement that the scientific explanation of the world can find a firm foundation only in materialism is nothing but a fiction, and what is more, an absurd fiction” (p. 67). He quotes as a destroyer of this absurd fiction Augusto Righi, the Italian physicist, who says that the electron theory “is not so much a theory of electricity as of matter; the new system simply puts electricity in the place of matter.” Having, quoted these words (p. 64), Mr. Valentinov exclaims: “Why does Righi permit himself to commit this offence against sacred matter? Is it perhaps because he is a solipsist, an idealist, a bourgeois criticist, an empirio-monist, or even something worse?”

This remark, which seems to Mr. Valentinov, to annihilate the materialists by its sarcasm, only discloses his virgin innocence on the subject of philosophical materialism. Mr. Valentinov has no suspicion of the real connection between philosophical idealism and the -disappearance of matter.” That “disappearance of matter” of which he speaks, in imitation of the modern physicists. has no relation to the epistemological distinction between materialism and idealism….

Materialism and idealism differ in their respective answers to the question of the source of our knowledge and of the relation of knowledge (and of the “psychical” in general) to the physical world;  while the question of the structure of matter, of atoms and electrons, is a question that concerns only this “physical world.” When the physicists say  that “matter is disappearing,” they mean that hitherto science reduced its investigations of the physical world to three ultimate concepts: matter, electricity and ether; whereas now only the two latter remain. For it has become possible to reduce matter to electricity; the atom can be explained as resembling an infinitely small solar system, within which negative electrons move around a positive electron with a definite (and, as we have seen, enormously large) velocity. It is consequently possible to reduce the physical world from scores of elements to two or three elements (inasmuch as positive and negative electrons constitute “two essentially distinct kinds of matter,” as the physicist Pellat says). Hence, natural science leads to the “unity of matter”–such is the real meaning of the statement regarding the disappearance of matter, its replacement by electricity, etc., which is leading so many people astray. “Matter is disappearing” means that the limit within which we have hitherto known matter is vanishing and that our knowledge is penetrating deeper;  properties of matter are disappearing which formerly seemed absolute, immutable, and primary (impenetrability, inertia, mass, etc.) and which are now revealed to be relative and characteristic only of certain states of matter. For the sole “property” of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being, an objective reality, of existing, outside our mind.

The error of Machism in general, as of the Machian new physics, is that it ignores this basis of philosophical materialism and the distinction between metaphysical materialism and dialectical materialism. The recognition of immutable elements, “of the immutable substance of things,” and so forth, is not materialism, but metaphysical, i.e., anti-dialectical, materialism. That is why J. Dietzgen emphasized that the “subject-matter of science is endless,” that not only the infinite, but the “smallest atom” is immeasurable, unknowable to the end, inexhaustible, “for nature in all her parts has no beginning and no end” (Kleinere philosophische Schriften, pp. 229f). That is why Engels gave the example of the discovery of alizarin in coal tar and criticized mechanical materialism. In order to present the question in the only correct way, that is, from the dialectical materialist standpoint, we must ask: Do electrons, ether and so on exist as objective realities outside the human mind or not? The scientists will also have to answer this question unhesitatingly; and they do invariably answer it in the affirmative, just as they unhesitatingly recognize that nature existed prior to man and prior to organic matter. Thus, the question is decided in favor of materialism, for the concept matter, as we already stated, epistemologically implies nothing but objective reality existing independently of the human mind and reflected by it.

But dialectical materialism insists on the approximate,  relative character of every scientific theory of the structure of matter and its properties; it insists on the absence of absolute boundaries in nature, on the transformation of moving matter from one state into another which, from one point of view, is to us apparently irreconcilable with it, and so forth. However bizarre from the standpoint of “common sense” the transformation of imponderable ether into ponderable matter and vice versa may appear, however “strange” may seem the absence of any other kind of mass in the-electron save electromagnetic mass,  however extraordinary may be the fact that the mechanical laws of motion are confined only to a single sphere of natural phenomena and are subordinated to the more profound laws of electromagnetic phenomena, and so forth-all this is but another corroboration of dialectical materialism. It is mainly because the physicists did not know dialectics that the new physics strayed into idealism. The-, combated metaphysical (in Engels’, and not the positivist, i.e., Humean sense of the word) materialism and its one-sided “mechanism,” and in so doing threw the baby out, with the bathwater. Denying the immutability of the elements and the properties of matter known hitherto, they ended in denying matter, i.e., the objective reality, of the physical world. Denying the absolute character of some of the most important and basic laws, they ended in denying, all objective law in nature and in declaring that a law of nature is a mere convention, “a limitation of expectation,” “a logical necessity,” and so forth. Insisting on the approximate and relative character of our knowledge, they ended in denying the object independent of the mind and reflected approximately correctly and relatively truthfully by the mind. And so on, and so forth, without end.

The opinions expressed by Bogdanov in 1899 regarding “the immutable essence of things,” the opinions of Valentinov and Yushkevich regarding “substance,” and so forth-are similar fruits of ignorance of dialectics. From Engels’ point of view, the only immutability is the reflection by the human mind (when there is a human mind) of an external world existing and developing independently of the mind. No other “immutability,” no other ‘essence,” no other “absolute substance,” in the sense in which these concepts were depicted by the empty professorial philosophy, exist for Marx and Engels. The “essence” of things,  or “substance,” is also relative, it excesses only the degree of profundity of man’s knowledge of objects; and while yesterday the profundity of this knowledge did not go beyond the atom, and today does not go beyond the electron and ether, dialectical materialism insists on the temporary, relative, approximate character of all these milestones in the knowledge of nature gained by the progressing science of man. The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom, nature is infinite, but it infinitely exists. And it is this sole categorical. this sole unconditional recognition of nature’s existence outside the mind and perceptions of man that distinguishes dialectical materialism from relativist agnosticism and idealism. . . .

8.  IS MOTION WITHOUT MATTER CONCEIVABLE?

The fact that philosophical idealism is attempting to make use of the new physics,  or that idealist conclusions are being drawn from the latter, is due not to the discovery of new kinds of substance and force, of matter and motion, but to the fact that an attempt is being made to conceive motion without matter. And it is the essence of this attempt which our Machians fail to examine. They were unwilling to take account of Engels’ statement that “motion without matter is inconceivable.” J. Dietzgen in 1869, in his The Nature of Human Brain-Work,[******] expressed the same idea as Engels, although, it is true, not without his usual muddled at tempts to “reconcile” materialism and idealism. Let us leave aside these attempts, which are to a large extent to be explained by the fact that Dietzgen is arguing against Buchner’s non-dialectical materialism, and let us examine Dietzgen’s own statements on the question under consideration. He says: “They [the idealists] want to have the general without the particular, mind without matter, force without substance, science without experience or material, the absolute without the relative” (p. 137). Thus the endeavor to divorce motion from matter, force from substance, Dietzgen associates with idealism, compares with the endeavor to divorce thought from the brain.

“Liebig [Dietzzen continues] who is especially fond of straying from his inductive science into the field of speculation, says in the spirit of idealism: ‘force can not be seen         (pp. 138f.). “The spiritualist or the idealist believes in the spiritual, i.e., ghostlike and inexplicable, nature of force . . .” (p, 140). “The antithesis between force and matter is as old as the antithesis between idealism and materialism . . .” (p. 141). “Of course, there is no force without matter, no matter without force; forceless matter and matterless force are absurdities. If there are idealist natural scientists who believe in the immaterial existence of forces … an this point they are not natural scientists … but seers of ghosts” (p. 144).

We thus see that scientists who were prepared to grant that motion is conceivable without matter were to be encountered 40 years ago too, and that “on this point” Dietzgen declared them to be seers of ghosts. What, then, is the connection between idealism and the divorce of matter from motion, the separation of substance from force- Is it not “more economical,” indeed, to conceive motion without matter? 

Let us imagine a consistent idealist who holds that the entire world is his sensation, his idea, etc. (if we take “nobody’s” sensation or idea, this changes only the variety of philosophical idealism but not its essence). The idealist would not even think of denying that the world is motion, i.e., the motion of my thoughts, ideas, sensations. The question as to what moves, the idealist will reject and regard as absurd: What is taking place is a change of my sensations, my ideas come and go, and nothing more. Outside me there is nothing. “It moves” –and that is all. It is impossible to conceive a more “economical” way of thinking. And no proofs, syllogisms, or definitions are capable of refuting the solipsist if he consistently adheres to his view.

The fundamental distinction between the materialist and the adherent of idealist philosophy consists in the fact that the sensation, perception, idea, and the mind of man generally, is regarded as an image of objective reality. The world is the movement of this objective reality reflected by our consciousness. To the movement of ideas, perceptions, etc., there corresponds the movement of matter outside me. The concept matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation. Therefore, to divorce motion from matter is equivalent to divorcing thought from objective reality, or to divorcing my sensations from the external world-in a word, it is to go over to idealism. The trick  which is usually performed in denying matter, and in assuming motion without matter, consists in ignoring the relation of matter to thought. The question is presented as though this relation did not exist, but in reality it is introduced surreptitiously at the beginning of the argument it remains unexpressed, but subsequently crops up more or less imperceptibly.

Matter has disappeared, they tell us, wishing from this to draw epistemological conclusions. But, we ask, has thought remained? If not, if with the disappearance of matter thought has also disappeared, if with the disappearance of the brain and nervous system ideas and sensations, too, have disappeared-then it follows that everything has disappeared. And your argument has-disappeared as a sample of “thought” (or lack of thought)! But if it has remained, if it is assumed that with the disappearance of matter, thought (idea, sensation, etc.) does not disappear, then you have surreptitiously gone over to the standpoint of philosophical idealism. And this always happens with people who wish, for “economy’s sake, ” to conceive of motion without matter for tacitly, by the very fact that they continue to argue, they are acknowledging the existence of thought after the disappearance of matter. This means that a very simple, or a very complex philosophical idealism is taken as a basis: a very simple one, if it is a case of frank solipsism (I exist., and the world is only my sensation a very complex one, if instead of the thought, ideas and sensations           of a living person, a dead abstraction is posited, that is. nobody’s thought,  nobody’s idea, nobody’s sensation, but thought in general (the Absolute Idea, the Universal Will, etc.), sensation as an  indeterminate “element,” the “psychical,” which is substituted of shades for the whole of physical nature etc., etc. Thousand of shades of varieties of philosophical idealism are possible and it is always possible to create a thousand-and-first shade; and to the author of this thousand-and-first little system (empirio-monism, for example) what distinguishes it from the rest may appear to be momentous. From the standpoint of materialism, however, these distinctions are absolutely unessential. What is essential is the point of departure. What is essential is that the attempt to think of motion without matter smuggles in thought divorced from matter-and that is philosophical idealism.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp.

257-59, 265-69, 273-75.

PART THREE

DIALECTICS AND THE DIALECTICAL METHOD

Nothing is eternal but eternally changing,

eternally moving, matter and the laws according to

which it moves and changes.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of nature (1882), p. 24.

Introduction

IF MARXIST materialism has been misunderstood and misrepresented by the failure to differentiate it from previous forms of materialism, the dialectics of Marx and Engels has been similarly distorted by not being sufficiently distinguished from the dialectics of Hegel. The founders of Marxism, while ever acknowledging their debt to Hegel, and to Heraclitus too, took- considerable pains to separate what they regarded as the “rational kernel” from the “mystical shell” of dialectics. The first five or six entries in this section should give the reader an idea of what is meant by “materialist” dialectics, as well as provide cautions against its misuse.

One idea that is constantly presented and reiterated in the following selections is that dialectics or the dialectical method (two sides of the same thing) is derived from our experience and knowledge of the objective world and the study of our own thought processes. This is emphasized against any view that it is a creation of pure thought which is then imposed upon the world of nature and society. Whatever Marx and Engels believed concerning dialectics, they, were convinced that it was something they found inherent in the nature of things, not something they or anyone else invented in their heads.

A second idea concerning dialectics, emphasized in these passages is that it is not, a magic formula that solves problems automatically. Dialectics does not solve problems at all but can help men in the solution of problems. We might solve them the same way without ever having heard of dialectics, but Marx, Engels, and Lenin believed that with a consciousness of the laws or principles of dialectics we are better equipped to handle the subtleties, interrelations, contradictions, and complexities of the subject matter before us. Dialectics is no schema we can impose upon any area of reality; it is no substitute for the fullest gathering of facts and the most painstaking analysis of them. For Marx, the dialectical method was essentially the method for dealing with matter, that is, with any concrete, empirical subject matter (see, e.g., Marx, Letters to Kugelmann, New York, 1934, p. 112).

It is unfortunate that because of their preoccupation with the writing and publication of Capital, neither Marx nor Engels was able to make a full-scale analysis of the dialectical method. Marx long planned a book on the dialectics of Hegel that would have constituted a thorough study of logic,  as well as a methodology for history and the social sciences generally- Engels made notes for years with the aim of producing a book on the role of dialectics in the natural sciences. Neither of these works was ever written, but Engels’ notes, together with a few completed sections, consisting of several hundred pages were finally published in 1927 under the title, Dialectics of Nature. Lenin, similarly, seems to have been working on a serious and lengthy exposition of dialectics while in exile in Switzerland where he was deeply immersed in the study of Hegel and Aristotle. This work, foreshadowed in the posthumous Philosophical Notebooks, was interrupted by developments in Russia, his return there, and his subsequent leadership of the Russian Revolution.

The reader can readily see from the selections in this section, supplemented by those from Lenin in Appendix 11, that Marxists believe dialectics essential and indispensable for correct thought and adequate scientific analysis in any area. The reader who is acquainted with contemporary developments in the sciences will find, indeed, that man-,, dialectical principles have become an integral part of scientific thinking, even though expressed in other terms, such as “principle of polarity,” “integrative levels,” etc. Marxists recognize that there is still considerable “unfinished business” concerning the precise meaning of the categories of dialectics and their sphere of application. What is the relation of dialectics to formal logic? What is the meaning of law in dialectics and what are the dialectical laws’ What does “contradiction” mean, and does it mean the same thing in different areas of reality and thought? These and other questions are being examined today, more than ever before, by Marxist philosophers and scientists.

[1]

“ALL THAT IS REAL IS RATIONAL”

THE REVOLUTIONARY SIDE OF

HEGELIAN PHILOSOPHY

No philosophical proposition has earned more gratitude from narrow-minded governments and wrath from equally narrow-minded liberals than Hegel’s famous statement: “All that is real is rational: and all that is rational is real.” That was tangibly a sanctification of things that be, a philosophical benediction bestowed upon despotism, police government, Star Chamber proceedings and censorship. that is how Frederick William Ill and his subjects understood it. But according to Hegel everything that exists is certainly not also real, without further qualification. For Hegel the attribute of reality belongs only to that which at the same time is necessary: “The reality proves itself to be the necessary in the course of its development.”. . .

Now, according to Hegel, reality is, however, in no way an attribute of any given state of affairs, social or political, in all circumstances and for all time. On the contrary. The Roman Republic was real, but so was the Roman Empire which superseded it. In 1789 the French monarchy had become so unreal, that is to say, it had been so robbed of all necessity, so non-rational, that it had to be destroyed by the great revolution-of which Hegel always speaks with the greatest enthusiasm. In this case the monarchy was the unreal and the revolution was the real. And so, in the course of development, all that was previously real becomes unreal, loses its necessity, its right of existence, its rationality. And in the place of moribund reality comes a new reality capable of living-peacefully if the old has enough intelligence to go to its death without a struggle; forcibly if it resists this necessity. Thus the Hegelian  proposition turns into its opposite through Hegelian dialectics itself: All that is real in the sphere of human history becomes irrational in the process of time and is therefore irrational already by its destination, is tainted beforehand with irrationality and everything which is rational in the minds of men is destined to become real. however much it may contradict the apparent reality of existing conditions. In accordance with all the rules of the Hegelian method of thought, the proposition of the rationality of everything which is real resolves itself into the other proposition: All that exists has this much value, that it perishes.[††††††]

But precisely here lay the true significance and the revolutionary character of the Hegelian philosophy (to which,  as the close of the whole movement since Kant, we must here confine ourselves), that it once and for all dealt the deathblow to the finality of all products of human thought and action. Truth, the cognition of which is the business of philosophy, became in the hands of Hegel no longer an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements, which once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart. Truth lay now in the process of cognition itself,  in the long historical development of science, which mounts from lower to ever higher levels of knowledge without ever reaching, by discovering so-called absolute truth, a point at which it can proceed no further and where it would have nothing more to do than to fold its hands and admire the absolute truth to which it had attained. And what holds good for the realm of philosophic knowledge holds good also for that of every other kind of knowledge and also for practical affairs. just as knowledge is unable to reach a perfected termination in a perfect, ideal condition of humanity, so is history unable to do so; a perfect society, a perfect “state,” are things which can only exist in imagination. On the contrary, all successive historical situations are only transitory stages in the endless course of development of human society from the lower to the higher. Each stage is necessary, and therefore justified for the time and conditions to which it owes its origin. But in the newer and higher conditions which gradually develop in its own bosom, each loses its validity and justification. It must give way to a higher form which will also in its turn decay and perish. Just as the bourgeoisie by large-scale industry, competition, and the world market dissolves in practice all stable, time-honored institutions, so this dialectical philosophy dissolves all conceptions of final, absolute truth, and of a final absolute state of humanity corresponding to it. For it nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything-, nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher. And dialectical philosophy itself is nothing more than the mere reflection of this process in the thinking brain. It has, of course, also a conservative side: It recognizes that definite stages of knowledge and society are justified for their time and circumstances: but only so far. The conservatism of this mode of outlook is relative; its revolutionary character is absolute -the only absolute it admits.

–ENGELS, Ludwig Feuerbach (I 888), pp. 10-121.

[2]

MARXIST DIALECTICS THE

OPPOSITE OF HEGEL’S

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurge of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic 1 criticized nearly 30 years ago,[‡‡‡‡‡‡] at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of Das Kapital, it was the good pleasure of the peevish,  arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi who now talk large in cultured Germany to treat Hegel in the same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors,  because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modem industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching. although as yet but in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and the intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire.

–MARX, Capital, vol. I, Preface to Second Edition (1873), pp. xxx

[3]

FROM HEGELIAN TO

MATERIALIST DIALECTICS

A. THE ROLE OF NATURAL SCIENCES

According to Hegel, dialectics is the self-development of the concept. The absolute concept does not only exist-where unknown-from eternity, it is also the actual living soul of the whole existing world. It develops into itself through all the preliminary stages which are treated at length in the Logic and which are all included in it. Then it “alienates” itself by changing into nature, where, Without consciousness of itself, disguised as the necessity of nature, it goes through a new development and finally comes again to self-consciousness in man. This self-consciousness then elaborates itself again in history from the crude form until finally the absolute concept again comes to itself completely in the Hegelian philosophy. According to Hegel,  therefore, the dialectical development apparent in nature and history, i.e., the causal interconnection of the progressive movement from the lower to the higher, which asserts itself through all zig-zag movements and temporary setbacks, is only a miserable copy of the self-movement of the concept going on from eternity, no one knows where, but at all events independently of any thinking human brain. This ideological reversal had to be done away with. We comprehended the concepts in our heads once more materialistically–as images of real things instead of regarding the real things as images of this or that stage of development of the absolute concept. Thus dialectics reduced itself to the science of the general laws of motion-both of the external world and of human thought-two sets of laws which are identical in substance,  but differ in their expression in so far as the human mind can apply them consciously, while in nature and also up to now for the most part in human history, these laws assert themselves unconsciously in the form of external necessity in the midst of an endless series of seeming accidents. Thereby the dialectic of the concept itself became merely the conscious reflex of the dialectical motion of the real world and the dialectic of Hegel was placed upon its head; or rather, turned off its head, on which it was standing before, and placed upon its feet again. And this materialist dialectic which for years has been our best working tool and our sharpest weapon was, remarkably enough, discovered not only by us, but also independently of us and even of Hegel by a German worker, Joseph Dietzgen.

In this way, however, the revolutionary side of Hegelian philosophy was again taken up and at the same time freed from the idealist trammels which in Hegel’s hands had prevented its consistent execution. The great basic thought that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable no less than their mind-images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away, in which, in spite of all seeming accidents and of all temporary retrogression, a progressive development asserts itself in the end-this great fundamental thought has, especially since the time of Hegel. so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is scarcely ever contradicted. But to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation are two different things. If, however, investigation always proceeds from this standpoint, the demand for final solutions and eternal truths ceases once for all; one is always conscious of the necessary limitation of all acquired knowledge, of the fact that it is conditioned by the circumstances in which it was acquired. On the other hand, one no longer permits oneself to be imposed upon by the antitheses, insuperable for the still common old metaphysics, between true and false, good and bad, identical and different, necessary and accidental. One knows that these antitheses have only a relative validity;  that that which is recognized now as true has also its latent false side which will later manifest itself, just as that which is now regarded as false has also its true side by virtue of which it could previously have been regarded as true. One knows that what is maintained to be necessary is composed of sheer accidents and that the so-called accidental is the form behind which necessity hides itself, and so on.

The old method of investigation and thought which Hegel calls “metaphysical,” which preferred to investigate things as given, as fixed and stable, a method the relics of which still strongly haunt people’s minds, had a good deal of historical justification in its day. It was necessary first to examine things before it was possible to examine processes. One had first to know what a particular thing was before one could observe the changes going on in connection with it. And such was the case with natural science. The old metaphysics which accepted things as finished objects arose from a natural science which investigated dead and living things as finished objects. But when this investigation had progressed so far that it became possible to take the decisive step forward of transition to the systematic investigation of the changes which these things undergo in nature itself, then the last hour of the old Metaphysics sounded in the realm of philosophy also. And in fact,  while natural science up to the end of the last century was predominantly a collecting science, a science of finished things, in our century it is essentially a classifying, science, a science of the processes, of the origin and development of these things and of the inter-connection which binds all these natural processes into one great whole. Physiology, which investigates the processes occurring in plant and animal organisms: embryology, which deals with the development of individual organisms from germ to maturity; geology, which investigates the gradual formation of the earth’s surface-all these are the offspring of our century.

But, above all, there are three great discoveries which had enabled our knowledge of the inter-connection of natural processes to advance by leaps and bounds: First,  the discovery of the cell as the unit from whose multiplication and differentiation the whole plant and animal body develops-so that not only is the development and growth of all higher organisms recognized to proceed according to a single general law, but also, in the capacity of the cell to change, the way is pointed out by which organisms can change their species and thus go through a more than individual development. Second, the transformation of energy,  which has demonstrated that all the so-called forces operative in the first instance in inorganic nature-mechanical force and its complement, so-called potential energy, heat, radiation (light or radiant heat), electricity, magnetism, and chemical energy–are different forms of manifestation of universal motion, which pass into one another in definite proportions so that in place of a certain quantity of the one which disappears, a certain quantity of another makes its appearance and thus the whole motion of nature is reduced to this incessant process of transformation from one form into another. Finally,  the proof which Darwin first developed in connected form that the stock of organic products of nature surrounding us today, including mankind, is the result of a long process of evolution from a few original unicellular germs, and that these again have arisen from protoplasm or albumen which came into existence by chemical means.

Thanks to these three great discoveries and the other immense advances in natural science. We have now arrived at the point where we can demonstrate as a whole the inter-connection between the processes in nature not only in particular spheres but also in the inter-connection of these particular spheres themselves,  and so can present in an approximately systematic form a comprehensive view of the inter-connection in nature by means of the facts provided by empirical natural science itself. To furnish this formerly the task of so-called natural comprehensive view was formerly the task of the so-called natural philosophy. It could do this only by putting in place of the real but as yet unknown inter-connections ideal and imaginary ones, filling out the missing facts by figments of the mind and bridging the actual gaps merely in imagination. In the course of this procedure it conceived many brilliant ideas and foreshadowed many later discoveries, but it also produced a considerable amount of nonsense, which indeed could not have been otherwise. Today, when one needs to comprehend the results of natural scientific investigation only dialectically,  that is, in the sense of their own inter-connections, in order to arrive at a “system of nature” sufficient for our time; when the dialectical character of this interconnection is forcing itself against their will even into the metaphysically trained minds of the natural scientists, today this natural philosophy is finally disposed of. Every attempt at resurrecting it would be not only superfluous but a step backwards.

–ENGELS, Ludwig Feuerbach (1888), pp. 43-47.

B. THE ROLE OF MARX’S POLITICAL ECONOMY

Since Hegel’s death hardly any attempt has been made to develop a science in its own inner inter-connection. The official Hegelian school had appropriated from the dialectics of the master only the manipulation of the simplest tricks, which it applied to anything and everything often with ludicrous clumsiness. For it,  the whole inheritance of Hegel was limited to a mere pattern by the help of which every theme could be correctly devised, and to a compilation of words and turns of speech which had no other purpose than to turn up at the right time when thought and positive knowledge failed. Thus it came about that, as a Bonn professor said, these Hegelians understood nothing about anything, but could write about everything. Its worth was in accordance. Meanwhile these gentlemen were, in spite of their self-complacency, so conscious of their weakness that they avoided big problems as much as possible. The old pedantic science held the field by its superiority, in positive knowledge. And when Feuerbach also gave notice that he was quitting the field of speculative conceptions, Hegelianism quietly fell asleep; and it seemed as if the old metaphysics, with its fixed categories, had begun to reign anew in science….

Here, therefore, was another problem to be solved, one which had nothing to do with political economy as such. How was science to be treated? On the one hand there was the Hegelian dialectics in the wholly abstract, “speculative” form in which Hegel had bequeathed it: on the other hand there was the ordinary, essentially metaphysical Wolffian[§§§§§§] method which bad again become fashionable and in which the bourgeois economists had written their fat, disjointed tomes. This latter method had been so annihilated theoretically by Kant and particularly by Hegel that only laziness and the lack of any simple alternative method could make possible its continued existence in practice. On the other hand the Hegelian method was absolutely unusable in its available form. It was essentially idealistic, and the problem here was that of developing a world outlook more materialistic than any previously advanced. The Hegelian method started out from pure thinking and here one had to start from stubborn facts. A method which, according to its own admission, “came from nothing, through nothing, to nothing.” was in this form completely out of place here.

Nevertheless, of all the available logical material, it was the only thing which could be used at least as a starting point. It had never been criticized, never overcome. Not on of the opponents of the great dialectician had been able to make a breach in its proud structure: it fell into oblivion, because the Hegelian school had not the slightest notion what to do with it. It was, therefore, above all necessary to subject the Hegelian method to thoroughgoing criticism.

What distinguishes Hegel’s mode of thought from that of all other philosophers was the enormous historical sense upon which it was based. Abstract and idealist though it was in form, yet the development of his thoughts always proceeded in line with the development of world history and the latter was really meant to be only the test of the former. If, thereby, the real relation was inverted and put on its head, nevertheless its real content entered everywhere into the philosophy, all the more so since Hegel in contrast to his disciples-did not parade ignorance, but was one of the best intellects of all time. He was the first who attempted to show an evolution. and inner coherence, in history; and while today much in his Philosophy of History, may seem peculiar to us, yet the grandeur of the basis of his fundamental outlook is admirable even today, whether one makes comparison with his predecessors, or with anyone since his time who has taken the liberty of reflecting in general about history. Everywhere, in his Phenomenology, Aesthetics, History of Philosophy, this magnificent conception of history penetrates, and everywhere this material is treated historically, in a definite even if abstractly distorted inter-connection with history.

This epoch-making conception of history was the direct theoretical prerequisite for the new materialist outlook, and thereby provided a connecting point for the logical method. Since this forgotten dialectics ha d led to such results even from the standpoint of “pure thinking,” and had, in addition, so easily settled accounts with all preceding logic and metaphysics, in any case there must have been something more to it than sophistry and hair-splitting. But the criticism of this method, which all officially recognized philosophy had fought shy of and still does, was no trifle.

Marx was, and is, the only one who could undertake the work of extracting from the Hegelian logic the kernel which comprised Hegel’s real discoveries in this sphere. and to construct the dialectical method divested of its idealistic trappings, in the simple shape in which it becomes the only true form of development of thought.

The working out of the method which forms the foundation of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy, we consider a result of hardly less importance than the basic materialistic outlook itself.

The criticism of economics, even according to the method employed, could still be exercised in -two ways–historically or logically. Since in history,  as in its literary reflection, development as a whole proceeds from the most simple to the most complex relations, the historical development of the literature of political economy provided a natural guiding thread with which criticism could link up and the economic categories as a whole would thereby appear in the same sequence as in the logical development. This form apparently has the advantage of greater clearness, since indeed it is the actual development that is followed, but as a matter of fact it would thereby at most become more popular. History often proceeds by jumps and zigzags and it would in this way have to be followed everywhere, whereby not only would much material of minor importance have to be incorporated but there would be many interruptions of the chain of  thought. Furthermore, the history of economics could not be written without that of bourgeois society and this would make the task endless, since all preliminary work is lacking. The logical method of treatment was, therefore, the only appropriate one. But this, as a matter of fact, is nothing else than the historical method, only divested of its historical form and disturbing fortuities. The chain of thought must begin with the same thing that this history begins with and its further course will be nothing but the mirror-image of the historical course in abstract and theoretically,  consistent form, a corrected mirror-image but corrected according to laws furnished by the real course of history itself, in that each factor can be considered at its ripest point of development, in it, classic form.

In this method we proceed from the first and simplest relation that historically, and in fact, confronts us; therefore from the first economic relation to be found. We analyze this relation. Being a relation already implies that it has two sides related to each other. Each of these sides is considered by itself, which brings us to the way they behave to each other, their reciprocal interaction. Contradictions will result which demand a solution. But as we are not considering an abstract process of thought taking its place solely in our heads,  but a real happening which has actually taken place at some particular time, or is still taking place, these contradictions, too, will have developed in practice and will probably have found their solution. We shall trace the nature of this solution, and shall discover that it has been brought about by the establishment of a new relation whose two opposite sides we now have to develop, and so on.

Political economy begins with commodities, begins with the moment when products are exchanged for one another-whether by individuals or by primitive communities. The product that appears in exchange is a commodity. It is, however, a commodity solely because a relation between two persons or communities attaches to the thing, the product, the relation between producer and consumer who are here no longer united in the same person. Here we have an example of a peculiar fact., which runs through the whole of economics and which has caused utter confusion in the minds of the bourgeois economists: Economics deals not with things but with relations between persons and in the last resort between classes; these relations are, however, always attached to things and appear as things. This inter-connection, which in isolated cases, it is true, has dawned upon particular economists, was first discovered by Marx as obtaining for all political economy, whereby he made the most difficult questions so simple and clear that now even the bourgeois economists will be able to grasp them.

If now we consider commodities from their various aspects, commodities in their complete development, and not as they first laboriously develop in the primitive barter between two primitive communities. They present themselves to us from the two points of view of use value and exchange value, and here we at once enter the sphere of economic dispute. Anyone who would like to have a striking illustration of the fact that the German dialectical method in its present state of elaboration is at least as superior to the old,  shallow, garrulous metaphysical method as the railway is to the means of transport of the Middle Ages, should read in Adam Smith or any other reputable official economist what a torment exchange value and use value were to these gentlemen, how difficult it was for them to keep them properly apart and to comprehend each in its peculiar distinctness, and should then compare the simple, clear treatment by Marx. . . .

It is seen that with this method the logical development is by no means compelled to keep to the purely, abstract sphere. On the contrary, this method requires historical illustrations, continual contact with reality. Such proofs are accordingly introduced in great variety, with references to the actual course of history at different stages of social development as well as to the economic literature in which the clear working out of the determinations of economic relations is pursued from the beginning. The criticism of individual, more or less one-sided or confused modes of conception is then in essence already given in the logical development itself and can be briefly formulated.

–ENGELS, “Review of ‘Marx’s Critique of Political Economy” (1859),

in Ludwig Feuerbach, Appendix, pp. 75-81.

[For a further statement on the importance of Hegel's Logic for Marxian economics, see Lenin: Appendix 11, 18. –Ed.]

[4]

SCIENTIFIC VERSUS SCHEMATIC

USE OF DIALECTICS

[Lenin is discussing here a "refutation" of materialism and especially historical materialism by the subjective sociologist, N. Mikhailovsky. Mikhailovsky had argued that Marx could prove his case only by a reliance on the "unquestionableness of the dialectical process" as developed by Hegel.–Ed.]

And so, the materialists rest their case on the “unquestionableness of the dialectical process! In other words, they base their sociological theories on Hegelian triads. Here we have the stereotyped accusation that ‘Marxism is Hegelian dialectics which one thought had already been worn sufficiently threadbare by Marx’s bourgeois critics. Unable to bring anything against the doctrine itself, these gentlemen fastened on Marx’s method of expression and attacked the origin of the theory, thinking thereby to undermine the theory itself. And Mr. Mikhailovsky makes no bones about resorting to similar methods. He uses a chapter from Engels’ Anti-Duhring as a pretext. Replying to Duhring, who had attacked Marx’s dialectics, Engels says that Marx never even thought of “proving” anything by means of Hegelian triads, that Marx only studied and investigated the real process, and that he regarded the conformity of a theory to reality as its only criterion. If, however, it sometimes transpired that the development of any particular social phenomenon conformed with the Hegelian scheme, namely, thesis-negation-negation of the negation, there is nothing at all surprising in this, for it is no rare thing in nature generally. And Engels proceeds to cite examples from the field of natural history (the development of a seed) and from the social field-for instance,  that first there was primitive communism, then private property, and then the capitalist socialization of labor; or that first there was primitive materialism, then idealism, and then scientific materialism, and so forth. It is clear to everybody that the main burden of Engels’ argument is that materialists must depict the historical process correctly and accurately, and that insistence on dialectics, the selection of examples which demonstrate the correctness of the triad. is nothing but a relic of the Hegelianism out of which scientific Socialism has grown, a relic of its method of expression.[*******] And, indeed, once it has been categorically declared that to attempt to “prove” anything by triads is absurd, and that nobody even thought of doing so, what significance can examples of “dialectical” processes have? Is it not obvious that they merely point to the origin of the doctrine, and nothing more? Mr. Mikhailovsky himself feels this when he says that the theory should not be blamed for its origin. But in order to discern in Engels’ arguments something more than the origin of the theory, it was obviously necessary to prove that the materialists had  settled at least one historical “problem” by means of triads, and not on the basis of the appropriate facts. Did Mr. Mikhailovsky attempt to prove this? Not a bit of it. On the contrary, he was himself obliged to admit that “Marx filled the empty dialectical scheme with a factual content to such an extent” that “it could be removed from this content like a lid from a bowl without anything being changed” (as to    the exception which Mr. Mikhailovsky makes here-regarding the future-we shall deal with it below) . If that is so, why is Mr. Mikhailovsky, so eagerly concerned with this lid that changes nothing. What is the point of asserting that the materialists “rest”  their case on the unquestionableness of the dialectical        process? Why, when he is combating this lid, does he declare that he is combating one of the “pillars” of scientific socialism, which is a direct untruth?

I shall not, of course, examine how Mr. Mikhailovsky analyzes the examples of triads, because, I repeat, this has no connection whatever either with scientific materialism or with Russian Marxism. But the interesting question arises: What grounds did Mr. Mikhailovsky have for so distorting the attitude of Marxists to dialectics? Twofold grounds: Firstly, Mr. Mikhailovsky heard something, but did not quite grasp what it was all about; secondly, Mr. Mikhailovsky performed another piece of juggling (or, rather, borrowed it from Duhring).

As to the first point, when reading Marxist literature Mr. Mikhailovsky constantly came across the phrases “the dialectical method” in social science. “dialectical thought,” again in the sphere of social questions, “which is alone in question,” and so forth. In his simplicity of heart (it were well if it were only simplicity) he took it for granted that this method consists in solving all sociological problems in accordance with the laws of the Hegelian triad. If he had been just a little more attentive to the matter in hand he could not but have become convinced of the stupidity of this notion. What Mar, and Engels called the dialectical Method-in contradistinction to the metaphysical method-is nothing more or less than the scientific method in sociology,, which consists in regarding society as a living organism in a constant state of development (and not as something mechanically concatenated and therefore permitting any arbitrary combination of individual social elements). the study of which requires an objective analysis of the relations of production that constitute the given social formation and an investigation of its laws of functioning and development. We shall endeavor below to illustrate the relation between the dialectical method and the metaphysical method (to which concept the subjective method in sociology undoubtedly belongs) by an example taken from Mr. Mikhailovsky’s own arguments. For the present we shall only observe that anyone who reads the definition and description of the dialectical method given either by Engels (in the polemic against Duhring: Socialism,  Utopian and Scientific) or by Marx (various remarks in Capital, in the Postscript to its second edition, and in The Poverty of Philosophy), will see that the Hegelian triads are not even mentioned, and that it all amounts to regarding social evolution as a natural-historical process of development of social-economic formations.

–LENIN, “What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are” (1894), Selected Works, vol. XI, pp. 442-45.

[5]

DIALECTICS AND NATURAL

SCIENCE

Marx and I were pretty well the only people to rescue conscious dialectics from German idealist philosophy and apply it in the materialist conception oil nature and history. But a knowledge of mathematics and natural science is essential to a conception of nature which is dialectical and at the same time materialist. Marx was well versed in mathematics,[†††††††] but we could only partially, intermittently and sporadically keep up with the natural sciences. For this reason,  when I retired from business and transferred my home to London, thus enabling myself to give the necessary time to it, I went through as complete as possible a “molting,” as Liebig calls it, in mathematics and the natural sciences, and spent the best part of eight years on it. I was right in the middle of this “molting” process when I had occasion to turn my attention to Herr Duhring’s so-called natural philosophy. It is therefore only too natural that in dealing with this subject I was often unable to find the correct technical expression, and in general moved with a certain clumsiness in the field of theoretical natural science. On the other hand, my knowledge that I was still insecure in this field made me cautious, and 1 cannot be charged with real blunders in relation to the facts known at that time or with the incorrect presentations of recognized theories. In this connection there was only one unrecognized genius of a mathematician who complained in a letter to Marx that I had made a wanton attack upon the honor of  Ö¯-l.

It goes without saying that my recapitulation of mathematics and the natural sciences was undertaken in order to convince myself in detail–of which in general I was not in doubt-that amid the welter of innumerable changes taking place in nature,  the same dialectical laws of motion are in operation as those which in history govern the apparent fortuitousness of events; the same laws as those which similarly form the thread running through the history of the development of human thought and gradually rise to consciousness in the mind of man; the laws which Hegel first developed in all-embracing but mystical form, and which we made it our aim to Strip of this Mystic form and to bring clearly before the mind in their complete simplicity and universality. It went without saying that the old natural philosophy–in spite of its real value and the many fruitful seeds it contains-was unable to satisfy us.[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡]

As is more fully brought out in this book, natural philosophy particularly in the Hegelian form, was lacking in that it did not recognize any development of nature in time, any “succession,” but only “.juxtaposition.” This was on the one hand grounded in the Hegelian system itself, which ascribed historical evolution only to the “spirit,” but on the other hand was also due to the whole state of the natural sciences at that period. In this Hegel fell far behind Kant, whose nebular theory had already indicated the origin of the solar system, and whose discovery of the retardation of the earth’s rotation by the tides had already also proclaimed its extinction. And finally, to me there could be no question of building the laws of dialectics into nature, but of discovering, them in it and evolving them from it….

It may be, however, that the advance of theoretical natural science will make my work to a great extent or even altogether superfluous. For the revolution which is being forced on theoretical natural science by the mere need to set in order the purely empirical discoveries,  great masses of which are now being piled up, is of such a kind that it must bring the dialectical character of natural events more and more to the consciousness even of those empiricists who are most opposed to it. The old rigid antitheses, the sharp, impassable dividing lines are more and more disappearing. Since even the last,  “pure” gases have been liquefied,  and since it has been proved that a body can be brought into a condition in which the liquid and the gaseous forms cannot be distinguished from each other, the Physical states have lost the last relics of their former absolute character. With the thesis of the kinetic theory of gases,  that in perfect gases at equal temperature the squares of the speeds with which the individual gas molecules move are in inverse ratio to their molecular weight, heat also takes its place directly among the forms of motion which can be immediately measured as such. Although ten years ago the great basic law of motion,  then recently discovered, was as yet conceived merely as a law of the conservation of energy, as the mere expression of the indestructibility and uncreatability of motion, that is, merely in its quantitative aspect, this narrow, negative conception is being more and more supplanted by the positive idea of the transformation of energy, in which for the first time the qualitative content of the process comes into its own, and the last vestige of a creator external to the world is obliterated. That the quantity of motion (so-called energy) remains unaltered when it is transformed from kinetic energy (so-called mechanical force) into electricity,  heat, potential energy, etc., and vice versa, no longer needs to be preached as something new; it serves as the already secured basis for the investigation, which is now of much greater significance, into the process of transformation itself, the great basic process, knowledge of which comprises all knowledge of nature. And since biology has been pursued in the light of the theory of evolution, in the domain of organic nature one fixed boundary line of classification after another has been swept away. The almost unclassifiable intermediate links are growing daily more numerous; closer investigation throws organisms Out of one class into another, and distinguishing characteristics which had become almost articles of faith are losing their absolute validity. we now have mammals that lax, eggs, and if the report is confirmed, also birds that walk on all-fours. Years ago Virchow was compelled,  following on the discovery of the cell, to dissolve the unity of the individual animal being into a federation of cell-states–a theory which was progressive rather than scientific and dialectical–and now the conception of animal (therefore also human) individuality is becoming far more complex owing to the discovery of the ameba-like white blood corpuscles which creep about within the bodies of the higher animals. It is however precisely the polar antagonisms put for-ward as irreconcilable and insoluble, the forcibly fixed lines of demarcation and distinctions between classes, which have given modern theoretical natural science its restricted and metaphysical character. The recognition that these antagonisms and distinctions are in fact to be found in nature, but only with relative validity, and that on the other hand their imagined rigidity and absoluteness have been introduced into nature only by our minds-this recognition is the kernel of the dialectical conception of nature. It is possible to reach this standpoint because the accumulating facts of natural science compel us to do so; but we reach it more easily if we approach the dialectical character of these facts equipped with the consciousness of the laws of dialectical thought. In any case natural science has now advanced so far that it can no longer escape the dialectical synthesis. But it will make this process easier for itself if it does not lose sight of the fact that the results in which its experiences are summarized are concepts;  but that the art of working with concepts is not inborn and also is not given with ordinary everyday consciousness, but requires real thought, and that this thought similarly has a long empirical history, not more and not less than empirical natural science. Only by learning to assimilate the results of the development of philosophy during the past two and a half thousand years will it be able to rid itself on the one hand of any isolated natural philosophy standing apart from it,  outside it and above it, and on the other hand also of its own limited method of thought, which was its inheritance from English empiricism.

–ENGELS, Anti-Duhring, 1885 Preface, pp. 15-19.

[6]

DIALECTICS AND FORMAL LOGIC

A. THE LAW OF IDENTITY

The law of identity in the old metaphysical sense is the fundamental law of the old outlook: a = a. Each thing is equal to itself. Everything was permanent, the solar system, stars, organisms. This law has been refuted by natural science bit by bit in each separate case, but theoretically it still prevails and is still put forward by the supporters of the old in opposition to the new: A thing cannot simultaneously be itself and something else. And yet the fact that true, concrete identity includes difference, change, has recently been shown in detail by natural science. Abstract identity, like all metaphysical categories, suffices for everyday use, where small-scale conditions or brief periods of time are in question; the limits within which it is usable differ in almost every case and are determined by the nature of the object. For a planetary system, where for ordinary astronomical calculation the ellipse can be taken as the basic form without committing errors in practice, they are much wider than for an insect that completes its metamorphosis in a few weeks. (Give other examples, e.g., alteration of species, which is reckoned in periods of many thousands of years.) For natural science in its comprehensive role,  however, even in each single branch, abstract identity is totally insufficient, and although on the whole it has now been abolished in practice, theoretically it still dominates people’s minds, and most natural scientists imagine that identity and difference are irreconcilable opposites, instead of one-sided poles the truth of which lies only in their reciprocal action, in the inclusion of difference within identity.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 182f.

B. DEFINITION: ECLECTIC AND DIALETIC

Comrade Bukharin talks about “logical” grounds. The whole of his argument shows that he-perhaps unconsciously-holds the point of view of formal, or scholastic, logic and not, of dialectical, or Marxist, logic. In order to explain what 1 mean, I shall start with the very simple example which Comrade Bukharin himself has given. During the discussion on December 30 [§§§§§§§] he said:

“Comrades, perhaps the controversy that is going, on here is making the following impression upon many of you: Two men meet and ask each other, What is the glass that is standing on the rostrum? One says: ‘It is a glass cylinder, and he who says it is not, let him be anathematized.’ The other says: ‘A glass is a drinking vessel, and he who says it is not, let him be anathematized!’ “

As the reader will see, Bukharin wanted, with the aid of this example, to explain to me in a popular manner the harmfulness of one-sidedness. I gratefully accept this explanation, and in order to prove my gratitude with deeds I will reciprocate by giving a popular explanation of what eclecticism is, as distinct from dialectics.

A glass is undoubtedly a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel. But a glass not only has these two properties, or qualities, or sides, but an infinite number of other properties, qualities, sides, interrelations and “mediations” with the rest of the world. A glass is a heavy object which may be used as a missile. A glass may serve as a paperweight, as a jar to keep a captive butterfly in,  a glass may have value as an object with an artistic engraving or design, quite apart from the fact that it can be used as a drinking vessel, that it is made of glass, that its form is cylindrical, or not quite so, and so on and so forth.

To proceed.  If I now need a glass as a drinking vessel it is not at all important for me to know whether its form is completely cylindrical and whether it is really made of glass, what is important is that its bottom shall not be cracked, that it should not cut my lips when I drink from it, etc. If I need a glass, not for drinking purposes, but for some purpose that any glass cylinder could serve, then even a glass with a cracked bottom, or even with no bottom at all, would do.

Formal logic, to which schools confine themselves (and to which, with modifications, the lower forms should confine themselves), takes formal definitions, and is guided exclusively by what is most customary, or most often noted. If in this two or more different definitions are combined quite casually (a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel), we get an eclectic definition which points to various sides of the object and nothing more.

Dialectical logic demands that we go further. In the first place, in order really to know an object we must embrace, study, all its sides, all connections and “mediations.” We shall never achieve this completely, but the demand for all-sidedness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical logic demands that we take an object in its development, its “self-movement” (as Hegel sometimes puts it), in its changes. In relation to a glass this is not clear at once, but even a glass does not remain unchanged, particularly the purpose of the glass, its use, its connections with the surrounding world. Thirdly, the whole of human experience should enter the full “definition” of an object as a criterion of the truth and as a practical index of the object’s connection with what man requires. Fourthly, dialectical logic teaches that “there is no abstract truth, truth is always concrete,” as the late Plekhanov was fond of saying after Hegel. . . .

Of course, I have not exhausted the concept of dialectical logic, but 1 think what 1 have said is sufficient for the time being.

–LENIN, “Once Again on the Trade Unions” (1921), Selected Works, vol. IX, pp. 651.

[7]

CONTRADICTIONS IN REALITY

[It is said] that contradiction absurdity, and therefore cannot be found in the real world. People who in other respects show a fair degree of common sense may regard this statement as having the same self-evident validity as the statement that a straight line cannot be a curve and a curve cannot be straight. But, regardless of all protests made by common sense, the differential calculus assumes that under certain circumstances straight lines and curves are nevertheless identical, and with this assumption reaches results which common sense, insisting on the absurdity of straight lines being identical with curves, can never attain. And in view of the important role which the so-called dialectics of contradiction has played in philosophy from the time of the earliest Greeks up to the present,  even a stronger opponent than Herr Duhring should have felt obliged to attack it with other arguments besides one assertion and a good many abusive epithets.

So long as we consider things as static and lifeless, each one by itself, alongside of and after each other, it is true that we do not run up against any contradictions in them. We find certain qualities which are partly common to, partly diverse from, and even contradictory to each other, but which in this case are distributed among different objects and therefore contain no contradiction. Within the limits of this sphere of thought we can get along on the basis of the usual metaphysical mode of thought. But the position is quite different as soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence on one another. Then we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction; even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body at one and the same moment of time being both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continuous assertion and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is.

Here, therefore, we have a contradiction which “is objectively present in things and processes themselves and so to speak appears in corporeal form.” And what has Herr Duhring to say about it? He asserts that up to the present there is absolutely ‘no bridge, in rational mechanics, from the strictly static to the dynamic.” The reader can now at last see what is hiding behind this favorite phrase of Herr Duhring ‘s –it is nothing but this: The mind which thinks metaphysically is absolutely unable to pass from the idea of rest to the idea of motion,  because the contradiction pointed out above blocks its path. To it, motion is simply incomprehensible because it is a contradiction. And in asserting the incomprehensibility of motion, it thereby against its will admits the existence of this contradiction, and in so doing admits the objective presence of a contradiction in things and processes themselves, a contradiction which is moreover an actual force.

And if simple mechanical change of place contains a contradiction, this is even more true of the higher forms of motion of matter, and especially of organic life and its development. We saw above that life consists just precisely in this-that a living thing is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly asserts and solves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life too comes to an end, and death steps in. We likewise saw that in the sphere of thought also we could not avoid contradictions,  and that for example the contradiction between man’s inherently unlimited faculty of knowledge and its actual realization in men who are limited by their external conditions and limited also in their intellectual faculties finds its solution in what is, for us at least, and from a practical standpoint, an endless succession of generations, in infinite progress…

In its operations with variable magnitudes mathematics itself enters the field of dialectics, and it is significant that it was a dialectical philosopher, Descartes, who first introduced this advance in mathematics. The relation between the mathematics of variable and the mathematics of constant magnitudes is in general the same as the relation of dialectical to metaphysical thought. But this does not prevent the great mass of mathematicians from recognizing dialectics only in the sphere of mathematics, and a good many of them from continuing to work in the old, limited metaphysical way with methods that have been obtained dialectically.

–ENGELS, Anti-Duhring (1878), pp. 132-34.

[8]

CONTRADICTIONS: CHANCE

AND NECESSITY

Another contradiction in which metaphysics is entangled is that of chance and necessity. What can be more sharply contradictory than these two thought determinations? How is it possible that both are identical, that the accidental is necessary, and the necessary is also accidental? Common sense, and with it the great majority of natural scientists, treats necessity and chance as determinations that exclude one another once for all. A thing, a circumstance, a process is either accidental or necessary, but not both. Hence both exist side by side in nature; nature contains all sorts of objects and processes, of which some are accidental, the others necessary, and it is only a matter of not confusing the two sorts with one another. Thus, for instance, one assumes the decisive specific characters to be necessary, other differences between individuals of the same species being termed accidental, and this holds good for crystals as it does for plants and animals. Then again the lower group becomes accidental in relation to the higher,  so that it is declared to be a matter of chance how many different species are included in the genus Felis or Agnus, or how many genera and orders there are in a class, and how many individuals of each of these species exist, or how many different species of animals occur in a given region, or what in general the fauna and flora are like. And then it is declared that the necessary is the sole thing of scientific interest and that the accidental is a matter of indifference to science. That is to say: What can be brought under laws, hence what one knows, is interesting: what cannot be brought under laws, and therefore what one does not know, is a matter of indifference and can be ignored. Thereby all science comes to an end, for it has to investigate precisely that which we do not know. It means to say: What ran be brought under general laws is regarded as necessary, and what cannot be so brought as accidental. Anyone can see that this is the same sort of science as that which proclaims natural what it can explain,  and ascribes what it cannot explain to supernatural causes: whether I term the cause of the inexplicable, chance, or whether I term it God, is a matter of complete indifference as far as the thing itself is concerned. Both are only expressions which say: I do not know, and therefore do not belong to science. The latter ceases where the requisite connection is wanting.

In opposition to this view there is determinism, which has passed from French materialism into natural science, and which tries to dispose of chance by denying it altogether. According to this conception only simple, direct necessity prevails in nature. That a particular pea pod contains five peas and not four or six,  that a particular dog’s tail is five inches long and not a whit longer or shorter, that this year a particular clover flower was fertilized by a bee and another not, and indeed by precisely one particular bee and at a particular time, that a particular windblown dandelion seed has sprouted and another not, that last night I was bitten by a flea at four o’clock in the morning, and not at three or five o’clock, and on the right shoulder and not on the left calf-these are all facts which have been produced by an irrevocable concatenation of cause and effect, by an unshatterable necessity of such a nature indeed that the gaseous sphere, from which the solar system was derived, was already so constituted that these events had to happen thus and not otherwise. With this kind of necessity we likewise do not get away from the theological conception of nature. Whether with Augustine and Calvin we call it the eternal decree of God, or Kismet as the Turks do, or whether we call it necessity, is all pretty much the same for science. There is no question of tracing the chain of causation in any of these cases; so we are just as wise in one as in another, the so-called necessity remains an empty phrase, and with it-chance also remains what it was before. As long as we are not able to show on what the number of peas in the pod depends, it remains just a matter of chance, and the assertion that the case was foreseen already in the primordial constitution of the solar system does not get us a step further. Still more.  A science which was to set about the task of following back the causes of this individual pea pod in its causal concatenation would be no longer science but pure trifling; for this same pea pod alone has in addition innumerable other individual, accidental-seeming qualities–shade of color, thickness, hardness of the pod, size of the peas, not to speak of the individual peculiarities revealed by the microscope. The one pea pod, therefore, would already provide more causal connections for following up than all the botanists in the world could solve.

Hence chance is not here explained by necessity, but rather necessity is degraded to the production of what is merely accidental. If the fact that a particular pea pod contains six peas,  and not five or seven, is of the same order as the law of motion of the solar system, or the law of the transformation of energy, then as a matter of fact chance is not elevated into necessity, but rather necessity degraded into chance. Furthermore, however much the diversity of the organic and inorganic species and individuals existing side by side in a given area may be asserted to be based on irrefragable necessity, for the separate species and individuals it remains what it was before, a matter of chance. For the individual animal it is a matter of chance, where it happens to be born, what medium it finds for living, what enemies and how many of them threaten it. For the mother plant it is a matter of chance whither the wind scatters its seeds, and, for the daughter plant, where the seed finds soil for germination; and to assure us that here also everything rests on irrefragable necessity is a poor consolation. The jumbling together of natural objects in a given region, nay more, in the whole world, for all the Primordial determination from eternity, remains what it was’ before–a matter of chance.

In contrast to both conceptions,  Hegel came forward with the hitherto quite unheard-of propositions that the accidental has a cause because it is accidental, and just as much also has no cause because it is accidental; that the accidental is necessary, that necessity determines itself as chance, and, on the other hand, this chance is rather absolute necessity (Logic, 11, pp. 173-86: Actuality). Natural science has simply ignored these propositions as paradoxical trifling,  as self-contradictory nonsense, and, as regards theory, has persisted on the one hand in the barrenness of thought of Wolffian metaphysics according to which a thing is either accidental or necessary, but not both at once; or, on the other hand, in the hardly less thoughtless mechanical determinism which by a phrase denies chance in general only to recognize it in practice in each particular case.

While natural science continued to think in this way, what did it do in the person of Darwin- Darwin, in his epoch-making work, set out from the widest existing basis of chance. Precisely the infinite,  accidental differences between individuals within a single species, differences which become accentuated until they break through the character of the species, and whose immediate causes even can be demonstrated only in extremely few cases, compelled him to question the previous basis of all regularity in biology, viz., the concept of species in its previous metaphysical rigidity and unchangeability. Without the concept of species, however, all science was nothing. All its branches needed the concept of species as basis human anatomy and comparative anatomy; embryology, zoology, paleontology, botany, etc.–what were they without the concept of species? All their results were not only put in question but directly suspended. Chance overthrows Necessity, as conceived hitherto (the material of chance occurrences which had accumulated in the meantime smothered and shattered the old idea of necessity). The previous idea of necessity breaks down. To retain it means dictatorially to impose on nature as a law a human arbitrary determination that is in contradiction to itself and to reality,  it means to deny thereby all inner necessity in living nature, it means generally to proclaim the chaotic kingdom of chance to be the sole law of living nature.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 230-34.

[9]

THE LAWS OF DIALECTICS

It is . . . from the history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself. And indeed they can be reduced in the main to three:

The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa;

The law of the interpenetration of opposites;

The law of the negation of the negation.

All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being, the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought. If we turn the thing round, then everything becomes simple, and the dialectical laws that look so extremely mysterious in idealist philosophy at once become simple and clear as noonday.

Moreover, anyone who is even only slightly acquainted with his Hegel will be aware that in hundreds of passages Hegel is capable of giving the most striking individual illustrations from nature and history of the dialectical laws.

We are not concerned here with writing a handbook of dialectics, but only with showing that the dialectical laws are really laws of development of nature, and therefore are valid also for theoretical natural science. Hence we cannot go into the interconnections of these laws with one another.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 26f.

[For a summary of the essential elements of dialectics, see Lenin: Appendix II, 32.–Ed.]

[10]

THE INTERACTION OF QUANTITY

AND QUALITY

1. IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES

The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice ersa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy).

All qualitative differences in nature rest on differences of chemical composition or on different quantities or forms of motion (energy) or, as is almost always the case, on both. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e., without quantitative alteration of the body concerned. In this form. therefore, Hegel’s mysterious principle appears not only quite rational but even rather obvious.

It is surely hardly necessary to point out that the various allotropic and aggregational states of bodies, because they depend on various groupings of the molecules depend on greater or lesser quantities of motion communicated to the bodies.

But what is the position in regard to change of form of motion, or so-called energy? If we change heat into mechanical motion or vice versa, is not the quality altered while the quantity remains the same? Quite correct. But it is with change of form of motion as with Heine’s vices; anyone can be virtuous by himself, for vices two are always necessary. Change of form of motion is always a process that takes place between at least two bodies, of which one loses a definite quantity of motion of one quality (e.g., heat), while the other gains a corresponding quantity of motion of another quality (mechanical motion, electricity, chemical decomposition). Here, therefore, quantity and quality mutually correspond to each other. So far it has not been found possible to convert motion from one form to another inside a single isolated body.

We are concerned here in the first place with non-living bodies; the same law holds for living bodies, but it operates under very complex conditions and at present quantitative measurement is still often impossible for us.

If we imagine any non-living body cut up into smaller and smaller portions, at first no qualitative change occurs. But this has a limit: If we succeed, as by evaporation, in obtaining the separate molecules in the free state, then it is true that we can usually divide these still further, yet only with a complete change of quality. The molecule is decomposed into its separate atoms, which have quite different properties from those of the molecule. In the case of molecules composed of various chemical elements,  atoms or molecules of these elements themselves make their appearance in the place of the compound molecule; in the case of molecules of elements, the free atoms appear, which exert quite distinct qualitative effects: the free atoms of nascent oxygen are easily able to effect what the atoms of atmospheric oxygen, bound together in the molecule, can never achieve.

But the molecule is also qualitatively different from the mass of the body to which it belongs. It can carry out movements independently of this mass and while the latter remains apparently at rest, e.g., heat oscillations: by means of a change of position and of connection with neighboring molecules it can change the body into an allotrope or a different state of aggregation.

Thus we see that the purely quantitative operation of division has a limit at which it becomes transformed into a qualitative difference: The mass consists solely of molecules, but it is something essentially different from the molecule, just as the latter is different from the atom. It is this difference that is the basis for the separation of mechanics, as the science of heavenly and terrestrial masses, from physics, as the mechanics of the molecule, and from chemistry, as the physics of the atom.

In mechanics, no qualities occur; at most, states, such as equilibrium, motion, potential energy, which all depend on measurable transference of motion and are themselves capable of quantitative expression. Hence, in so far as qualitative change takes place here, it is determined by a corresponding quantitative change.

In physics, bodies are treated as chemically unalterable or indifferent; we have to do with changes of their molecular states and with the change of form of the motion which in all cases, at least on one of the two sides, brings the molecule into play. Here every change is a transformation of quantity into quality, a consequence of the quantitative change of the quantity of motion of one form or another that is inherent in the body or communicated to it. “Thus the temperature of water is,  in the first place, a point of no consequence in respect of its liquidity: still with the increase or diminution of the temperature of the liquid water, there comes a point where this state of cohesion suffers a qualitative change, and the water is converted into steam or ice.” [Hegel, The Logic of Hegel, trans. W. Wallace, p. 202.] Similarly,  a definite minimum current strength is required to cause the platinum wire of an electric incandescent lamp to glow; and every metal has its temperature of incandescence and fusion, every liquid its definite freezing and boiling point at a given pressure-in so far as our means allow us to produce the temperature required; finally also every gas has its critical point at which it can be liquefied by pressure and cooling. In short. the so-called physical constants are for the most part nothing but designations of the nodal points at which quantitative addition or subtraction of motion produces qualitative alteration in the state of the body concerned at which, therefore, quantity is transformed into quality.

The sphere, however, in which the law of nature discovered by Hegel celebrates its most important triumphs is that of chemistry. Chemistry can be termed the science of the qualitative changes of bodies as a result of changed quantitative composition….

In biology, as in the history of human society, the same law holds good at every step, but we prefer to dwell here on examples from the exact sciences, since here the quantities are accurately measurable and traceable.

Probably the same gentlemen who up to now have decried the transformation of quantity into quality as mysticism and incomprehensible transcendentalism will now declare that it is indeed something quite self-evident, trivial, and commonplace, which they have long employed, and so they have been taught nothing new. But to have formulated for the first time in its universally valid form a general law of development of nature, society, and thought, will always remain an act of historic importance. And if these gentlemen have for years caused quantity and quality to be transformed into one another, without knowing what they did, then they will have to console themselves with Moliere’s Monsieur Jourdain who had spoken prose all his life without having the slightest inkling of it.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 27-30; 33f.

B.  IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

“What a comical effect is produced by the reference to the confused and foggy Hegelian conception that quantity changes into quality, and that therefore an advance, when it reaches a certain size, becomes capital by this mere quantitative increase!”

In this “purged” presentation by Herr Duhring it certainly looks curious enough. But let us see how it looks in  the original, in Marx. On page 294,[********] Marx, on the basis of the previous examination of constant and variable capital and surplus value, draws the conclusion that “not every sum of money. or of value, is at pleasure transformable into capital. To effect this transformation, in fact, a certain minimum of money or of exchange-value must be presupposed in the hands of the individual possessor of money or commodities.”

He then takes as an example the case of a laborer in any branch of industry, who works eight hours for himself-that is, in producing the value of his wages-and the following four hours for the capitalist, in producing surplus value, which immediately flows into the pocket of the capitalist. In this case a capitalist would have to dispose of a sum of value sufficient to enable him to provide two laborers with raw materials,  instruments of labor, and wages, in order to appropriate enough surplus value every day to enable him to live on it even as well as one of his laborers. And as the aim of capitalist production is not mere subsistence but the increase of wealth, our man with his two laborers would still not be a capitalist. Now in order that he may live twice as well as an ordinary laborer,  and besides turn half of the surplus value produced again into capital, he would have to be able to employ eight laborers, that is, he would have to dispose of four times the sum of value assumed above. And it is only after this,  and in the course of still further explanations elucidating and establishing the fact that not every petty sum of value is enough to be transformable into capital, but that the minimum sum required varies with each period of development and each branch of industry, it is only then that Marx observes: “Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his Logic), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.”

And now let the reader admire the higher and nobler style, by virtue of which Herr Duhring attributes to Marx the opposite of what he really said. Marx says: The fact that a sum of value can only, be transformed into capital when it has reached a certain size, varying according to the circumstances, but in each case with a definite minimum-this fact is a proof of the correctness of the Hegelian law. Herr Duhring, makes him say: Because, according to the Hegelian law, quantity changes into quality, “therefore” “an advance, when it reaches a certain size, becomes capital.” That is to say, the very opposite.

In connection with Herr Duhring’s putting Darwin on trial we have already got to know his habit, “in the interests of complete truth” and because of his “duty to the public which is outside the exclusive professional circle,” of citing passages incorrectly. It becomes more and more evident that this habit is an inner necessity of the philosophy of reality, and it is certainly a very summary treatment.” Not to mention the fact that Herr Duhring further makes Marx speak of any kind of “advance” whatsoever,  whereas Marx only refers to an advance made in the form of raw materials, instruments of labor, and wages; and that in doing this Herr Duhring succeeds in making Marx speak pure nonsense. And then he has the cheek to describe as comic the nonsense which he has himself fabricated. just as he built tip a fantastic image of Darwin in order to try out his strength against it, so here he builds up a fantastic image of Marx. It is indeed a “historical treatment in the grand style” !

We have already seen earlier, in regard to world schematism,  that in connection with this Hegelian nodal line of measure relations-in which quantitative change suddenly produces, at certain points, a qualitative difference–Herr Duhring had a little accident; in a weak moment he himself recognized and made use of this principle. We gave there one of the best known examples that of the change of the state of water,  which under normal atmospheric pressure changes at 0° C. from the liquid into the solid state, and at 100° C  from the liquid into the gaseous state, so that at both these turning points the merely quantitative change of temperature brings about a qualitative change in the condition of the water.

In proof of this law we might have cited hundreds of other similar facts from nature as well as from human society. Thus, for example,  the whole of Part IV of Marx’s Capital–Production of Relative Surplus Value–Co-operation, Division of Labor and Manufacture, Machinery and Large Scale Industry-deals with innumerable cases in which quantitative change alters the quality, and also qualitative change alters the quantity, of the things under consideration; in which therefore, to use the expression which is so hated by Herr Duhring, quantity is transformed into quality and vice versa. As for example the fact that the cooperation of a number of people, the fusion of many forces into one single force, to use Marx’s phrase, creates a “new power,” which is essentially different from the sum of its individual powers….

In conclusion we shall call one more witness for the transformation of quantity into quality, namely–Napoleon. He makes the following reference to the fights between the French cavalry,  who were bad riders but disciplined, and the Mamelukes, who were undoubtedly the best horsemen of their time for single combat, but lacked discipline: “Two Mamelukes were undoubtedly more than a match for three Frenchmen: 100 Mamelukes were equal to 100 Frenchmen; 300 Frenchmen could generally beat 300 Mamelukes, and 1,000 Frenchmen invariably defeated 1,500 Mamelukes.” just as with Marx a definite, though Wrying, minimum sum of exchange value was necessary to make possible its transformation into capital, so with Napoleon a detachment of cavalry had to be of a definite minimum number in order to make it possible for the force of discipline, embodied in closed order and planned application, to manifest itself and rise superior even to greater numbers of irregular cavalry, in spite of the latter being better mounted, more skillful horsemen and fighters, and at least as brave as the former. But what does this prove as against Herr Duhring? Was not Napoleon miserably vanquished in his conflict with Europe? Did he not suffer defeat after defeat? And why? Simply as a result of his having introduced confused nebulous Hegelian conceptions into his cavalry tactics!

–ENGELS, Anti-Duhring (1878), pp. 136-39, 141.

C.  IN THE LABOR PROCESS

Just as the offensive power of a squadron of cavalry,  or the defensive power of a regiment of infantry, is essentially different from the sum of the offensive or defensive powers of the individual cavalry or infantry soldiers taken separately, so the sum total of the mechanical forces exerted by isolated workmen differs from the social force that is developed, when many hands take part simultaneously in one and the same undivided operation, such as raising a heavy weight, turning a winch, or removing an obstacle. In such cases the effect of the combined labor could either not be produced at all by isolated individual. labor, or it could only be produced by a great expenditure of time, or on a very dwarfed scale. Not only have we here an increase in the productive power of the individual, by means of co-operation, but the creation of a new power, namely, the collective power of masses.

Apart from the new power that arises from the fusion of many forces into one single force, mere social contact begets in most industries an emulation and a stimulation of the animal spirits that heighten the efficiency of each individual workman. Hence it is that a dozen persons working together will, in their collective working day of 144 hours, produce far more than 12 isolated men each working 12 hours, or than one man who works 12 days in succession. The reason of this is that a man is, if not as Aristotle contends, a political, at all events a social animal.

–MARX, Capital (1867), vol. I, pp. 357f.

[11]

THE UNITY AND CONFLICT

OF OPPOSITES

The splitting of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts … is the essence (one of the “essentials,” one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristics or features) of dialectics. That is precisely how Hegel, too, puts the matter (Aristotle in his Metaphysics continually grapples with it and combats Heraclitus and Heraclitean ideas).

The correctness of this aspect of the content of dialectics must be tested by the history of science. This aspect of dialectics usually receives inadequate attention (e.g., Plekhanov); the identity of opposites is taken as the sum-total of examples (“for example, a seed,” “for example, primitive communism.” The same is true of Engels. But with him it is “in the interests of popularization . . .”) and not as a law of cognition (and as a law of the objective world):

In mathematics: + and –. Differential and integral.

In mechanics: action and reaction.

In physics: positive and negative electricity.

In chemistry: the combination and dissociation of atoms.

In social science: the class struggle.

The identity of opposites (it would be more correct, perhaps, to say), their “unity”-al though the difference between the terms identity and unity is not particularly important here. In a certain sense both are correct) is the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society . The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their “self-movement,” in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the “struggle” of opposites. The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable’-) conceptions of development (evolution) are: Development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).

In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external-God, subject, etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to the knowledge of the source of “self”-movement.

The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the “self-movement” of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the “leaps,” to the “break in continuity,” to the “transformation into the opposite,” to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new.

The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute.

N.B. The distinction between subjectivism (skepticism, sophistry, etc.) and dialectics, incidentally, is that in (objective) dialectics the difference between the relative and the absolute is itself relative. For objective dialectics there is an absolute even within the relative. For subjectivism and sophistry the relative is only relative and excludes the absolute.

In his Capital, Marx first analyzes the simplest, most ordinary and fundamental, most common and everyday relation of bourgeois (commodity) society, a relation that is encountered billions of times, viz., the exchange of commodities. In this very simple phenomenon (in this “cell” of bourgeois society) analysis reveals all. the contradictions (or the germs of all the contradictions) of modern society. The subsequent exposition shows us the development (both growth and movement) of these contradictions and of this society in the summat, . on of its individual parts, from its beginning to its end.

Such must also be the method of exposition (or study) of dialectics in general (for with Marx the dialectics of bourgeois society is only a particular case of dialectics). To begin with what is the simplest, most common. etc., with any proposition: The leaves of a tree are green: John is a man; Fido is a dog. etc. Here already we have dialectics (as Hegel’s genius recognized): the individual is the universal (c f. Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Bk. B, ch. 4, “For evidently      we could not suppose that there is a house [a house in general] besides the particular houses.”) Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately comprises all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc.

Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things. phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs, the concepts of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary,  the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say: John is a man, Fido is a dog, this is a leaf of a tree, etc., we disregard a number of attributes as contingent: we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other.

Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as in a nucleus” (“cell”) the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general. And natural science shows us (and here again it must be demonstrated in any simple instance) objective nature with the same qualities, the transformation of the individual into the universal, of the contingent into the necessary, transitions, modulations, and the reciprocal connections of opposites. Dialectics is the theory of knowledge of (Hegel and) Marxism. This is the aspect” of the matter (it is not “an aspect” but the essence of the matter) to which Plekhanov, not to speak of other Marxists, paid no attention.

–LENIN, “On the Question of Dialectics” (1915),

Philosophical Notebooks, pp. 359-63.

[12]

THE NEGATION OF THE NEGATION

What role does the negation of the negation play in Marx? On page 786[††††††††] and the following pages he sets out the conclusions which he draws from the preceding fifty pages of economic and historical investigation into the so-called primitive accumulation of capital. Before the capitalist era, at least in England, petty industry existed on the basis of the private property of the laborer in his means of production. The so-called primitive accumulation of capital consisted in this case in the expropriation of these immediate producers, that is, in the dissolution of private property based on the labor of its owner. This was possible because the petty industry referred to above is compatible only with a system of production, and a society, moving within narrow and primitive bounds, and at a certain stage of its development it brings forth the material agencies for its own annihilation. This annihilation, the transformation of the individual and scattered means of production into socially concentrated ones, forms the pre-history of capital. As soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians,  their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production, and therefore the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form.

“That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization,  or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever extending scale, the cooperative form of the labor process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as the means of production of combined, socialized labor, . . . Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation, but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing numbers, in and disciplined, united organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist in tegument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.” [‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡]

And now I ask the reader: Where are the dialectical frills and mazes and intellectual arabesques:  where the mixed and misconceived ideas as a result of which everything is all one in the end: where the dialectical miracles for his faithful followers-, where the mysterious dialectical rubbish and the contortions based on the Hegelian Logos doctrine, without which Marx, according to Herr Duhring, is quite unable to accomplish his development? Marx merely shows from history,  and in this passage states in a summarized form, that just as the former petty industry necessarily, through its own development, created the conditions of its annihilation, i.e., of the expropriation of the small proprietors, so now the capitalist mode of production has likewise itself created the material conditions which will annihilate it. The process is a historical one, and if it is at the same time a dialectical process, this is not Marx’s fault, however annoying it may be for Herr Duhring.

It is only at this point, after Marx has completed his proof on the basis of historical and economic facts, that he proceeds: “The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of the negation”–and so on (as quoted above).

In characterizing the process as the negation of the negation, therefore, Marx does not dream of attempting to prove by this that the process was historically necessary. On the contrary; after he has proved from history that in fact the process has partially already occurred, and partially must occur in the future, he then also characterizes it as a process which develops in accordance with a definite dialectical law. That is all. It is therefore once again a pure distortion of the facts by Herr Duhring, when he declares that the negation of the negation has to serve as the midwife to deliver the future from the womb of the past, or that Marx wants anyone to allow himself to be convinced of the necessity of the common ownership of land and capital (which is itself a Duhringian corporeal contradiction) on the basis of the negation of the negation. . . .

It is the same, too, in history. All civilized peoples begin with the common ownership of the land. With all peoples who have passed a certain primitive stage, in the course of the development of agriculture this common ownership becomes a fetter on production. It is abolished, negated, and after a long or shorter series of intermediate stages is transformed into private property. But at a higher stage of agricultural development, brought about by private property in land itself, private property in turn becomes a fetter on production as is the case today, both with small and large landownership. The demand that it also should be negated, that it should once again be transformed into common property, necessarily arises. But this demand does not mean the restoration of the old original common ownership,  but the institution of a far higher and more developed form of possession in common which, far from being a hindrance to production, on the contrary for the first time frees production from all fetters and gives it the possibility of making, full use of modern chemical discoveries and mechanical inventions….

What therefore is the negation of the negation? An extremely general–and for this reason extremely comprehensive and important–law of development of nature,  history and thought; a law which, as we have seen, holds good in the animal and plant kingdoms, in geology, in mathematics, in history and in philosophy-a law which even Herr Duhring, in spite of all his struggles and resistance, has unwittingly and in his own way to follow. It is obvious that in describing any evolutionary process as the negation of the negation 1 do not say anything concerning the particular process of development, for example, of the grain of barley from germination to the death of the fruit-bearing plant. For, as the integral calculus also is a negation of the negation, if I said anything of the sort I should only be making the non-sensical statement that the life process of a barley plant was the integral calculus or for that matter that it was socialism. That, however, is what the metaphysicians are constantly trying to impute to dialectics. When 1 say that all these processes are the negation of the negation, I bring them all together under this one law of motion, and for this very reason 1 leave out of account the peculiarities oil each separate individual process. Dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society, and thought.

But someone may object: The negation that has taken place in this case is not a real negation; I negate a grain of barley also when I grind it down, an insect when I crush it underfoot, or the positive magnitude a when 1 cancel it, and so on. Or 1 negate the sentence, the rose is a rose, when 1 say: The rose is not a rose; and what do 1 get if 1 then negate the negation and say, but after all the rose is a rose?–These objections are in fact the chief arguments put forward by the metaphysicians against dialectics, and they are eminently worthy of the narrow-mindedness of this mode of thought. Negation in dialectics does not mean simply saying no, or declaring that something does not exist, or destroying it in any way, one likes. Long ago Spinoza said: Omnis determinatio est negatio–every limitation or determination is at the same time a negation. And further; the kind of negation is here determined in the first place by the general, and secondly by the particular, nature of the process. 1 must not only negate, but also in turn sublate the negation. 1 must therefore so construct the first negation that the second remains or becomes possible. In what way? This depends on the particular nature of each individual case. If 1 grind a grain of barley, or crush an insect, it is true 1 have carried out the first part of the action, but 1 have made the second part impossible. Each class of things therefore has its appropriate form of being negated in such a way that it gives rise to a development, and it is just the same with each class of conceptions and ideas. The infinitesimal calculus involves a form of negation which is different from that used in the formation of positive powers from negative roots. This has to be learnt, like everything else. The mere knowledge that the barley plant and the infinitesimal calculus are both governed by the negation of the negation does not enable me either to grow barley successfully or to use the calculus;  just as little as the mere knowledge of the laws of the determination of sound by the thickness of strings enables me to play the violin.

But it is clear that in a negation of the negation which consists of the childish pastime of alternately writing and cancelling a, or of alternately declaring that a rose is a rose and that it is not a rose,  nothing comes out of it but the stupidity of the person who adopts such a tedious procedure. And yet the metaphysicians try to tell us that this is the right way to carry out the negation of the negation, if we ever want to do such a thing

Once again, therefore, it is no one but Herr Duhring who is mystifying us when he asserts that the negation of the negation is a stupid analogy invented by Hegel, borrowed from the sphere of religion and based on the story of the fall of man and redemption. Men thought dialectically long before they knew what dialectics was, just as they spoke prose long before the term prose existed. The law of the negation of the negation, which is unconsciously operative in nature and history, and until it has been recognized, also in our heads, was only clearly formulated for the first time by Hegel. And if Herr Duhring wants to use it himself on the quiet and it is only the name which he cannot stand, let him find a better name. But if his aim is to expel the process itself from thought,  we must ask him to be so good as first to banish it from nature and history and to invent a mathematical system in which -a x -a is not +a2 and in which the differential and integral calculus are prohibited under severe penalties.

–ENGELS, Anti-Duhring (1878), pp. 145-47, 151, 154-56.

[Lenin makes a distinction between genuine and eclectic negation. See Appendix 11, 33.-Ed.]

PART FOUR

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking

is not a question of theory but is a practical question.

In practice man must prove the truth of his thinking

-MARX, Theses on Feuerbach, 11 (1845).

All science would be superfluous, if the appearance,

the form, and the nature of things were wholly identical.

–MARX, Capital, vol. 111 (1894), p. 951.

It is … paradox that the earth moves round the sun,

and that water consists of two highly inflammable gases.

Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday

experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things.

–MARX, Value, Price and Profit (1865), p. 37.

Introduction

WHILE IT is known and accepted that Marxism has a philosophy, little notice has been paid to the fact that it has a distinctive theory of knowledge. Engels suggested frequently that philosophy had to be a methodology–that is, logic and dialectics -and a theory of science. Actually, the heart of the philosophy of dialectical materialism is simply the insistence that the sciences in their historical development provide the only means there are for knowing and controlling the world we live in. It is the affirmation that only empirically derived data, organized through man’s power to form concepts, and tested in practice, can acquaint us with the nature of things.

Many, English-speaking, students of Marxism are troubled by statements that appear to be anti-empirical. Marx and Engels criticized, for example, Newton and Darwin, not because of their conclusions, but in terms of their method. This has to be understood against the European background which for two centuries was tom between the proponents of “rationalism” and those of “empiricism,” with rationalism dominating the continent and empiricism the British Isles. Some of the materials in this section clearly show that Marx and Engels were trying to resolve this difficulty by finding a “dialectical” solution. They could be neither empiricists nor rationalists. The heart of their position lies, as is shown in the quotations that head this section,  in the belief that we need and develop science because things are not what they appear to be, and that in turn we can only learn what things really are by the most scrupulous investigation of their appearances and by testing our theories in practical situations.

Marxism is often regarded as being rigid, inflexible, dogmatic, absolutist. It may have been treated as such in different places and times, but the fact is that Marx, Engels, and Lenin had a theory that was viable and flexible, running counter to all forms of dogmatism. Knowledge or science is to them a never-ending process that achieves some truth concerning the nature of things, gets closer and closer to “absolute truth”–without ever reaching it-and thus moves towards an ever closer approximation to reality. It must be noted that Lenin, in the passages on truth given here, makes it clear that he is not defining truth in the formal logical sense which limits it to a property of judgments, such as “this is water,” or “water is H2O.” Rather, he is defining truth as the objective content of such judgments, the objective reality by virtue of which alone such judgments can be true. The central issue of the Lenin excerpts presented here is whether “truth” is discovered or invented by men.

The final selections of this part, after discussions of what is now known as the “sociology of science” and of the indispensability of a philosophy of some kind for all scientists, deal with the function of concepts and abstractions. Enormous work on these questions has gone on in professional philosophy in the years since these passages were -written. The editors believe that these selections show how Manx, Engels, and Lenin, on the basis of their rejection of both rationalism and empiricism as one-sided, and in the light of the highest developments of the sciences of their day, raised and answered these questions with extraordinary philosophical acumen. Only a dialectical synthesis, they believed, could resolve such age-old problems as the relation of the empirical and the rational, the concrete and the abstract, the fact and the concept, the relative and the absolute, and the relatively, fixed amidst the flux. For them, the sciences could develop only to the extent that such a synthesis was achieved.

[1]

THREE PROPOSITIONS OF THE MARXIST

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

(1) Things exist independently of our consciousness, independently of our perceptions, outside of us, for it is beyond doubt that alizarin existed in coal tar yesterday and it is equally beyond doubt that yesterday we knew nothing of the existence of this alizarin and received no sensations from it.

(2) There is definitely no difference in principle between the g-in-itself, and there can be no such phenomenon and the thin, difference. The only difference is between what is known and what is not yet known. And philosophical inventions of specific boundaries between the one and the other, inventions to the effect that the thing-in-itself is “beyond” phenomena (Kant), or that we can or must fence ourselves off by some philosophical partition from the problem of a world which in one part or another is still unknown but which exists outside us (Hume)all this is the sheerest nonsense, evasion, invention.

(3) In the theory of knowledge, as in every other branch of science, we Must think dialectically, that is, we-must not regard our knowledge as ready-made and unalterable, but must determine how knowledge emerges from ignorance, how incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and more exact.

Once we accept the point of view that human knowledge develops from ignorance,  we shall find millions of examples of it just as simple as the discovery of alizarin in coal tar, millions of observations not only in the history of science and technology but in the everyday life of each and every one of us that illustrate the transformation of “things-in-themselves” into “things-for-us,” the appearance of “phenomena” when our sense-organs experience a jolt from external objects, the disappearance of “phenomena” when some obstacle prevents the action upon our sense-organs of an object which we know to exist. The sole and unavoidable deduction to be made from this-a deduction which all of us make in everyday practice and which materialism deliberately places at the foundation of its epistemology–is that outside us,  and independently of us, there exist objects, things, and bodies and that our perceptions are images of the external world.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp, 99f.

[2]

HOW DO WE KNOW OBJECTIVE REALITY?

“In what relation do our thoughts about the world surrounding us stand to this world itself’

“Is our thinking capable of the cognition of the real world?

“Are we able in our ideas and notions of the real world to produce a correct reflection of reality?” (Engels, see Part Two [1]). Our agnostic[§§§§§§§§] admits that all our knowledge is based upon the information imparted to us by our senses. But, he adds, how do we know that our senses give us correct representations of the objects we perceive through them? And he proceeds to inform us that, whenever he speaks of objects or their qualities, he does in reality not mean these objects and qualities, of which he cannot know anything for certain, but merely the impressions which they have. produced on his senses. Now, this line of reasoning seems undoubtedly hard to beat by mere argumentation. But before there was argumentation, there was action. Im Anfana war die Tat. [In the beginning was the deed–GOETHE] And human action had solved the difficulty long before human ingenuity invented it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. From the moment we turn to our own use these objects, according to the qualities we perceive in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise of our sense perceptions. If these perceptions have been wrong, then our estimate of the use to, which an object can be turned must also be wrong, and our attempt must fail. But if we succeed in accomplishing our aim,  if we find that the object does agree with our idea of it, and does answer the purpose we intended it for, then that is positive proof that our perceptions of it and of its qualities, so far, agree with reality outside ourselves. And whenever we find ourselves face to face with a failure,  then we generally are not long in making out the cause that made us fail; we find that the perception upon which we acted was either incomplete and superficial, or combined with the result of other perceptions in a way not warranted by them–what we call defective reasoning. So long as we take care to train and to use our senses properly,  and to keep our action within the limits prescribed by perceptions properly made and properly used, so long we shall find that the result of our action proves the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the things perceived. Not in one single instance,  so far, have we been led to the conclusion that our sense perceptions, scientifically controlled, induce in our minds ideas respecting the outer world that are, by their very nature, at variance with reality, or that there is an inherent incompatibility between the outer world and our sense perceptions of it.

But then come the Neo-Kantian agnostics and say: We may correctly perceive the qualities of a thing, but we cannot by any sensible or mental process grasp the thing-in-itself. This “thing-in-itself” is beyond our ken. To this Hegel,  long since, has replied: If you know ail the qualities of a thing, you know the thing itself; nothing remains but the fact that the said thing exists without us; and when your senses have taught you that fact, you have grasped the last remnant of the thing-in itself, Kant’s celebrated unknowable Ding an sich. To which it may be added, that in Kant’s time our knowledge of natural objects was indeed so fragmentary that he might well suspect, behind the little we knew about each of them, a mysterious “thing-in-itself.” But one after another these ungraspable things have been grasped, analyzed, and, what is more, reproduced by the giant progress of science; and what we can produce, we certainly cannot consider as unknowable. To the chemistry of the first half of this century organic substances were such mysterious objects; now we learn to build them up one after another from their chemical elements without the aid of organic processes. Modern chemists declare that as soon as the chemical constitution of no matter what body is known, it can be built up from its elements. We are still far from knowing the constitution of the highest organic substances, albuminous bodies; but there is no reason why we should not, if only after centuries, arrive at that knowledge and, armed with it, produce artificial albumen. But if we arrive at that, we shall at the same time have produced organic life, for life, from its lowest to its highest forms, is but the normal mode of existence of albuminous bodies.

As soon, however, as our agnostic has made these formal mental reservations, he talks and acts as the rank materialist he at bottom is. He may say that, as far as we know, matter and motion, or as it is now called, energy, can neither be created nor destroyed, but that we have no proof of their not having been created at some time or other. But if you try to use this admission against him in any particular case, he will quickly put you out of court. If he admits the possibility of spiritualism in abstracto, he will have none of it in concreto. As far as we know and can know,  he will tell you there is no Creator and no Ruler of the universe; as far as we are concerned, matter and energy can neither be created nor annihilated: for us, mind is a mode of energy, a function of the brain; all we know is that the material world is governed by immutable laws, and so forth. Thus, as far as he is a scientific man, as far as he knows anything, he is a materialist; outside his science, in spheres about which he knows nothing, he translates his ignorance into Greek and calls it agnosticism.

–ENGELS, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, intro. to Eng. ed. (1892), pp. 13-15.

[3]

THE “THING-IN -ITSELF”

A. NO “THING-IN-ITSELF” FOR SCIENCE

The number and succession of hypotheses supplanting one another-given the lack of logical and dialectical education among scientists–easily gives rise to the idea that we cannot know the essence of things. This is not peculiar to natural science since all human knowledge develops in a curve which twists many times; and in the historical sciences also, including philosophy, theories displace one another, from which, however, nobody concludes that formal logic, for instance, is nonsense. The last form of this outlook is the “thing-in-itself.” In the first place, this assertion that we cannot know the thing-in-itself passes out of science into fantasy. In the second place, it does not add a word to our scientific knowledge, for if we cannot occupy ourselves with things, they do not exist for us. And, thirdly, it is a mere phrase and is never applied. Taken in the abstract it sounds quite sensible. But suppose one applies it. What would one think of a zoologist who said:  A dog seems to have four legs, but we do not know whether in reality it has four million legs or none at all? Or of a mathematician who first of all defines a triangle as having three sides, and then declares that he does not know whether it might not have 25? That 2 x 2 seems to be 4? But scientists take care not to apply the phrase “the thing-in-itself” in natural science, they permit themselves this only in passing into philosophy This is the best proof how little seriously they take it and of what little value it is itself. If they did take it seriously, what would be the good of investigating anything-, Taken historically the thing would have a certain meaning; we can only know under the conditions of our epoch and as far as these reach.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 159f.

[For Hegel's strictures on the "thing-in-itself" and Lenin's comments, see Appendix 11, 5.-Ed.]

B. THE KNOWABILITY OF THE “THING-IN-ITSELF”

The development of consciousness in each human individual and the development of the collective knowledge of humanity at large presents us at every step with examples of the transformation of the unknown “thing-in-itself” into the known “thing-for-us,” of the transformation of blind, unknown necessity, “necessity-in-itself,” into the known “necessity-for-us.” Epistemologically,  there is no difference whatever between these two transformations, for the basic point of view in both cases is the same, viz., materialistic, the recognition of the objective reality of the external world and of the laws of external nature, and of the fact that this world and these laws are fully knowable to man but can never be known to him with finality. We do not know the necessity of nature in the phenomena of the weather, and to that extent we are inevitably–slaves of the weather. But while we do not know this necessity, we do know that it exists. Whence this knowledge? From the very source whence comes the knowledge that things exist outside our mind and independently of it,  namely, from the development of our knowledge, which provides millions of examples to every individual of knowledge replacing ignorance when an object acts upon our sense organs, and conversely of ignorance replacing knowledge when the possibility of such action is eliminated.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp. 191f.

[4]

WHAT IS OBJECTIVE TRUTH?

Bogdanov declares: “As I understand it, Marxism contains a denial of the unconditional objectivity of any truth whatsoever, the denial of all eternal truths.” [He] agrees to recognize ‘objective truth only within the limits of a given epoch.”

Two questions are obviously confused here:

(1) Is there such a thing as objective truth, that is, can human ideas have a content that does not depend on a subject, that does not depend either on a human being or on humanity?

(2) If so, can human ideas, which give expression to objective truth, express it all at one time, as a whole, unconditionally, absolutely, or only approximately, relatively? This second question is a question of the relation of absolute to relative truth.

The criterion of objective truth,” writes Bogdanov a little further on, “in Beltov’s[*********] sense, does not exist: truth is an ideological form, an organizing form of human experience….”

Neither “Beltov’s sense”–for it is a question of one of the fundamental philosophical problems and not of Beltov–nor the criterion of truth-which must be treated separately, without confounding it with the question of whether objective truth exists– has anything to do with the case here. Bogdanov’s negative answer to the latter question is clear: If truth is only an ideological form, then there can be no truth independent of the subject, of humanity, for neither Bogdanov nor we know any other ideology but human ideology. And Bogdanov’s negative answer emerges still more clearly from the second half of his statement: If truth is a form of human experience, then there can be no truth independent of humanity; there can be no objective truth.

Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth is agnosticism and subjectivism…. Natural science leaves no room for doubt that its assertion that the earth existed prior to man is a truth. This is entirely compatible with the materialist theory of knowledge; the existence of the thing reflected independent of the reflector (the independence of the external world from the mind) is a fundamental tenet of materialism. The assertion made by science that the earth existed prior to man is an objective truth. This proposition of natural science is incompatible with the philosophy of the Machians and with their doctrine of truth: If truth is an organizing form of human experience, then the assertion of the earth’s existence outside human experience cannot be true.

But that is not all. If truth is only an organizing form of human experience, then the teaching, say of Catholicism is also true. For there is not the slightest doubt that Catholicism is an “organizing form of human experience.” Bogdanov himself senses the crying falsity of his theory and it is extremely interesting to watch how he attempts to extricate himself from the swamp into which he has fallen.

“The basis of objectivity [we read in Book I of Empirio-Monism] must lie in the sphere of collective experience. . . . The objective character of the physical world consists in the fact that it exists not for me personally, but for everybody [that is not true, It exists independently of everybody], and has a definite meaning for everybody, the same, I am convinced, as for me. The objectivity of the physical series is its universal significance” (Bogdanov’s italics) .. . In general the physical world is socially coordinated, socially harmonized. in a word, socially organized experience” (Bogdanov’s italics).

We shall not repeat that this is a fundamentally untrue, idealist definition, that the physical world exists independently of humanity and of human experience, that the physical world existed at a time when no “sociality” and no “organization” of human experience was possible, and so forth. We shall now stop to expose the Machian philosophy from another aspect. Objectivity is so defined that religious doctrines. which undoubtedly possess a “universal significance,” acceptance, and so forth, come under the definition. But listen to Bogdanov again:

“We remind the reader once more that ‘objective’ experience is by no means the same as ‘social’ experience. . . . Social experience is far from being altogether socially organized and contains various contradictions, so that certain of its parts do not agree with others. Sprites and hobgoblins may exist in the sphere of social experience of a given people or of a given group of people-for example,  the peasantry; but they need not therefore be included under socially organized or objective experience, for they do not harmonize with the rest of collective experience and do not fit in with its organizing forms, for example, with the chain of causality.”

Of course it is very gratifying that Bogdanov himself “does not include” the social experience in respect to sprites and hobgoblins under objective experience. But this well-meant amendment in the spirit of anti-fideism by no means corrects the fundamental error of Bogdanov’s whole position. Bogdanov’s definition of objectivity and of the physical world completely falls; to the ground, since the religious doctrine has “universal significance” to a greater degree than the scientific doctrine; the greater part of mankind clings to the former doctrine to this day. Catholicism has been “socially organized, harmonized and co-ordinated” by centuries of development; it “fits in” with the “chain of causality” in the most indisputable manner. for religions did not originate without cause, it is not by accident that they retain their hold over the masses under modern conditions, and that professors of philosophy adapt themselves to them quite “lawfully.” If this undoubtedly “universally significant” and undoubtedly highly organized social and religious experience does “not harmonize” with the “experience” of science, it is because there is a fundamental difference between the two, which Bogdanov obliterated when he rejected objective truth. And however much Bogdanov tries to “correct” himself by saying that fideism, or clericalism, does not harmonize with science, the undeniable fact remains that Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth completely “harmonizes” with fideism. Contemporary fideism does not reject science; all it rejects is the “exaggerated claims” of science, to wit, its claim to objective truth. If objective truth exists (as the materialists think), if natural science, reflecting the outer world in human “experience,” is alone capable of giving us objective truth, then all fideism is absolutely refuted. But if there is no objective truth,  if truth (including scientific truth) is only an organizing form of human experience. then this in itself is an admission of the fundamental premise of clericalism, the door is thrown open for it, and a place is cleared for the “organizing forms” of religious experience.

The question arises, does this denial of objective truth belong personally to Bogdanov, who refuses to own himself a Machian, or does it follow from the fundamental teachings of Mach and Avenarius? The second is the only possible answer to the question. If only sensation exists in the world (Avenarius in 1876), if bodies are complexes of sensations (Mach, in the Analysis of Sensations), then we are obviously confronted with a philosophical subjectivism which inevitably leads to the denial of objective truth. And if sensations are called “elements” which in one connection give rise to the physical and in another to the psychical, this, as we have seen, only confuses but does not reject the fundamental point of departure of empirio-criticism. Avenarius and Mach recognize sensations as the source of our knowledge. Consequently, they adopt the standpoint of empiricism (all knowledge derives from experience) or sensationalism (all knowledge derives from sensations). But this standpoint gives rise to the difference between the fundamental philosophical trends, idealism and materialism, and does not eliminate that difference. no matter in what “new” verbal garb (“elements”) you clothe it. Both the solipsist, that is, the subjective idealist, and the materialist may regard sensations as the source of our knowledge. Both Berkeley and Diderot started from Locke. The first premise of the theory of knowledge undoubtedly is that the sole source of our knowledge is sensation. Having recognized the first premise, Mach confuses the second important premise, i.e., regarding the objective reality that is given to man in his sensations, or that forms the source of man’s sensations. Starting from sensations, one may follow the line of subjectivism, which leads to solipsism (”bodies are complexes or combinations of sensations”), or the line of objectivism, which leads to materialism (sensations are images of objects, of the external world). For the first point of view, i.e., agnosticism, or, pushed a little further, subjective idealism, there can be no objective truth. For the second point of view, i.e., materialism, the recognition of objective truth is essential. This old philosophical question of the two trends, or rather, of the two possible deductions from the premises of empiricism and sensationalism, is not solved by ‘,Mach, it is not eliminated or overcome by him, but is muddled by verbal trickery with the word “element.” and the like. Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth is an inevitable consequence of Machism as a whole, and not a deviation from it.

Engels in his Ludwig Feuerbach calls Hume and Kant philosophers “who question the possibility of any cognition (or at least of an exhaustive cognition) of the world.” Engels. therefore, lays stress on what is common both to Hume and Kant, and not on -what divides them. Engels states further that “what is decisive in the refutation of this [Humean and Kantian] view has already been said by Hegel.” In this connection it seems to me not uninteresting to note that Hegel, declaring materialism to be “a consistent system of empiricism,” wrote:

“Generally speaking. Empiricism finds the truth in the outward world; and even if it allows a super-sensible world, it holds knowledge of that world to be impossible, and would restrict us to the province of sense-perception. This doctrine when systematically carried out produces what has been latterly termed Materialism. Materialism of this stamp looks upon matter, qua matter, as the genuine objective world.” [Hegel, The Logic of Hegel (the Encyclopedia Logic) trans. W. Wallace, p. 8I.–Ed.].

All knowledge comes from experience, from sensation, from perception. That is true. But the question arises, does objective reality “belong to perception,” i.e., is it the source of perception? If you answer yes, you are a materialist. If you answer no, you are inconsistent and will inevitably arrive at subjectivism, or agnosticism, irrespective of whether you deny the knowability of the thing-in-itself, or the objectivity of time, space and causality (with Kant), or whether you do not even permit the thought of a thing-in-itself (with Hume). The inconsistency of your empiricism, of your philosophy of experience, will in that case lie in the fact that you deny the objective content of experience, the objective truth of experimental knowledge.

Those who hold to the line of Kant and Hume (Mach and Avenarius included, in so far as they are not pure Berkeleians) call us,  the materialists, “metaphysicians” because we recognize objective reality which is given us in experience, because we recognize an objective source of our sensations independent of man. We materialists follow Engels in calling the Kantians and Humeans agnostics, because they deny objective reality as the source of our sensations. Hence the denial of objective truth by the agnostic, and the tolerance-the philistine, cowardly tolerance-of the dogmas regarding sprites, hobgoblins, Catholic saints, and the like. Mach and Avenarius, pretentiously resorting to a “new” terminology, a supposedly “new” point of view, repeat, in fact, although in a confused and muddled way, the reply of the agnostic: On the one hand, bodies are complexes of sensations (pure subjectivism, pure Berkeleianism’,: on the other hand, if we rechristen our sensations “elements,” we may think of them as existing independently of our sense organs!

The Machians love to assert that they are philosophers who completely trust the evidence of our sense organs, who regard the world as actually being what it seems to us to be, full of sounds colors, etc., whereas to the materialists, the), say, the world is dead, devoid of sound and color, and in its reality different from what it seems to be, and so forth. . . . But, in fact, the Machians are subjectivists and agnostics, for they do not sufficiently trust the evidence of our sense organs and are inconsistent in their sensationalism. They do not recognize objective reality, independent of humanity, as the source of our sensations. They do not regard sensations as the true copy of this objective reality, thereby directly conflicting with natural science and throwing the door open for fideism. On the contrary, for the materialist the world is richer, livelier, more varied than it actually seems, for with each step in the development of science new aspects are discovered. For the materialist, sensations are images of the ultimate and sole objective reality, ultimate not in the sense that it has already been explored to the end, but in the sense that there is not and cannot be any other. This view irrevocably closes the door not only to every species of fideism,  but also to that professorial scholasticism which, while not regarding objective reality as the source of our sensations, “deduces” the concept of the objective by means of such artificial verbal constructions as universal significance, socially-organized, and so on and so forth, and which is unable, and frequently unwilling, to separate objective truth from belief in sprites and hobgoblins.

The Machians contemptuously shrug their shoulders at the “antiquated” views of the “dogmatists,” the materialists, who still cling to the concept matter, which supposedly has been refuted by ‘recent science” and “recent positivism.” We shall speak separately of the new theories of physics on the structure of matter.

But it is absolutely unpardonable to confound, as the Machians do,  any particular theory of the structure of matter with the epistemological category, to confound the problem of the new properties of new aspects of matter (electrons for example) with the old problem of the theory of knowledge, with the problem of  the sources of our knowledge, the existence of objective truth, etc. We are told that Mach discovered the world-elements”: red, green, hard, soft, loud, long. etc. We ask, is a man given objective reality when he sees something red or feels something, hard, etc., or not. This hoary philosophical query is confused by Mach. If you hold that it is not given, you, together with Mach, inevitably sink to subjectivism and agnosticism and deservedly fall into the embrace of the immanentists, i.e., the philosophical Menshikovs.

If you hold that it is given, a philosophical concept is needed for this objective reality, and this concept has been worked out long, long ago. This concept is matter. Matter is a philosophical category designating the objective reality which is given to man by his sensations, and which is copied, photographed and reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them. Therefore, to say that such a concept can become antiquated is childish talk, a senseless repetition of the arguments of fashionable reactionary philosophy. Could the struggle between materialism and idealism,  the struggle between the tendencies or lines of Plato and Democritus in philosophy, the struggle between religion and science, the denial of objective truth and its assertion, the struggle between the adherents of supersensible knowledge and its adversaries have become antiquated during the two thousand years of the development of philosophy?

Acceptance or rejection of the concept matter is a question of the confidence man places in the evidence of his sense organs,  a question of the source of our knowledge, a question which has been asked and debated from the very inception of philosophy, which may be disguised in a thousand different garbs by professorial clowns, but which can no more become antiquated than the question whether the source of human cognition is sight and touch, hearing and smell. To regard our sensations as images of the external world, to recognize objective truth, to hold the, materialist theory of knowledge-these are all one and the same thing.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1928), pp. 120-29.

[5]

TRUTH: RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE

Is human thought sovereign? Before we can answer yes or no we must first enquire: What is human thought? Is it the though., of the individual human being? No. But it exists only as the individual thought of many billions of past, present and future men. If then,  1 say that the total thought of all these human beings, including future ones, which is embraced in my idea, is sovereign, able to know the world as it exists, if only mankind lasts long enough and in so far as no limits are imposed on its knowledge by its perceptive organs or the objects to be known, then I am saying something which is pretty banal and, in addition, pretty barren. For the most valuable result from it would be that it should make us extremely,  distrustful of our present knowledge, inasmuch as in all probability we are but little beyond the beginning of human history, and the generations which will put us right are likely to be far more numerous than those whose knowledge we-often enough with a considerable degree of contempt-are in a position to correct….

In other words,  the sovereignty of thought is realized in a number of extremely unsovereignly thinking human beings; the knowledge which has an unconditional claim to truth is realized in a number of relative errors; neither the one nor the other can be fully realized except through an endless eternity of human existence.

Here once again we find the same contradiction as we found above, between the character of human thought, necessarily conceived as absolute, and its reality in individual human beings with their extremely limited thought. This is a contradiction which can only be solved in the infinite progression, or what is for us, at least from a practical standpoint, the endless succession, of generations of mankind. In this sense human thought is just as much sovereign as not sovereign, and its capacity for knowledge just as much unlimited as limited. It is sovereign and unlimited in its disposition, its vocation, its possibilities, and its historical goal; it is not sovereign and it is limited in its individual expression and in its realization at each particular moment.

It is just the same with eternal truths. If mankind ever reached the stage at which it could only Work with eternal truths,  with conclusions of thought which possess sovereign validity and an unconditional claim to truth, it would then have reached the point where the infinity of the intellectual world, both in its actuality and in its potentiality, had been exhausted, and this would mean that the famous miracle of the infinite series which has been counted would have been performed.

But in spite of all this, are there any truths which are so securely based that any doubt of them seems to us to amount to insanity? That twice two makes four, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, that Paris is in France, that a man who gets no food dies of hunger, and so forth- Are there then nevertheless eternal truths, final  and ultimate truths?

Certainly there are. We can divide the whole realm of knowledge in the traditional way into three great departments. The first includes all sciences which are concerned with inanimate nature and are to a greater or less degree susceptible of mathematical treatment-mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, physics, chemistry. If it gives anyone any pleasure to use mighty words for very simple things, it can be asserted that certain results obtained by these sciences are eternal truths, final and ultimate truths; for which reason these sciences are also known as the exact sciences. But very far from all their results have this validity. With the introduction of variable magnitudes and the extension of their variability to the infinitely small and infinitely large,  mathematics, in other respects so strictly moral, fell from grace; it ate of the tree of knowledge, which opened up to it a career of most colossal achievements, but at the same time a path of error. The virgin state of absolute validity and irrefutable certainty of everything mathematical was gone forever;  mathematics entered the realm of controversy, and we have reached the point where most people differentiate and integrate not because they understand what they are doing but from pure faith, because up to now it has always come out right. Things are even worse with astronomy and mechanics, and in physics and chemistry we are surrounded by hypotheses as by a swarm of bees. And it must of necessity be so. In physics we are dealing with the motion of molecules, in chemistry with the formation of molecules out of atoms, and if the interference of light waves is not a myth, we have absolutely no prospect of ever seeing these interesting objects with our own eyes. As time goes on, final and ultimate truths become remarkably Tare in this field.

We are even worse off for them in geology, which by its nature is concerned chiefly with events which took place not only in our absence but in the absence of any human being whatever. The winning of final and absolute truths in this field is therefore a very troublesome business, and the crop is extremely meager.

The second department of science is the one which covers the investigation of living organisms. In this field there is such a multitude of reciprocal relations and causalities that not only does the solution of each question give rise to a host of other questions,  but each separate problem can usually only be solved piecemeal, through a series of investigations which often requires centuries to complete; and even then the need for a systematic presentation of the interrelations makes it necessary again and again to surround the final and ultimate truths with a luxuriant growth of hypotheses. What a long series of intermediaries from Galen to Malpighi was necessary for correctly establishing such a simple matter as the circulation of the blood in mammals,  how slight is our knowledge of the origin of blood corpuscles, and how numerous are the missing links even today, for example, in our attempts to bring the symptoms of a disease into some rational relationship with its causes! And often enough discoveries, such as that of the cell, are made which compel us to revise completely all formerly established final and ultimate truths in the realm of biology, and to put whole piles of them on the scrap heap once and for all. Anyone who wants to establish really pure and immutable truths in this science will therefore have to be content with such platitudes as,  all men are mortal, all female mammals have lacteal glands, and the like; he will not even be able to assert that the higher mammals digest with their stomach and intestines and not with their heads, for the nervous activity which is centralized in the head is indispensable to digestion.

But eternal truths are in an even worse plight in the third, the historical group of sciences. The subjects investigated by these in their historical sequence and in their present forms are the conditions of human life, social relationships, forms of law and the state, with their ideal superstructure of philosophy, religion, art, etc. In organic nature we are at least dealing with a succession of phenomena which, so far as our immediate observation is concerned recur with fair regularity between very wide limits. Organic species, have on the whole remained unchanged since the time of  Aristotle. In social history, however, the repetition of conditions is the exception and not the rule, once we pass  beyond the primitive stage of man, the so-called Stone Age; and when such repetition, occur, they never arise under exactly similar conditions– as for example the existence of an original common ownership of the land among all civilized peoples, and the way in which this came to an end. In the realm of human history our knowledge is  therefore even more backward than in the realm of biology. Furthermore, when by way of exception the inner connection between the social and political forms of  existence in an epoch come to be recognized, this as a rule only occurs when these forms are already out of (late and are nearing extinction. Therefore, knowledge is here essentially relative, inasmuch as it is limited to the perception of relationships and consequences of certain social and state forms which exist only at a particular epoch and among particular people and are of their very nature transitory. Anyone therefore who sets out on this field to hunt down final and ultimate truths, truths which          are pure and absolutely immutable, will bring home but little, apart from platitude-, and commonplaces of the sorriest kind–for example, that generally speaking man cannot live except by labor: that up to the present mankind for the most part has been divided into rulers and ruled; that Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, and so on. . . .

We might have made mention above of the sciences which investigate the laws of human thought, i.e., logic and dialectics. In these, however, we do not fare any better as regards eternal truths. Herr Duhring declares that dialectics proper is pure nonsense, and the many books which have been and in the future will be written on logic provide abundant proof that also in this science final and ultimate truths are much more sparsely sown than is commonly believed.

For that matter, there is absolutely no need to be alarmed at the fact that the stage of knowledge which we have now reached is as little final as all that have preceded it. It already embraces a vast mass of facts and requires very great specialization of study on the part of anyone who wants to become an expert in any particular science. But a man who applies the measure of pure, immutable,  final and ultimate truth to knowledge which, by the very nature of its object, must either remain relative for long successions of generations and be completed only step by step, or which, as in cosmogony, geology and the history of man. must always remain defective and incomplete because of the faultiness of the historical material–such a man only proves thereby his own ignorance and perversity, even if the real background to his pretensions is not, as it is in this case, his claim to personal infallibility, Truth and error, like all concept.,, which are expressed in polar opposites. have absolute validity only in an extremely limited field, as we have just seen, and as even Herr Duhring, would realize if he had any acquaintance with the first elements of dialectics, which deal precisely with the inadequacy of all polar opposites. As soon as we apply the antithesis between truth and error outside of that narrow field which has been referred to above it becomes relative and therefore unserviceable for exact scientific modes of expression;  and if we attempt to apply it as absolutely Valid outside that field we then really find ourselves beaten; both poles of the antithesis become transformed into their opposites, truth becomes error and error truth. Let us take as an example the well-known Boyle’s law, by which, if the temperature remains constant, the volume of gases varies inversely with the pressure to which they are subjected. Regnault found that this law did not hold good in certain cases. Had he been a philosopher of reality he would have had to say: Boyle’s law is mutable, and is therefore not a pure truth, therefore it is not a truth at all, therefore it is an error. But had he done this he would have committed an error far greater than the one that was contained in Boyle’s law;  his grain of truth would have been lost sight of in a sandhill of error; he would have distorted his originally correct conclusion into an error compared with which Boyle’s law, along with the little particle of error that clings to it, would have seemed like truth. But Regnault, being a man of science, did not indulge in such childishness,  but continued his investigations and discovered that Boyle’s law is in general only approximately correct, and in particular loses its validity in the case of gases which can be liquefied by pressure, as soon as the pressure approaches the point at which liquefaction begins. Boyle’s law therefore was proved to be correct only within definite limits. But is it absolutely and finally true even within those limits? No physicist would assert that this was so. He would say that it holds good within certain limits of pressure and temperature and for certain gases-, and even within these more restricted limits he would not exclude the possibility of a still narrower limitation or altered formulation as the result of future investigations. This is how things stand with final and ultimate truths in physics for example. Really scientific works therefore as a rule avoid such dogmatic and moral expressions as error and truth, while these expressions meet us everywhere in works such as the “philosophy of reality,” in which empty phrase-mongering attempts to impose on us as the sovereign result of sovereign thought.

–ENGELS, Anti-Duhring (1878), pp. 96-103.

[6]

RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE

VERSUS RELATIV1SM

A. CONDITIONAL VERSUS UNCONDITIONAL TRUTH

From the standpoint of modem materialism, i.e., Marxism, the limits of approximation of our knowledge to the objective, absolute truth are historically conditional, but the existence of such truth is unconditional, and the fact that we are approaching nearer to it is also unconditional. The contours of the picture are historically conditional, but the fact that this picture depicts an objectively existing model is unconditional. When and under what circumstances we reached, in our knowledge of the essential nature of things, the discovery of alizarin in coal tar or the discovery of electrons in the atom is historically conditional; but that every such discovery is an advance of “absolutely objective knowledge” is unconditional. In a word, every ideology is historically conditional, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, for instance, from religious ideology’), there corresponds an objective truth, absolute nature. You will say that this distinction between relative and absolute truth is indefinite. And I shall rep]%-: Yes, it is sufficiently “indefinite” to prevent science from becoming a dogma in the bad sense of the term, from becoming something dead, frozen,  ossified: but it is at the same time sufficiently *’definite” to enable us to dissociate ourselves in the most emphatic and irrevocable manner from fideism and agnosticism, from philosophical idealism and the sophistry of the followers of Hume and Kant. Here is a boundary which you have not noticed, and not having noticed it, you have fallen into the swamp of reactionary philosophy. It is the boundary between dialectical materialism and relativism….

To make relativism the basis of the theory of knowledge is inevitably to condemn oneself either to absolute skepticism, agnosticism, and sophistry, or to subjectivism. Relativism as the basis of the theory of knowledge is not only the recognition of the relativity of our knowledge, but also a denial of any objective measure or model existing independently of humanity to which our relative knowledge approximates. From the standpoint of naked relativism one can justify any sophistry;  one may regard as “conditional” whether Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, or not: one may declare the admission, alongside of scientific ideology (”convenient” in one respect), of religious ideology (very “convenient” in another respect) a mere “convenience” for man or humanity, and so forth.

Dialectics-as Hegel in his time explained-contains an element of relativism, of negation, of skepticism, but is not reducible to relativism. The materialist dialectics of Marx and Engels certainly does contain relativism,  but is not reducible to relativism, that is, it recognizes the relativity of all our knowledge, not in the sense of the denial of objective truth, but in the sense of the historically conditional nature of the limits of the approximation of our knowledge of this truth.[†††††††††]

Bogdanov writes in italics: “Consistent Marxism does not admit such dogmatism and such static concepts” as eternal truths. This is a muddle. If the world is eternally moving and developing matter (as the Marxists think), reflected by the developing human consciousness, what is there “static” here? The point at issue is not the immutable essence of things, or an immutable consciousness, but the correspondence between the consciousness which reflects nature and the nature which is reflected by consciousness. In connection with this question, and this question alone, the term “dogmatism” has a specific, characteristic, philosophical flavor: it is a favorite word used by the idealists and the agnostics against the materialists, as we have already seen in the case of the fairly “old” materialist, Feuerbach. The objections brought  against materialism from the standpoint of the celebrated “recent positivism” are ‘just such ancient trash.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp. 134-36.

B.  RELATIVISM AND DIALECTICS

The question of the relation between relativism and dialectics plays perhaps the most important part in explaining the theoretical misadventures of ‘Machism. Take Rey, for instance, who like all European positivists has no conception whatever of Marxian dialectics. He employs the word dialectics exclusively in the sense of idealist philosophical speculation. As a result, although he feels that the new physics has gone astray on the question of relativism, he nevertheless flounders helplessly and attempts to differentiate between moderate and immoderate relativism. Of course, “immoderate relativism . . . logically, if not in practice, borders on actual skepticism,” but there is no “immoderate” relativism, you see, in Poincare. just fancy, one can, like an apothecary, weigh out a little more or a little less relativism and thus correct Machism!

As a matter of fact, the only theoretically correct formulation of the question of relativism is given in the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels, and ignorance of it is bound to lead from relativism to philosophical idealism. Incidentally, the failure to understand this fact is enough to render Mr. Berman’s absurd book, Dialectics in the Light of the Modern Theory of Knowledge, utterly valueless. Mr. Berman repeats the ancient nonsense about dialectics, which he has entirely failed to understand. We have already seen that all the Machians, at every step, reveal a similar lack of understanding of the theory of knowledge.

All the old truths of physics, including those which were regarded as firmly established and incontestable, have proven to be relative truth–hence, there can be no objective truth independent of mankind. Such is the -argument not only of the Machians, but of the “physical” idealists in general. That absolute truth results from the sum-total of relative truths in the course of their development;  that relative truths represent relatively faithful reflections of an object existing independently of man; that these reflections become more and more faithful; that every scientific truth, notwithstanding its relative nature, contains an element of absolute truth-all these propositions, which are obvious to any one who has thought over Engels’ Anti-Duhring, are for the modern” theory of knowledge a book with seven seals.

Such works as Duhem’s Theory of Physics, or Stallo’s The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics, which Mach particularly recommends, show very clearly that these “physical” idealists attach the most significance to the proof of the relativity of our knowledge, and that they are in reality vacillating between idealism and dialectical materialism. Both authors,  who belong to different periods, and who approach the question from different points of view (Duliem’s specialty is physics, in which field he has worked for twenty years: Stallo was an erstwhile orthodox Hegelian who grew ashamed of his own book on natural philosophy, written in 1848 in the old Hegelian spirit), energetically combat the atomistic-mechanical conception of nature. They point to the narrowness of this conception, to the impossibility of accepting it as the limit of our knowledge, to the petrification of many of the ideas of Writers who hold this conception. And it is indeed undeniable that the old materialism did suffer from such a defect; Engels reproached the earlier materialists for their failure to appreciate the relativity of all scientific theories, for their ignorance of dialectics, and for their exaggeration of the mechanical point of view. But Engels (unlike Stallo) was able to discard Hegelian idealism and to grasp the great and true kernel of Hegelian dialectics. Engels rejected the old metaphysical materialism for dialectical materialism, and not for relativism that sinks into subjectivism.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp. 318-20.

[7]

THE CATEGORY OF CAUSALITY

A. OUR KNOWLEDGE OF CAUSALITY

Causality: –The first thing that strikes us in considering matter in motion is the interconnection of the individual motions of separate bodies, their being determined by one another. But not only do we find that a particular motion is followed by another, we find also that we can evoke a particular motion by setting up the conditions in which it takes place in nature. indeed that we can produce motions which do not occur at all in nature (industry), at least not in this way, and that we can give these motions a predetermined direction and extent. In this way, by the activity of human beings, the idea of causality becomes established, the idea that one motion is the cause oil another. True, the regular sequence of certain natural phenomena can by itself give rise to the idea of causality–the heat and light that come with the sun;  but this affords no proof. and to that extent Hume’s skepticism was correct in saying that a regular Post hoc [after this] can never establish a propter hoc [because of this]. But the activity of human beings forms the test of causality. If we bring the sun’s rays to a focus by means of a lens and make them act like the rays of an ordinary fire, we thereby prove that the heat comes from the sun. If we bring together in a rifle the priming, the explosive charge, and the bullet and then fire it, we count upon the effect known in advance from previous experience, because we can  follow in all its details the whole process of ignition, combustion,  explosion by the sudden conversion into gas and pressure of the gas on the bullet. And here the skeptic cannot even say that because of previous experience it does not follow that it will be the same next time. For, as a matter of fact, it does sometimes happen that it is not the same, that the priming or the gunpowder fails to work, that the barrel bursts, etc. But it is precisely this which proves causality instead of refuting it,  because we can find out the              cause of each such deviation from the rule by appropriate in investigation– chemical decomposition of the priming, dampness, etc., of the gunpowder, defect in the barrel, etc., etc., so that here the test of causality is so to. say a double one.

Natural science, like philosophy, has hitherto entirely neglected the influence of men’s activity on their thought; both know only nature on the one hand and thought on the other. But it is precisely the alteration of nature by men, not solely nature as such, which is the most essential and immediate basis of human thought, and it is in the measure that man has learned to change nature that his intelligence has increased. The naturalistic conception of history,  as found, for instance, to a greater or lesser extent in Draper and other scientists, as if nature exclusively reacts on man, and natural conditions everywhere exclusively determined his historical development, is therefore one-sided and forgets that man also reacts on nature, changing it and creating new conditions of existence for himself. There is damned little left of “nature” as it was in Germany at the time when the Germanic peoples immigrated into it. The earth’s surface, climate, vegetation, fauna, and the human beings themselves have continually changed, and all this owing to human activity, while the changes of nature in Germany which have occurred in the process of time without human interference are incalculably small.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1872-1882) pp. 170-72.

[For Hegel's notion of causality and Lenin's elaboration, see Appendix II, 15.-Ed.]

B. CAUSALITY A REFLECTION OF OBJECTIVE REALITY

The question of causality is particularly important in determining the philosophical line of any new “ism,” and we must therefore dwell on it in some detail.

Let us begin with an exposition of the materialist theory of knowledge on this point. . . .

Feuerbach recognizes objective law in nature and objective causality, which are reflected only with approximate fidelity by human ideas of order, law and so forth. With Feuerbach the recognition of objective law in nature is inseparably connected with the recognition of the objective reality of the external world, of objects, bodies, things, reflected by our mind. Feuerbach’s views are consistently materialistic. All other views,  or rather, any other philosophical line on the question of causality, the denial of objective law, causality and necessity in nature, are justly regarded by Feuerbach as belonging to the fideist trend, For it is, indeed, clear that the subjectivist line on the question of causality, the deduction of the order and necessity of nature not from the external objective world, but from consciousness, reason, logic, and so forth, not only cuts human reason off from nature, not only opposes the former to the latter, but makes nature a part of reason, instead of regarding reason as a part oil nature. The subjectivist line in the question of causality is philosophical idealism (varieties of which are the theories of causality of Hume and Kant), i.e., fideism, more or less weakened and diluted. The recognition of objective law in nature and the recognition that this law 15 reflected with approximate fidelity in the mind of man is materialism.

As regards Engels. he had, if I am not mistaken, no occasion to contrast his materialist view with other trends on the particular question of causality. He had no need to do so, since he had definitely dissociated himself from all the agnostics on the more fundamental question of the objective reality of the external world in general. But to anyone who has read his philosophical works at all attentively it must be clear that Engels does not admit even the shadow of a doubt as to the existence of objective law, order, causality, and necessity in nature. We shall confine ourselves to a few examples. In the first section of Anti-Duhring Engels says: “In order to understand these details [of the general picture of the world phenomenal, we must detach them from their natural or historical connections, and examine each one separately. as to its nature, its special causes and effects, etc." (p. 27). That this natural connection, the connection between natural phenomena, exists objectively, is obvious. Engels particularly emphasizes the dialectical view of cause and effect:

"It is just the same with cause and effect;  these are conceptions which only have validity in their application to a particular case as such, but when we consider the particular case in its general connection with the world as a whole they merge and dissolve in the conception of universal action and interaction, in which causes and effects are constantly changing places, and what is now or here an effect becomes there or then a cause, and vice versa" (p. 29).

Hence, the human conception of cause and effect always somewhat simplifies the objective connection of the phenomena of nature, reflecting it only approximately, artificially isolating one or another aspect of a single world process. If we find that the laws of thought correspond with the laws of nature, says Engels, this becomes quite conceivable when we take into account that reason and consciousness are "products of the human brain and man himself a product of nature." Of course, "the products of the human brain, being in the last analysis also products of nature, do not contradict the rest of nature but are in correspondence with it" (p. 45). There is no doubt that there exists a natural, objective relation between the phenomena of the -world. Engels constantly speaks of the "laws of nature," of the "necessities of nature" (Naturnotwendigkeiten), without considering it necessary to explain the generally known propositions of materialism.

In Ludwig Feuerbach also we read that

"the general laws of motion-both of the external world and of human thought–[are] two sets of laws which are identical in substance but differ in their expression in so far as the human mind can apply them consciously, while in nature and also up to now for the most part in human history, these laws assert themselves unconsciously in the form of external necessity in the midst of an endless series of seeming accidents” (op. cit., p. 44).

And Engels reproaches the old natural philosophy for having replaced “the real but as yet unknown inter-connections” (of the phenomena of nature) by “ideal and imaginary ones” (p. 47). Engels’ recognition of objective law, causality and necessity in nature is absolutely clear, as is his emphasis on the relative character of our, i.e., man is approximate reflections of this law in various concepts. . . .

The really important epistemological question that divides the philosophical trends is not the degree of precision attained by our descriptions of causal connections,  or whether these descriptions can be expressed in exact mathematical formulae, but whether the source of our knowledge of- these connections is objective natural law or properties of our mind, its innate faculty of apprehending certain a priori truths, and so forth. This is what so irrevocably divides the materialists Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels from the agnostics (Humeans) Avenarius and Mach.

–LENIN, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1908), pp. 152-57, 159f.

[8]

MODERN SCIENCE: FROM A STATIC

TO A DYNAMIC WORLD-VIEW

The first breach in this petrified outlook on nature[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] was made not by a natural scientist but by a philosopher. In 1755 appeared Kant’s Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels [General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens]. The question of the first impulse was abolished; the earth and the whole solar system appeared as something that had come into being in the course of time. If the great majority of the natural scientists had had a little less of the repugnance to thinking that Newton expressed in the warning:  “Physics, beware of metaphysics,”  they would have been compelled from this single brilliant discovery of Kant’s to draw conclusions that would have spared them endless deviations and immeasurable amounts of time and labor wasted in false directions. For Kant’s discovery contained the point of departure for all further progress. If the earth were something that had come into being, then its present geological, geographical, and climatic state, and its plants and animals likewise, must be something that had come into being; it must have had a history not only of co-existence in space but also of succession in time. If at once further investigations had been resolutely pursued in this direction, natural science would now be considerably further advanced than it is. But what good could come of philosophy’ Kant’s work remained without immediate results, until many years later Laplace and Herschel expounded its contents and gave them a deeper foundation, thereby gradually bringing the “nebular hypothesis” into favor. Further discoveries finally brought it victory: the most important of these were:  the proper motion of the fixed stars, the demonstration of a resistant medium in universal space-, the proof furnished by spectral analysis of the chemical identity of the matter of the universe, and the existence of such glowing nebular masses as Kant had postulated.

It is, however,  permissible to doubt whether the majority of natural scientists would so soon have become conscious of the contradiction of a changing earth that bore immutable organisms, had not the dawning conception that nature does not just exist, but comes into being and posses away, derived support from another quarter. Geology arose and pointed out, not only the terrestrial strata formed one after another and deposited one upon another, but also the shells and skeletons of extinct animals and the trunks, leaves, and fruits of no longer existing plants contained in these strata. It had finally to be acknowledged that not only the earth as a whole but also its present surface and the plants and animals living on it possessed a history in time. At first the acknowledgment occurred reluctantly enough. Cuvier’s theory of the revolutions of the earth was revolutionary in phrase and reactionary in substance. in place of a single divine creation he put a whole series of repeated acts of creation, making the miracle an essential natural agent. Lyell first brought sense into geology by substituting for the sudden revolutions due to the moods of the creator the gradual effects of a slow transformation of the earth. [§§§§§§§§§]

Lyell’s theory was even more incompatible than any of its predecessors with the assumption of constant organic species. Gradual transformation of the earth’s surface and of all conditions of life led directly to gradual transformation of the organisms and their adaptation to the changing environment, to the mutability, of species. But tradition is a power not only in the Catholic Church but also in natural science. For years, Lyell himself did not see the contradiction, and his pupils still less. This is only to be explained by the division of labor that had meanwhile become dominant in natural science, which more or less restricted each person to his special sphere, there being only a few whom it did not rob of a comprehensive view.

Meanwhile physics had made mighty advances, the results of which were summed up almost simultaneously by three different persons in the year 1842, an epoch-making year for this branch of natural investigation. Mayer in Heilbronn and joule in Manchester demonstrated the transformation of heat into mechanical energy and of mechanical energy into heat. The determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat put this result beyond question. Simultaneously,  by simply working up the separate physical results already arrived at, Grove–not a natural scientist by profession, but an English lawyer–proved that all so-called physical energy, mechanical energy, heat, light, electricity magnetism, indeed even so-called chemical energy, become transformed into one another under definite conditions without an), loss of energy occurring, and so proved post factum along physical lines Descartes’ principle that the quantity of motion present in the world is constant. With that the special physical energies, the as it were immutable “species” of physics, were resolved into variously differentiated forms of the motion of matter, convertible into one another according to definite laws. The fortuitousness of the existence of a number of physical energies was abolished from science by the proof of their inter-connections and transitions. Physics, like astronomy before it, had arrived at a result that necessarily pointed to the eternal cycle of matter in motion as the ultimate reality.

The wonderfully rapid development of chemistry, since Lavoisier, and especially since Dalton, attacked the old ideas of nature from another aspect. The preparation by inorganic means of compounds that hitherto had been produced only in the living organism proved that the laws of chemistry have the same validity,  for organic as for inorganic bodies, and to a large extent bridged the gulf between inorganic and organic nature, a gulf that even Kant regarded as forever impassable.

Finally, in the sphere of biological research also the scientific journeys and expeditions that had been systematically organized since the middle of the previous century,  the more thorough exploration of the European colonies in all parts of the world by specialists living there, and further the progress of paleontology, anatomy, and physiology in general, particularly since the systematic use Of the microscope and the discovery of the cell, had accumulated so much material that the application of the comparative method became possible and at the same time indispensable. On the one hand the conditions of life of the various floras and faunas were determined by means of comparative physical geography;  on the other hand the various organisms were compared with one another according to their homologous organs, and this not only in the adult condition but at all stages of development. The more deeply and exactly this research was carried on, the more did the rigid system of an immutable, fixed organic nature crumble away at its touch. Not only did the separate species of plants and animals become more and more inextricably intermingled, but animals turned up, such as Amphioxus[**********] and Lepidosiren,[††††††††††] that made a mockery of all previous  classification, and finally organisms were encountered of which it was not possible to say whether the), belonged to the plant or animal kingdom. More and more the gaps in the paleontological record were filled up,  compelling even the most reluctant to acknowledge the striking parallelism between the evolutionary history of the organic world as a whole and that of the individual organism, the Ariadne’s thread that was to lead the way out of the labyrinth in which botany and zoology appeared to have become more and more deeply lost. It was characteristic that, almost simultaneously with Kant’s attack on the eternity of the solar system, C. F. Wolff in 1759 launched the first attack on the fixity of species and proclaimed the theory of descent. But what in his case was still only a brilliant anticipation took firm shape in the hands of Oken, Lamarck, Baer, and was victoriously carried through by Darwin in 1859, exactly a hundred years later. Almost simultaneously it was established that protoplasm and the cell. which had already been shown to be the ultimate morphological constituents of all organisms, occurred independently as the lowest forms of organic life. This not only reduced the gulf between inorganic and organic nature to a minimum but removed one of the most essential difficulties that had previously stood in the way of the theory of descent of organisms. The new conception of nature was complete in its main features-, all rigidity was dissolved, all fixity dissipated, all particularity that had been regarded as eternal became transient, the whole of nature shown as moving in eternal flux and cyclical course.

Thus we have once again returned to the point of view of the great founders of Greek philosophy, the view that the whole of nature, from the smallest element to the greatest, from grains of sand to suns, from protista[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] to men. has its existence in eternal coming into being and passing away, in ceaseless flux, in unresting motion and change, only with the essential difference that what for the Greeks was a brilliant intuition, is in our case the result of strictly scientific research in accordance with experience, and hence also it emerges in a much more definite and clear form. It is true that the empirical proof of this motion is not wholly free from gaps. but these are insignificant in comparison with what has already been firmly established, and with each year they become more and more filled up. And how could the proof in detail be otherwise than defective when one bears in mind that the most essential branches of science-trans-planetary astronomy,  chemistry, geology-have a scientific existence of barely a hundred years, and the comparative method in physiology one of barely fifty years, and that the basic form of almost all organic development, the cell, is a discovery not yet forty years old?

–ENGELS Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 9-14.

[9]

ROLE OF PRODUCTION IN THE DEVELOPMENT

OF THE SCIENCES

The successive development of the separate branches of natural science should be studied. First of all, astronomy, which, if only on account of the seasons, was absolutely indispensable for pastoral and agricultural peoples. Astronomy can only develop with the aid of mathematics. Hence this also had to be tackled. Further, at a certain stage of agriculture and in certain regions (raising of water for irrigation in Egypt), and especially with the origin of towns, big building operations, and the development of handicrafts –mechanics. This was soon needed also for navigation and war. Moreover, it requires the aid of mathematics and so promotes the latter’s development. Thus, from the very beginning the origin and development of the sciences has been determined by production.

Throughout antiquity, scientific investigation proper remained restricted to these three branches, and indeed in the form of exact, systematic research it occurs for the first time in the postclassical period (the Alexandrines, Archimedes, etc.). In physics and chemistry, which were as yet hardly separated in men’s minds (theory of the elements. absence of the idea of a chemical element), in botany, zoology , human and animal anatomy, it had only been possible until then to collect facts and arrange them as Systematically as possible. Physiology was sheer guesswork, as soon as one went beyond the most tangible things–e.g., digestion and excretion-and it could not be otherwise when even the circulation of the blood was not known. At the end of the period, chemistry makes its appearance in its primitive form of alchemy.

If, after the dark night of the Middle Ages was over, the sciences suddenly arose anew with undreamt of force, developing at a miraculous rate, once again we owe this miracle to–production. In the first place, following the Crusades, industry developed enormously and brought to light a quantity of new mechanical (weaving, clock-making, milling), chemical (dyeing, metallurgy, alcohol), and physical (lenses) facts, and this not only gave enormous material for observation. but also itself provided quite other means for experimenting than previously existed, and allowed the construction of new instruments; it can be said that really systematic experimental science had now become possible for the first time. Secondly, the whole of West and Middle Europe, including Poland, now developed in a connected fashion, even though Italy was still at the head in Virtue of its old-inherited civilization. Thirdly, geographical discoveries-made purely on behalf of gain and, therefore, in the last resort, of production opened up an infinite and hitherto inaccessible amount of material of a meteorological, zoological, botanical, and physiological (human) bearing. Fourthly, there was the printing press.[§§§§§§§§§§]

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 214f.

[10]

NATURAL SCIENTISTS AND PHILOSOPHY

A.  WHY SCIENTISTS NEED A PHILOSOPHY

Natural scientists believe that they free themselves from philosophy by ignoring it or abusing it. They cannot, however, make any headway without thou ht, and for thought they need thought determinations. But they take these categories unreflectingly from the common consciousness of so-called educated persons,  which is dominated by the relics of long obsolete philosophies, or from the little bit of philosophy compulsorily listened to at the university (which is not only fragmentary, but also a medley of views of people belonging to the most Varied and usually the worst schools), or from uncritical and unsystematic reading of philosophical writings of all kinds. Hence they are no less in bondage to philosophy, but unfortunately in most cases to the worst philosophy, and those who abuse philosophy most are slaves to precisely the worst Vulgarized relics of the worst philosophers.

–ENGELS, ibid., pp. 183 f.

B.  FROM METAPHYSICS TO POSITIVE SCIENCE

Natural scientists may adopt whatever attitude they please, they will still be under the domination of philosophy. It is only a question whether they want to be dominated by a bad. fashionable philosophy or by a form of theoretical thought which rests on acquaintance with the history of thought and its achievements.

“Physics, beware of metaphysics,” is quite right, but in a contrary sense.

Natural scientists allow philosophy to prolong a pseudoexistence by making shift with the dregs of the old metaphysics. Only when natural and historical science has adopted dialectics will all the philosophical rubbish-outside the pure theory of thought–be superfluous, disappearing in positive science.

–ENGELS, ibid., pp. 243f.

C.  NECESSITY OF DIALECTICS FOR SCIENTISTS

The dialectics of the brain is only the reflection of the forms of motion of the real world, both of nature and of history. Until the end of the last century, indeed until 1830, natural scientists could manage pretty well with the old metaphysics, because real science did not go beyond mechanics–terrestrial and cosmic. Nevertheless, confusion had already been introduced I by higher mathematics, which regards the eternal truth of lower mathematics as a superseded point of view, often asserting the contrary, and putting forward propositions which appear sheer nonsense to the lower mathematician. The rigid categories disappeared here; mathematics arrived at a field where even such simple relations as those of mere abstract quantity, bad infinity, assumed a completely dialectical form and compelled the mathematicians to become dialectical, unconsciously and against their will. There is nothing more comical than the twistings,  subterfuges, and expedients employed by the mathematicians to solve this contradiction, to reconcile higher and lower mathematics, to make clear to their understanding that what they had arrived at as an undeniable result is not sheer nonsense, and in general rationally to explain the starting point, method, and result of the mathematics of the infinite.

Now, however, everything is quite different. Chemistry, the abstract divisibility of physical things, bad infinity–atomistics. Physiology–the cell (the organic process of development, both of the individual and of species, by differentiation, the most striking test of rational dialectics), and finally the identity of the forces of nature and their mutual convertibility, which put an end to all fixity of categories. Nevertheless, the bulk of natural scientists are still held fast in the old metaphysical categories and helpless when these modern facts, which so to say prove the dialectics in nature, have to be rationally explained and brought into relation with one another. And here thinking is necessary; atoms and molecules, etc., cannot be observed under the microscope, but only by the process of thought. Compare the chemists (except for Schorlemmer, who is acquainted with Hegel) and Virchow’s cellular pathology, where in the end the helplessness has to be concealed by general phrases. Dialectics divested of mysticism becomes an absolute necessity for natural science, which has forsaken the field Where rigid categories sufficed, as it were the lower mathematics of logic, its everyday weapons. Philosophy takes its revenge posthumously on natural science for the latter having deserted it; and yet the scientists could have seen even from the successes in natural science achieved by philosophy that the latter possessed something that was superior to them in their own special sphere.

–ENGELS, ibid., pp. 153-55.

[11]

SCIENCE VERSUS METAPHYSICS

Mr. Mikhailovsky accuses Marx of not having “examined (sic!) all the known theories of the historical process.” . . . Of what did nine-tenths of these theories consist? Of purely a priori, dogmatic, abstract constructions, such as: What is society? What is progress? and so on. (I purposely take examples which are dear to the heart and mind of Mr. Mikhailovsky.) Why, these theories are useless because of the very thing to which they owe their existence, they are useless because of their basic methods, because of their utter and unrelieved metaphysics.

To begin by asking what is society and what is progress, is to begin from the very end. Whence are you to get your concept of society and progress in general when you have not studied a single social formation in particular,  when you have been unable even to establish this concept, when you have been unable even to undertake a serious factual investigation, an objective analysis of social relations of any kind? That is the most obvious earmark of metaphysics, with which every science began; as long as people were unable to make a study of the facts, they always invented a priori general, theories. which were always sterile. The metaphysical chemist who was still unable to investigate real chemical processes would invent a theory about the force of chemical affinity. The metaphysical biologist would talk about the nature of life and the vital force. The metaphysical psychologist would reason about the nature of the soul. The method itself was an absurd one. You. cannot argue about the soul without having explained the psychical processes in particular; here progress must consist in abandoning general theories and philosophical constructions about the nature of the soul, and in being able to put the study of facts which characterize any particular psychical process on a scientific footing. And therefore Mr. Mikhailovsky’s accusation is exactly as though a metaphysical psychologist,  who all his life has been writing “inquiries” into the nature of the soul (without knowing precisely the explanation of a single psychical phenomenon, even the simplest), were to accuse a scientific psychologist of not having examined all the known theories of the soul. He, the scientific psychologist, discarded all philosophical theories of the soul and set about making a direct study of the material substratum of psychical phenomena-the nervous processes–and gave, let us say, an analysis and explanation of such and such psychological processes. And our metaphysical psychologist reads this work and praises it; the description of the processes and the study of the facts, he says, are good. But he is not satisfied. Pardon me,” he exclaims excitedly, hearing people around him speak of the absolutely new conception of psychology given by this scientist, of his special method of scientific psychology:  “Pardon me,” the philosopher cries heatedly, “in what work is this method expounded? Why, this work contains only ‘facts.’ It does not even hint at an examination of ‘all the known philosophical theories of the soul.’ This is not the corresponding work by any means!”

In the same way, of course,  Capital is also not the corresponding work for a metaphysical sociologist who does not observe the sterility of a priori discussions about the nature of society and who does not understand that such methods, instead of studying and explaining only serve to foist on the concept society either the * bourgeois ideas of a British shopkeeper or the philistine socialist ideals of a Russian democrat-and nothing more. That is why all these philosophico-historical theories arose and burst like soap bubbles, being at best but a symptom of the social ideas and relations of their time, and not advancing, one iota man’s “understanding” of even a few, but real, social relations (and not such as “correspond to human nature”). The gigantic forward stride which Marx made in this respect consisted precisely in the fact that he discarded all these discussions about society and progress in general and gave a “scientific” analysis of “one” society and of “one” progress-capitalist society and capitalist progress. And Mr. Mikhailovsky condemns him for having begun from the beginning, and not from the end, for having begun with an analysis of the facts and not with final conclusions, with a study of partial, historical]v determined social relations and not with general theories about the nature of social relations in general! And he asks: Where is the corresponding work? 0, sapient subjective sociologist!

–LENIN, “What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are” (1894), Selected Works, vol,XI, pp. 423-25.

[12]

INSEPARABILITY OF INDUCTION

AND DEDUCTION

A.  FALLIBILITY OF INDUCTION

To the Pan-Inductionists.–With all the induction in the world we would never have got to the point of becoming clear about the process of induction. Only the analysis of this process could accomplish this. Induction and deduction belong together as necessarily as synthesis and analysis. Instead of one-sidedly raising one to the heavens at the cost of the other, one should seek to apply each of them in its place, and that can only be done by bearing in mind that they belong together, that each completes the other. According to the inductionists, induction would be an infallible method. It is so little so that its apparently surest results are everyday overthrown by new discoveries. Light corpuscles, caloric. were results of induction. Where are they now? Induction taught us that all vertebrates have a central nervous system differentiated into brain and spinal cord, and that the spinal cord is enclosed in cartilaginous or bony vertebrae-whence indeed the name is derived. Then Amphioxus was revealed as a vertebrate with an undifferentiated central nervous strand and without vertebrae. Induction established that fishes are those vertebrates which throughout life breathe exclusively by means of gills. Then animals come to light whose fish character is almost universally recognized, but which, besides gills, have also well-developed lungs, and it turns out that every fish carries a potential lung in the swim bladder. Only by audacious application of the theory of evolution (lid Haeckel rescue the inductionists, who were feeling quite comfortable in these contradictions. If induction were really so infallible, whence come the rapid successive revolutions in classification of the organic world? They are the most characteristic product of induction, and yet they annihilate one another.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature [1882], pp. 204f.

B.  INDUCTION AND ANALYSIS

A striking example of how little induction can claim to be the sole or even the predominant form of scientific discovery occurs in thermodynamics; the steam engine provided the most striking proof that one can impart heat and obtain mechanical motion. One hundred thousand steam engines do not prove this more than one, but only more and more forced the physicists into the necessity of providing an explanation. Sadi Carnot was the first seriously, to set about the task. But not by induction. He studied the steam engine, analyzed it, and found that in it the process which mattered does not appear in Pure form but is concealed by all sorts of subsidiary processes. He did away with these subsidiary circumstances that have no bearing on the essential process, and constructed an ideal steam engine (or gas engine),  which it is true is as little capable of being realized as, for instance, a geometrical line or surface, but in its way performs the same service as these mathematical abstractions-it presents the process in a pure, independent, and unadulterated form. And he came right up against the mechanical equivalent of heat (see the significance of his function C), which lie only failed to discover and see because he believed in caloric. Here also proof of the damage done by false theories.

–ENGELS, ibid., 213f.

C.  INDUCTION: CLASSIFICATION AND EVOLUTION

It is also characteristic of the thinking capacity of our natural scientists that Haeckel fanatically champions induction at the very moment when the results of induction–the systems of classification–are everywhere put in question (Limulus),[***********] a spider; Ascidia,[†††††††††††] a vertebrate or chordate, the Dipnoi,[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] however, being fishes, in opposition to all original definitions of amphibia.) and daily new facts are being discovered which overthrow the entire previous classification by induction. What a beautiful confirmation of Hegel’s thesis that the inductive conclusion is essentially a problematic one! Indeed,  even the whole classification of organisms has been taken away from induction owing to the theory of evolution, and referred back to “deduction,” to heredity–-one species being literally deduced from another by heredity–and it is impossible to prove the theory of evolution by induction alone, since it is quite anti-inductive. The concepts with which induction operates–species, genus, class–have been rendered fluid by the theory of evolution and so have become relative.: but one cannot use relative concepts for induction.

–ENGELS, ibid., p. 226.

[13]

THE FUNCTION OF CONCEPTS:

TO REFLECT REALITY

[You] absorb yourself to such a degree in details,  without always, as it seems to me, paying attention to the connection as a whole, that you degrade the law of value to a fiction, a necessary fiction, rather as Kant makes the existence of God a postulate of the practical reason.

The reproaches you make against the law of value apply to all concepts, regarded from the standpoint of reality. The identity of thought and being, to express myself in Hegelian fashion, everywhere coincides with your example of the circle and the polygon. Or the two of them, the concept of a thing and its reality, run side by side like two asymptotes, always approaching each other yet never meeting. This difference between- the two is the very difference which prevents the concept from being directly and immediately reality and reality from being immediately its own concept. But although a concept has the essential nature of a concept and cannot therefore prima facie directly coincide with reality,  from which it must first be abstracted, it is still something more than a fiction, unless you are going to declare all the results of thought fictions because reality has to go a long way round before it corresponds to them, and even then only corresponds to them with asymptotic approximation.

Is it any different with the general rate of profit? At each moment it only exists approximately. If it were for once realized in two undertakings down to the last dot on the i, if both resulted in exactly the same rate of profit in a given year, that would be pure accident; in reality the rates of profit vary from business to  business and from year to year according to different circumstances, and the general rate only exists as an average of many businesses and a series of years. But if we were to demand that the rate of profit–say 14.876934 . . .–should be exactly similar in every business and every year down to the 100th decimal place,  on pain of degradation to  fiction, we should be grossly misunderstanding the nature of the rate of profit and of economic laws in general–none of them has any reality except as approximation, tendency, average, and not as immediate reality. This is due partly to the fact that their action clashes with the simultaneous action of other laws, but partly to their own nature as concepts.

Or take the law of wages, the realization of the value of labor power, which is only realized as an average, and even that not always, and which varies in every locality, even in every branch, according to the customary standard of life. Or ground rent, representing a superprofit above the general rate, derived from monopoly over a force of nature. There too there is by no means a direct coincidence between real superprofit and real rent, but only an average approximation.

It is exactly the same with the law of value and the distribution of the surplus value by means of the rate of profit.

Both only attain their most complete approximate realization on the presupposition that capitalist production has been everywhere completely established, society reduced to the modern classes of landowners, capitalists (industrialists and merchants) and workers-all intermediate stages, however, having been got rid oil. This does not exist even in England and never will exist, we shall not let it get so far as that.

Did feudalism ever correspond to its concept? Founded in the kingdom of the West Franks, further developed in Normandy,  by the Norwegian conquerors, its formation continued by the French Norsemen in England and Southern Italy, it came nearest to its concept-in Jerusalem, in the kingdom of a day, which in the Assises de Jerusalem[§§§§§§§§§§§] left behind it the most classic expression of the feudal order. Was this order therefore a fiction because it only achieved a short-lived existence in full classical form in Palestine, and even that mostly only–on paper?

Or are the concepts which prevail in the natural sciences fictions because they by no means always coincide with reality? From the moment we accept the theory of evolution all our concepts of organic life correspond only approximately to reality. Otherwise there would be no change; Oil the day when concepts and reality completely coincide in the organic world development comes to an end. The concept fish includes a life in water and breathing through gills;  how are you going to get from fish to amphibian without breaking through this concept-And it has been broken through and we know a whole series of fish which have developed their air bladders further into lungs and can breathe air. How, without bringing one or both concepts into conflict with reality, are you going to get from the egg-laying reptile to the mammal, which gives birth to living young? And in reality we have in the monotremata a whole sub-class of egglaying mammals–in 1843, 1 saw the eggs of the duck-bill in Manchester and with arrogant narrow-mindedness mocked at such stupidity-as if a mammal could lay eggs–and now it has been proved! So do not behave to the conceptions of value in the way I had later to beg the duck-bill’s pardon for!

–ENGELS, Letter to Conrad Schmidt (1895), MARX and ENGELS,

Selected Correspondence, pp. 527-30.

[For the process of the coinciding of thought and reality, in Lenin's view, see Appendix 11, 24, 25, 26, 28.–Ed.]

[14]

CONCEPTS, TERMINOLOGY, AND THE

GROWTH OF SCIENCE

Every new aspect of a science involves a revolution in the technical terms of that science. This is best shown by chemistry, where the whole of the terminology is radically changed about once in 20 years, and where you will hardly find a single organic compound that has not gone through a whole series of different names. Political economy has generally been content to take, just as they were, the terms of commercial and industrial life, and to operate with them, entirely- failing to see that by so doing, it confined itself within the narrow circle of ideas expressed by those terms. Thus, though perfectly aware that both profits and rent are but sub-divisions, fragments of that unpaid part of the product which the laborer has to supply to his employer (its first appropriator, though not its ultimate exclusive owner),  yet even classical political economy never went beyond the received notions of profits and rent, never examined this unpaid part of the product (called by Marx surplus product) in its integrity as a whole, and therefore never arrived at a clear comprehension, either of its origin and nature, or of the laws that regulate the subsequent distribution of its value. Similarly all industry,  not agricultural or handicraft, is indiscriminately comprised in the term, manufacture, and thereby the distinction is obliterated between two great and essentially different periods of economic history–the period of manufacture proper, based on the division of manual labor, and the period of modern industry based on machinery. It is, however, self-evident that a theory which views modern capitalist production as a mere passing stage in the economic history of mankind, must make use of terms different from those habitual to writers who look upon that form of production as imperishable and final.

–ENGELS, Preface to 1st Eng. trans. of Capital (1886), pp. XI f.

[15]

DEFINITIONS, ABSTRACTIONS,

AND REALITY

A.   DIALECTICS AND DEFINITIONS

He [one of Marx's German critics.–Ed.] starts out from the mistaken assumption that “Marx wishes to define where he is only analyzing, or that one may look in Marx’s work at all for fixed and universally applicable definitions. It is a matter of course that When things and their mutual interrelations are conceived, not as fixed, but as changing,  that their mental images, the ideas concerning them, are likewise subject to change and transformation; that they cannot be scaled up in rigid definitions, but must be developed in the historical or logical process of their formation.

–ENGELS, Preface to Marx’s Capital, vol. lit (1894), p. 24.

B.   LIMITATIONS OF DEFINITION

Our definition of life is naturally very inadequate, inasmuch as, far from including all the phenomena of life, it has to be limited to those which are the most common and the simplest. From a scientific standpoint all definitions are of little value. In order to gain a really, exhaustive knowledge of what life is, we should have to go through all the forms in which it appears, from the lowest up to the highest. But for ordinary. usage, however, such definitions are very convenient and in places cannot well be dispensed with: moreover, they can do no harm, provided their inevitable deficiencies are not forgotten.

–ENGELS, Anti-Duhring, (1878), p. 96.

C.   ALL “LAWS” AN APPROXIMATION

Such a general rate of surplus-value–as a tendency, like all other economic laws-has been assumed by us for the sake of theoretical simplification. But in reality it is an actual premise of the capitalist mode of production, although it is more or less obstructed by practical frictions causing more or less considerable differences locally, such as the settlement laws for English farm laborers. But in theory it is the custom to assume that the laws of capitalist production evolve in their pure form. In reality, however, there is always but an approximation. Still, this approximation is so much greater to the extent that the capitalist mode of production is normally developed, and to the extent that its adulteration and amalgamation with remains of former economic conditions is outgrown.

–MARX, Capital, vol. III, p. 206.

D.   THE CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT ILLUSTRATED[************]

When we consider a given country from a Politico-economic standpoint,  we begin with its population, then analyze the latter according to its subdivisions into classes, location in city, country, or by the sea, occupation in different branches of production; then we study its exports and imports, annual production and consumption, prices of commodities, etc. It seems to be the correct procedure to commence with the real and concrete aspect of conditions as they are; in the case of political economy, to commence With population which is the basis and the author of the entire-productive activity of society. Yet, on closer consideration it proves to be wrong. Population is an abstraction, if we leave out, e.g., the classes of which it consists. These classes, again, are but an empty word, unless we know what are the elements on which they are based, such as wage labor, capital, etc. These imply, in their turn, exchange, division of labor, prices, etc. Capital, e.g.,  does not mean anything without wage labor, value, money, price, etc. if we start out, therefore, with population, we do so with a chaotic conception of the whole, and by closer analysis we will gradually arrive at simpler ideas; thus we shall proceed from the imaginary concrete to less and less complex abstractions, until we get at the simplest conception. This once attained, we might start on our return journey until we would finally come back to population, but this time not as a chaotic notion of an integral whole, but as a rich aggregate of many conceptions and relations.

–MARX, Critique of Political Economy (1859), pp. 292f.

PART FIVE

THE MATERIALIST INTERPRETATION

OF HISTORY

Mankind must first of all cat and drink,

have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue

politics, science, religion, art, etc.

‑ENGELS, “Speech at the Graveside of Karl MARX” (1883),

Selected Works, vol. I, p. 16.

Technology, discloses man’s mode of dealing, with

nature, the process o f production by which he

sustains his life, and thereby also lays bare the

mode of formation of his social relations, and of

the mental conceptions that flow from them.

–MARX, Capital (1867), vol. I, p. 367n.

Introduction

THE MATERIALIST interpretation of history, commonly known as historical materialism, is defined as the application of dialectical materialism to the study of the evolution of human societies. It affirms that, just as there are objective laws of nature, so are there objective laws of history; that consequently a science of history is possible. It holds, however, that such a science is possible provided that: (1) We acknowledge the existence of ob­jective laws in history; (2) we proceed on the basis that these laws can be discovered; (3) we attain the data necessary for the understanding of the way these laws operate, and (4) we apply  these laws in any given historical area without subjectivism or schematism.

Marxism rejects as obscurantist all notions that would reduce history to a succession of unique, unpredictable events, occasioned by the conflicting wills of men. It holds that this is a shallow ap­proach. confining itself to surface appearances. Marxism affirms that there are human wills and that the clash of these wills plays a great role in historical development. But it asks, what de­termines this clash of wills? Not to ask this question is to beg it. Hegel, indeed, had asked this question but gave an objective idealist answer which Marx finally rejected on the ground that it was mystical, nonobjective, and a priori. Marx’s search for an answer 1~d him to the conclusion that the will and the passions of men could be explained on1v by an investigation of the under­lying driving forces of social development.

These driving forces are, in the last analysis, society’s produc­tive powers and the relationship of man to  man in the process of obtaining the necessities of life. In this process contradictions arise, first of all, of an economic character. These contradictions are the basis for the class struggle which, according to Marxism, .is the real key to the understanding of the course of human history.

A concise statement of the Marxist position was given by Lenin:  “That in any given society the strivings of some of its members conflict with the striving of others, that social life is full of contradictions,  that history discloses a struggle between nations and societies as well as within nations and societies, and, in addition, an alternation of periods of revolution and reaction, peace and war, stagnation and rapid progress or decline‑are facts that are generally known. Marxism provides the clue which enables us to discover the laws governing this seeming labyrinth and chaos, namely, the theory of the class struggle. Only a study of the ensemble of strivings of all the members of a given society can lead to a scientific definition of the results of these strivings. And the source of the conflict of strivings lies in the differences, in the position and mode of life of the classes into which each society is divided.” (Teachings of Karl Marx, pp. 16 f.)

From this it follows, according to Marxism, that not only the  immediate strivings of men, but also the political and legal  institutions of society, together with the ethical, philosophical, and religious aspects of social life, can be explained funda­mentally as the expressions of a conflict between classes which in turn is ‘rooted in the contradictions that arise in the mode of production itself.

Thus historical materialism stresses the need always to distinguish between that which is primary and that which is secondary or derived, between that which seems to be and that which is determining in social life.

Thinkers before Marx had discovered the class struggle. But Marx went beyond them in asserting that the class struggle itself had its source in the very process of man’s labor activity and he held that this activity resulted historically in the transition from a communal non‑class society to societies divided into classes. He further believed that the development of the productive forces by capitalism would of necessity lead to a classless society, preceded by a transition period whose political form would be the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This section is so arranged that the reader will find here the major problems that come within the purview of historical materialism. Some of these are: The relationship of social being and social consciousness; the structure of society and the superstructure; the productive forces and the relations of production;  the role of ideology; classes and class consciousness.

The reader will, we believe, see that the formulations of Marx, Engels, and Lenin contain shadings and subtleties, and were by no means intended to supply final answers. These men rejected easy, simple solutions. In their examination of history they stressed the extreme complexity confronting those who would seriously undertake to apply the dialectical materialist method to any given area of social development. It was for this reason, for example, that Marx heaped scorn on those who used historical materialism “as an excuse for not studying history.” It was in reference to this procedure by so‑called disciples that caused Marx to exclaim, “All I know is that I am not a Marxist.”

Not included here, for want of space, are selections from the historical writing of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Marx’s “first attempt to explain a section of contemporary history with the aid of his materialist conception, on the basis of ;he given economic situation” (Engels) was his Class Struggles in France, 1848‑50. His Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) covering the same period, is a classic in the writing of contemporary history: almost as empirical as a journalist could desire and yet with the depth of the theoretical historian. His Civil War in France (1870‑71). consisting of three addresses written in the name of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International) covers the Franco‑German war and the Paris Commune in a comparable way. Marx wrote numerous articles on various aspects of the history of Spain, of India, and of Ireland. His writings on the struggles between Russia and England over control of the ‘Middle East, centering about the Crimean War, were later collected and published as The Eastern Question. His writings. together with those of Engels, brought together under the title, The Civil War in the United States, even today afford valuable insights to historians because of their analyses of the forces at work in that war.

Engels worked on sections of German history,  as represented by his The Peasant War in German (1850), a study of the class struggles of the Reformation period, and his Revolution and Counter‑Revolution in Germany (1851‑52), consisting originally of articles published in the New York Daily Tribune concerning the abortive German Revolution of 184S and its aftermath through 1852.

Lenin’s use of the basic principles of historical materialism can be seen in his The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1897). Here he employs Marxist methodology in the analysis of a vast amount of statistical and documentary data in order to explain Russian economic development and to chart its future course.

These writings still stand as exemplars of the application of historical materialism to specific historical events and as general guidelines to historians concerning what they need to look for to attain adequate explanatory depth and breadth. The reader of these works will learn how difficult it is to write what Marx and Engels thought was “scientific” history. Nothing can be left out, and at the same time focus must always be kept on the important, the dynamic, the essential and most fundamental aspects of an ever‑changing situation.

[1]

MODE OF PRODUCTION: THE

BASIS OF SOCIAL LIFE

A.   THE LAW OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

The first work undertaken for the solution of the question that troubled me, was a critical revision of Hegel’s “Philosophy of Law”; the introduction to that work appeared in the Deutsch‑Franzosischen Jahrbiicher, published in Paris in 1844. I was led by my studies to the conclusion that legal relations as well as forms of state could neither be understood by themselves,  nor explained by the so‑called general progress of the human mind, but that they are rooted in the material conditions of life, which are summed up by Hegel after the fashion of the English and French of the 18th century under the name “civil society”; the anatomy of that civil society is to be sought in political economy. The study of the latter which I had taken up in Paris, I continued at Brussels whither I emigrated on account of an order of expulsion issued by Mr. Guizot. The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached,  continued to serve as the leading thread in my studies, may be briefly summed up as follows: In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society‑the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life. It is pot the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material forces of production in society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or–what is but a legal expression for the same thing –with the property relations within which they had been at work before. From forms of development of the form of production these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution.[††††††††††††] With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of natural science,  and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic, or philosophic‑in short ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must rather be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which there is room in it, have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore, mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since., looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. In broad outlines we can designate the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal, and the modern bourgeois methods of production as so many epochs in the progress of the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production‑antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from conditions surrounding the life of individuals in society;  at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation constitutes therefore, the closing chapter of the prehistoric stage of human society.

–MARX, Critique of Political Economy (1859), pp. 10‑13,

B.   MAN’S THOUGHT CORRESPONDS TO HIS  SOCIAL RELATIONS

Economic categories are only the theoretical expressions, the abstractions of the social relations of production. . . .

M. Proudhon the economist understands very well that men make cloth, linen, or silk materials in definite relations of production. But what he has not understood is that these definite social relations are just as much produced by men as linen, flax, etc. Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam mill, society with the industrial capitalist.

The same men who establish their social relations in conformity with their material productivity, produce also principles, ideas and categories, in conformity with their social relations.

Thus these ideas, these categories, are as little eternal as the relations they express. They are historical and transitory products.

There is a continual movement of growth in productive forces, of destruction in social relations, of formation in ideas; the only immutable thing is the abstraction of movement–mors immortalis [eternal death].

–MARX, Poverty of Philosophy (1847), pp. 109f.

[2]

WHAT MARX DISCOVERED

A. THE  MATERIAL BASIS OF SOCIETY

Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature,[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history: he discovered the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an   overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat and drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, religion, art, etc., and that therefore the production of  the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, the art and even the religious ideas of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which these things must therefore be explained, instead of vice versa as had hitherto been the case.[§§§§§§§§§§§§]

–ENGELS, “Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx” (1883),

Selected Works, vol. I, p. 16.

B.  HOW A SCIENCE OF HISTORY BECAME POSSIBLE

The discovery of the materialist conception of history, or, more correctly, the consistent extension of materialism to the domain of social phenomena, obviated the two chief defects in earlier historical theories. For, in the first place,  those theories, at best, examined only the ideological motives of the historical activity of human beings without investigating the origin of these ideological motives, or grasping the objective conformity to law in the development of the system of social relationships, or discerning the roots of these social relationships in the degree of development of material production. In the second place, the earlier historical theories ignored the activities of the masses, whereas historical materialism first made it possible to study with scientific accuracy the social conditions of the life of the masses and the changes in these conditions. At best, pre‑Marxist “sociology” and historiography gave an accumulation of raw facts collected at random, and a description of separate sides of the historic process. Examining the totality of all the opposing tendencies, reducing them to precisely definable conditions. in the mode of life and the method of production of the various classes of society, discarding subjectivism and free will in the choice of various “leading” ideas or in their interpretation, showing how all the ideas and all the various tendencies, without exception, have their roots in the condition of the material forces of production, Marxism pointed the way to a comprehensive, an all‑embracing study of the rise, development, and decay of socio‑economic structures. People make their own history; but what determines their motives, that is, the motives of people in the mass; w hat gives rise to the clash of conflicting ideas and endeavors; what is the sum total of all these clashes among the whole mass of human societies; what are the objective conditions for the production of the material means of life that form ‑the basis of all the historical activity of man; what is the law of the development of these conditions‑to all these matters Marx directed attention, pointing out the way to a scientific study of history as a unified and true‑to‑law process despite its being extremely variegated and contradictory.

–LENIN, The Teachings of Karl Marx (1914), p. 16.

[3]

THE SOCIAL NATURE

OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc.–real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside down as in a camera obscura,[*************] this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life process.

In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is  not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second it is the real living individuals themselves, as they are in actual life, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness.

This method of approach is not devoid of premises. It starts out from the real premises and does not abandon them for a moment. Its premises are men, not in any fantastic isolation or abstract definition, but in their actual, empirically perceptible process of development under definite conditions. As soon as this active life process is described, history ceases to be a collection of dead facts as it is with the empiricists (themselves still abstract), or an imagined activity of imagined subjects, as with the idealists.

Where speculation ends‑in real life‑there real, positive science begins; the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take its place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of activity loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing‑up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of men. Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no means afford a recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of history.

–MARX and ENGELS, The German Ideology (1846), pp. 13‑15.

[4]

SCIENTIFIC VERSUS SPECULATIVE

HISTORY

The philosophy of history, of law, of religion, etc.,  has consisted in the substitution of an inter‑connection fabricated in the mind of the philosopher for the actual inter‑connection to be demonstrated in the events; and in the comprehension of history as a whole as well as in its separate parts, as the gradual realization of ideas‑and, indeed, naturally always the pet ideas, of the philosopher himself. According to this, history worked unconsciously but with necessity towards a certain pre‑determined, ideal goal‑as, for example, according to Hegel, towards the realization of his absolute idea‑and the unalterable trend towards this absolute idea formed the inner inter‑connection in the events of history. A new mysterious providence‑unconscious or gradually coming into consciousness‑was thus put in the place of the real, still unknown inter‑connection. Here,  therefore, just as in the realm of nature, it was necessary to do away with these fabricated, artificial inter‑connections by the discovery of the real ones; a task which ultimately amounts to the discovery of the general laws of motion which assert themselves as the ruling ones in the history of human society.

In one point, however, the history of the development of society proves to be essentially different from that of nature. In nature‑in so far as we ignore man’s reactions upon nature there are only blind unconscious agencies acting upon one another and out of whose interplay the general law comes into operation. Nothing of all that happens–whether in the innumerable apparent accidents observable upon the surface of things, or in the ultimate results which confirm the regularity underlying these accidents‑is attained as a consciously desired aim. In the history of society, on the other hand, the actors are all endowed with consciousness, are men acting with deliberation or passion, working towards definite goals; nothing happens without a conscious purpose, without an intended aim. But this distinction, important as it is for historical investigation, particularly of single epochs and events, cannot alter the fact that the course of history is governed by inner general laws. For here, also, on the whole, in spite of the consciously desired aims of all individuals, accident apparently reigns on the surface. That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realization or the means of attaining them are insufficient. Thus the conflict of innumerable individual wills and individual actions in the domain of history produces a state of affairs entirely analogous to that in the realm of unconscious nature. The ends of the actions are intended, but the results which actually follow from these actions are not intended; or when they do seem to correspond to the end intended, they ultimately have consequences quite other than those intended.

Historical events thus appear on the whole to be likewise governed by chance. But where on the surface accident holds sway, there actually it is always governed by inner, hidden laws and it is only a matter of discovering these laws.

Men make their own history, whatever its outcome may be, in that each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is precisely the resultant of these many wills operating in different directions and of their manifold effects upon the outer world that constitutes history. Thus it is also a question of what the many individuals desire The will is determined by passion or deliberation. But the levers which immediately determine passion or deliberation are of very different kinds. Partly they may be external objects, partly ideal motives, ambition, “enthusiasm for truth and justice,” personal hatred or even purely individual whims of all kinds. But, on the one hand, we have seen that the many individual wills active in history for the most part produce results quite other than those they intended–‑often quite the opposite; their motives therefore in relation to the total result are likewise of only secondary significance. On the other hand, the further question arises: What driving forces in turn stand behind these motives? What are the historical causes which transform themselves into these motives in the brains of the actors?

The old materialism never put this question to itself. Its conception of history,  in so far as it has one at all, is therefore essentially pragmatic; it judges everything according to the motives of the action; it divides men in their historical ‘activity into noble and ignoble and then finds that as a rule the noble are defrauded and the ignoble are victorious. Hence it follows for the old materialism that nothing very edifying is to be got from the study of history,  and for us that in the realm of history the old materialism becomes untrue to itself because it takes the ideal driving forces which operate there as ultimate causes, instead of investigating what is behind them, what are the driving forces of these driving forces. The inconsistency does not lie in the fact that ideal driving forces are recognized, but in the investigation not being carried further back behind these into their motive causes. On the other hand,  philosophy of history, particularly as represented by Hegel, recognizes that the ostensible and also the really operating motives of men who figure in history are by no means the ultimate causes of historical events; that behind these motives are other moving forces, which have to be discovered.

But it does not seek these forces in history itself, it imports them rather from outside, from out of philosophical ideology, into history. Hegel, for example, instead of explaining the history of ancient Greece out of its own inner inter‑connections, simply maintains that it is nothing more than the working out of “types of beautiful individuality,” the realization of a “work of art” as such. He says much in this connection about the old Greeks that is fine and profound but that does not prevent us today from refusing to be put off with such an explanation, which is a mere manner of speech.

When, therefore,  it is a question of investigating the driving forces which‑consciously or unconsciously, and indeed very often unconsciously‑lie behind the motives of men in their historical actions and which constitute the real ultimate driving forces of history, then it is not a question so much of the motives of single individuals, however eminent, as of those motives which set in motion great masses, whole peoples, and again whole classes of the people in each people; and here, too, not the transient flaring up of a straw‑fire which quickly dies down, but a lasting action resulting in a great historical transformation. To ascertain the driving causes which here in the minds of acting masses and their leaders–the so‑called great men–are reflected as conscious motives,  clearly or unclearly, directly or in ideological, even glorified form‑that is the only path which can put us on the track of the laws holding sway both in history as a whole, and at particular periods and in particular lands. Everything which sets men in motion must go through their minds, but what form it will take in the mind will depend very much upon the circumstances. The workers have by no means become reconciled to capitalist machine‑industry, even though they no longer simply break the machines to pieces as they still did in 1848 on the Rhine.

But while in all earlier periods the investigation of these driving causes of history was almost impossible‑on account of the complicated and concealed inter‑connections between them and their effects–our present period has so far simplified these interconnections that the riddle could be solved. Since the establishment of large‑scale industry, i.e.,  at least since the peace of Europe in 1815, it has been no longer a secret to any man in England that the whole political struggle there has turned on the claims to supremacy of two classes: the landed aristocracy and the middle class. In France, with the return of the Bourbons, the same fact was perceived; the historians of the Restoration period, from Thierry to Guizot, Mignet and Thiers, speak of it everywhere as the key to the understanding of all French history since the Middle Ages. And since 1830 the working class, the proletariat, has been recognized in both countries as a third competitor for power. Conditions had become so simplified that one would have had to close one’s eyes deliberately not to see in the fight of these three great classes and in the conflict of their interests the driving force of modern history‑at least in the two most advanced countries.

But how did these classes come into existence? If it was possible at first glance still to ascribe the origin of the great, formerly feudal landed property‑at least in the first instance‑to political causes, to taking possession by force, this could no longer be done in regard to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Here the origin and development of two great classes was seen to lie clearly and palpably in purely economic causes. And it was just as clear that in the struggle between landed‑property and the bourgeoisie, no less than in the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the pro­letariat, it was a question in the first instance of economic in­terests, to the furtherance of which political power was intended  to serve merely as a means. Bourgeoisie and proletariat both arose in consequence of a transformation of the economic conditions, more precisely, of the mode of production. . . .

In modern history at least it is therefore proved that all political struggles are class struggles, and all class struggles for emancipation in the last resort, despite their necessarily political form ‑for every class struggle is a political struggle‑turn ultimately on the question of economic emancipation. Therefore, here at least the state–the political order–is the subordinate, and civil society‑the realm of economic relations‑the decisive element. The traditional conception, to which Hegel, too, pays homage, saw in the state the determining element, and in civil society the element determined by it. Appearances correspond to this. As all the driving forces of the actions of any individual person must  pass through his brain, and transform themselves into motives of his will in order to set him into action, so also all the needs of civil society–no matter which class happens to be the ruling one –must pass through the will of the state in order to secure general validity in the form of laws. That is the formal aspect of the matter–the one which is self‑evident. The question arises, however, what is the content of this merely formal will–of the individual as well as of the state‑and whence is this content derived? Why is just this intended and not something else? If we enquire into this we discover that in modern history the will of the state is,  on the whole, determined by the changing needs of civil society, by the supremacy of this or that class, in the last resort, by the development of the productive forces and relations of exchange.

–ENGELS, Ludwig Feuerbach (1888), pp. 47‑53.

[5]

THREE CRITERIA FOR A

SCIENTIFIC SOCIOLOGY

Marx’s basic idea that the development of the economic formation of society is a process of natural history cuts the ground from under this childish morality which lays claim to the title of sociology.[†††††††††††††] By what method did Marx arrive at this basic idea? He arrived at it by selecting from the various spheres of social life the economic sphere, by selecting from all social relations the “production relations,” as being the basic and prime relations that determine all other relations….

This idea of materialism in sociology was in itself a piece of genius. Naturally, “for the time being” it was only an hypothesis, but it was the first hypothesis to create the possibility of a strictly scientific approach to historical and social problems. Hitherto, being unable to descend to such simple and primary relations as the relations of production, the sociologists proceeded directly to investigate and study the political and legal forms. They stumbled on the fact that these forms arise out of certain ideas held by men in the period in question‑and there they stopped. It appeared as if social ‘relations were established by man consciously. But this deduction, which was fully expressed in the idea of the [Rousseau's] Contrat Social (traces of which are very noticeable in all systems of utopian socialism), was in complete contradiction to all historical observations. Never has it been the case, nor is it the case now, that the members of society are aware of the sum‑total of the social relations in which they live as something definite, integral, as something pervaded by some   principle. On the contrary,  the mass of people adapt themselves to these relations unconsciously, and are unaware of them as specific historical social relations; so much so, in fact, that the explanation, for instance, Of the relations of exchange, under which people have lived for centuries, was discovered only in very recent times. Materialism has removed this contradiction by carrying the analysis deeper, to the very origin of these social ideas of man; and its conclusion that the course of ideas depends on the‑course of things is the only deduction compatible with scientific psychology.

Moreover, this hypothesis was the first to elevate sociology to the level of a science from yet another aspect. Hitherto, sociologists had found difficulty in distinguishing in ‑the complex network of  social phenomena which phenomena were important and which unimportant (that is the root of subjectivism in sociology) and had been unable to discover any objective criterion for such a distinction. Materialism provided an absolutely objective criterion by singling out the “relations of production” as the structure of society, and by making it possible to apply to these relations that general scientific criterion of repetition whose applicability to sociology the subjectivists denied. As long as they confined themselves to ideological social relations (i.e., such as,  before taking shape, pass through man’s consciousness‑we are, of course, referring all the time to the consciousness of “social relations” and no others) they were unable to observe repetition and order in the social phenomena of the various countries, and their science was at best only a description of these phenomena, a collection of raw material. The analysis of material social relations (i.e., such as take shape without passing through man’s consciousness;  when exchanging products men enter into relations of production without even realizing that social relations of production are involved in the act) made it at once possible to observe repetition and order and to generalize the systems of the various countries so as to arrive at the single fundamental concept: the “formation of society.” It was this generalization that alone made it possible to proceed from the description of social phenomena (and their evaluation from the standpoint of an ideal) to their strictly scientific analysis, which, let us say by way of example,  selects “what” distinguishes one capitalist country from another and investigates “what” is common to all of them.

Thirdly and finally,  another reason why this by hypothesis was the first to make a “scientific” sociology possible was that the reduction of social relations to relations of production, and the latter to the level of forces of production, provided a firm basis for the conception that the development of the formations of society is a process of natural history. And it goes without saying that without such a view there can be no social science. (For instance, the subjectivists,  although they admitted that historical phenomena conform to law, were incapable of regarding the evolution of historical phenomena as a process of natural history precisely because they confined themselves to the social ideas and aims of man and were unable to reduce these ideas and aims to material social relations.) …

Just as Darwin put an end to the view that the species of animals and plants are unconnected among themselves, fortuitous, ” created by God” and immutable,  and was the first to put biology on an absolutely scientific basis by establishing the mutability and succession of species, so Marx put an end to the view that society is a mechanical aggregation of individuals, which will tolerate any kind of modification at the will of the powers that be (or, what amounts to the same thing, at the will of society and the government) and which arises and changes in a fortuitous way, and was the first to put sociology on a scientific footing by establishing the concept of the economic formation of society as the sum‑total of the given relations of production and by establishing the fact that the development of these formations is a process of natural history.

Now–since the appearance of Capital‑the materialist conception of history is no longer a hypothesis, but a scientifically demonstrated proposition. And as long as no other attempt is made to give a scientific explanation of the functioning and development of any social formation‑social formation, and not the customs and habits of any country or people,  or even class, etc.–an attempt which would be just as capable as materialism of introducing order into the “pertinent facts” and of presenting a living picture of a given formation and at the same time of explaining it in a strictly scientific way,  until then the materialist conception of history will be synonymous with social science. Materialism is not “primarily a scientific conception of history,” as Mr. Mikhailovsky thinks, but the only scientific conception of history.

–LENIN What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are (1894), Selected Works, vol. XI, pp. 417‑22.

[6]

CLASSES AND IDEOLOGY

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; i.e. the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. In so far,  therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self‑evident that they do this in their whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age; thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.” The division of labor, which we saw above as one of the chief forces of history up till now, manifests itself also in the ruling class as the division of mental and material labor, so that inside this class one part appears as the thinkers of the class (its active,  conceptive ideologists, who make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about itself their chief source of livelihood), while the others’ attitude to these ideas and illusions is more passive and receptive, because they are in reality the active members of this class and have less time to make up illusions and ideas about themselves. Within this class this cleavage can even develop into a certain opposition and hostility between the two parts,  which, however, in the case of a practical collision, in which the class itself is endangered, automatically comes to nothing, in which case there also vanishes the semblance that the ruling ideas were not the ideas of the ruling class and had a power distinct from the power of this class. The existence of revolutionary ideas in a particular period presupposes the existence of a revolutionary class; about the premises for the latter sufficient has already been said above.

If now in considering the course of history we detach the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to them an independent existence,  if we confine ourselves to saying that these or those ideas were dominant, without bothering ourselves about the conditions of production and the producers of these ideas, if we then ignore the individuals and world conditions which are the source of the ideas, we can say, for instance, that during the time that the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts honor, loyalty, etc., were dominant, during the dominance of the bourgeoisie the concepts freedom, equality, etc. The ruling class itself on the whole imagines this to be so. This conception of history, which is common to all historians, particularly since the 18th century, will necessarily come up against the phenomenon that increasingly abstract ideas hold sway, i.e., ideas which increasingly take on the form of universality. For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it is compelled,  merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, put in an ideal form; it will give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, merely because it is opposed to a class, not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting the one ruling class. It can do this because, to start with, its interest really is more connected with the common interest of all other non‑ruling classes, because under the pressure of conditions its interest has not yet been able to develop as the particular interest of a particular class. Its victory, therefore, benefits also many individuals of the other classes which are not winning a dominant position, but only in so far as it now puts these individuals in a position to raise themselves into the ruling class. When the French bourgeoisie overthrew the power of the aristocracy, it thereby made it possible for many proletarians to raise themselves above the proletariat, but only in so far as they became bourgeois. Every new class, therefore, achieves its hegemony only on a broader basis than that of the class ruling previously, in return for which the opposition of the non‑ruling class against the new ruling class later develops all the more sharply and profoundly. Both these things determine the fact that the struggle to be waged against this new ruling class, in its turn, aims at a more decided and radical negation of the previous conditions of. society than could all previous classes which sought to rule.

This whole semblance,  that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end, of course, as soon as society ceases at last to be organized in the form of class rule, that is to say as soon as it is no longer necessary to represent a particular interest as general or “the general interest” as ruling.

–MARX and ENGELS, The German Ideology (1846), pp. 39‑41,

[7]

THE ROLE OF ECONOMIC CONDITIONS, OF

THE SUPERSTRUCTURE, AND OF CHANCE

(1) What we understand by the economic conditions which we regard as the determining basis of the history of society are the methods by which human beings in a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the products among themselves (in so far as division of labor exists). Thus the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and, further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc. Under economic conditions are  further included the geographical basis on which they operate and those remnants of earlier stages of economic development which have actually been transmitted and have survived–often only through tradition or the force of inertia; also of course the external milieu which surrounds this form of society.

If, as you say, technique largely depends on the state of science, science depends far more still on the state and the requirements of technique. If society has a technical need, that helps science forward more than ten universities. The whole of hydrostatics (Torricelli, etc.) was called forth by the necessity for regulating the mountain streams of Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries. We have only known anything reasonable about electricity since its technical applicability was discovered. But unfortunately it has become the custom in Germany to write the history of the sciences as if they had fallen from the skies.

(2) We regard economic conditions as the factor which ultimately determines historical development. But race is itself an economic factor. Here, however, two points must not be overlooked:

a)  Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artis­tic, etc., development is based on economic development. But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active while everything else only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself. The state, for instance, exercises an influence by tariffs, free trade, good or bad fiscal system; and even the deadly inanition and impotence of the German petty  bourgeois, arising from the miserable economic position of Germany from 1640 to 1830 and expressing itself at first in pietism, then in sentimentality and cringing servility to princes and nobles, was not without economic effect. It was one of the greatest hindrances to recovery and was not shaken until the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars made the chronic misery an acute one. So it is not, as people try here and there con­veniently to imagine, that the economic position produces an automatic effect. Men make their history themselves, only in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual relations already existing, among which the economic relations,  however much they may be influenced by the other political and ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding.

(b) Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined, given society. Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and appears under the forms of accident. The necessity which here asserts itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity. This is where the so‑called great men come in for treatment. That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or bad, but in the long run he will be found. That Napoleon,  just that particular Corsican, should have been the military dictator whom the French Republic, exhausted by its own war, had rendered necessary, was an accident; but that, if a Napoleon had been lacking, another would have filled the place, is proved by the fact that the man has always been found as soon as he became necessary: Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, etc. While Marx discovered the materialist conception of history,  Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, and all the English historians up to 1850 are the proof that it was being striven for, and the discovery of the same conception by Morgan proves that the time was ripe for it and that indeed it had to be discovered.

So with all the other accidents, and apparent accidents, of history. The further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the economic sphere and approaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run in a zigzag. So also you will find that the axis of this curve will approach more and more nearly parallel to the axis of the curve of economic development the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt with….

–ENGELS, Letter to Heinz Starkenburg, (1894),

MARX and ENGELS, Selected Correspondence, pp. 516‑18

[8]

THE ECONOMIC ELEMENT NOT

THE ONLY DETERMINING ONE

According to the materialist conception of history the determining element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction in real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. If therefore somebody twists this into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase. The economic situation is the basis,  but the various elements of the superstructure‑political forms of the class struggle and its consequences, constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc.–forms of law‑and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the combatants: political, legal, philosophical theories, religious ideas and their further development into systems of dogma‑also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements, in which,  amid all the endless host of accidents (i.e., of things and events whose inner connection is so remote or so impossible to prove that we regard it as absent and can neglect it),  the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history one chose would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree.

We make our own history, but in the first place under very definite presuppositions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are finally decisive. But the political, etc., ones and indeed even the traditions which haunt human minds, also play a part, although not the decisive one. The Prussian state arose and developed from historical, ultimately from economic causes. But it could scarcely be maintained without pedantry that among the many small states of North Germany, Brandenburg was specifically determined by economic necessity to become the great power embodying the economic,  linguistic and, after the reformation, also the religious differences between north and south, and not by other elements as well (above all by its entanglement with Poland, owing to the possession of Prussia, and hence with international, political relations–which were indeed also decisive in the formation of the Austrian dynastic power). Without making oneself ridiculous it would be difficult to succeed in explaining in terms of economics the existence of every small state in Germany,  past and present, or the origin of the High German consonant mutations, which the geographical wall of partition formed by the mountains from the Sudetic range to the Taunus extended to a regular division throughout Germany.

In the second place, however, history makes itself in such a way that the final result always arises from conflicts between many individual wills, of which each again has been made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life. Thus there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant‑the historical event. This again may itself be viewed as the product of a power which, taken as a whole, works unconsciously and without volition. For what each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed. Thus past history proceeds in the manner of a natural process and is also essentially subject to the same laws of movement. But from the fact that individual wills–of which each desires what he is impelled to by his physical constitution and external, in the last resort economic,  circumstances (either his own personal circumstances or those of society in general)‑do not attain what they want, but are merged into a collective mean, a common resultant, it must not be concluded that their value – 0. On the contrary, each contributes to the resultant and is to this degree involved in it.

I would ask you to study this theory further from its original sources and not at second‑hand, it is really much easier. Marx hardly wrote anything in which it did not play a part. But especially The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is a most excellent example of its application. There are also many allusions in Capital. Then I may also direct you to my writings: Herr E. Duhring’s Revolution in Science and Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, in which I have given the most detailed account of historical materialism which, so far as I know, exists.

Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that younger writers sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We had to emphasize this main principle in  opposition to our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time, the place or the opportunity to allow the other elements involved in the interaction to come into their rights. But when it was a case of presenting a section of history, that is, of a practical application, the thing was different and there no error was possible. Unfortunately, however, it happens only too often that people think they have fully understood a theory and can apply it without more ado from the moment they have mastered its main principles and those even not always correctly. And I cannot exempt many of the more recent “Marxists” from this reproach, for the most wonderful rubbish has been produced from this quarter too.

–ENGELS, Letter to Joseph Bloch (1890), MARX and ENGELS,

Selected Correspondence, pp. 475‑77.

[9]

INTERACTION OF ECONOMIC CONDITIONS,

INSTITUTIONS, AND IDEOLOGY

Society gives rise to certain common functions which it can. not dispense with. The persons selected for these functions form a new branch of the division of labor within society. This gives them particular interests, distinct too from the interests of those who gave them their office; they make themselves independent of the latter and‑the state is in being. And now the development is the same as it was with commodity trade and later with money trade; the new independent power, while having in the main to  follow the movement’ of production, also, owing to its inward independence (the relative independence originally transferred to it and gradually further developed) reacts in its turn upon the conditions and course of production. It is the interaction of two unequal forces; on one hand the economic movement, on the other the new political power, which strives for as much independence as possible, and which, having once been estab­lished, is also endowed with a movement of its own. On the whole, the economic movement gets its way, but it has also to suffer reactions from the political movement which it established and endowed with relative independence itself, from the move­ment of the state power on the one hand and of the opposition simultaneously engendered on the other. just as the movement of the industrial market is, in the main and with the reservations already indicated, reflected in the money market and, of course, in inverted form, so the struggle between the classes already existing and already in conflict with one another is reflected in the struggle between government and opposition, but also in inverted form, no longer directly but indirectly, not as a class struggle but as a fight for political principles, and so distorted that it has taken us thousands of years to get behind it again.

The reaction of the state power upon economic development can be one of three kinds: It can run in the same direction,  and then development is more rapid; it can oppose the line of development, in which case nowadays state power in every great nation will go to pieces in the long run; or it can cut off the economic development from certain paths, and impose on it certain others. This case ultimately reduces itself to one of the two previous ones. But it is obvious that in cases two and three the political power can do great damage to the economic development and result in the squandering of great masses of energy and material.

Then there is also the case of the conquest and brutal destruction of economic resources,  by which, in certain circumstances, a whole local or national economic development could formerly be ruined. Nowadays such a case usually has the opposite effect, at least among great nations; in the long run the defeated power often gains more economically, politically and morally than the victor.

It is similar with law. As soon as the new division of labor which creates professional lawyers becomes necessary, another new and independent sphere is opened up which, for all its general dependence on production and trade, still has its own capacity for reacting upon these spheres as well. In a modern state, law must not only correspond to the general economic position and be its expression, but must also be an expression which is consistent in itself, and which does not, owing to inner contradictions, look glaringly inconsistent. And in order to achieve this, the faithful reflection of economic conditions is more and more infringed upon. All the more so the more rarely it happens that a code of law is the blunt, unmitigated, unadulterated expression of the domination of a class–this in itself  would already offend the “conception of justice.” Even in the Code Napoleon the pure logical conception of justice held by the revolutionary bourgeoisie of 1792‑96 is already adulterated in many ways, and in so far as it is embodied there has daily to undergo all sorts of attenuation owing to the rising power of the proletariat. Which does not prevent the Code Napoleon from being the statute book which serves as a basis for every new code of law in every part of the world. Thus to a great extent the course of the “development of law” only consists, first, in the attempt to do away with the contradictions arising from the direct translation of economic relations into legal principles, and to establish a harmonious system of law, and,  then, in the repeated breaches made in this system by the influence and pressure of further economic development, which involves it in further contradictions (I am only speaking here of civil law for the moment).

The reflection of economic relations as legal principles is necessarily also a topsy turvy one; it happens without the person who is acting being conscious of it; the jurist imagines he is operating with a priori principles, whereas they are really only economic reflexes; so everything is upside down. And it seems to me obvious that this inversion, which, so long as it remains unrecognized, forms what we call ideological conception, reacts in its turn upon the economic basis and may, within certain limits, modify it. The basis of the law of inheritance‑assuming that the stages reached in the development of the family are equal‑is an economic one. But it would be difficult to prove, for instance, that the absolute liberty of the testator in England and the severe restrictions imposed upon him in France are only due in every detail to economic causes. Both react back, however, on the economic sphere to a very considerable extent, because they influence the division of property.

As to the realms of ideology which soar still higher in the air, religion, philosophy, etc., these have a prehistoric stock, found already in existence and taken over in the historic period, of what we should today call bunk. These various false conceptions of nature, of man’s own being, of spirits, magic forces, etc., have for the most part only a negative economic basis; but the low economic development of the prehistoric period is supplemented and also partially conditioned and even caused by the false conceptions of nature. And even though economic necessity was the main driving force of the progressive knowledge of nature and becomes ever more so, it would surely be pedantic to try and find economic causes for all this primitive nonsense. The history of science is the history of the gradual clearing away of this nonsense or of its replacement by fresh but already less absurd nonsense. The people who deal with this belong in their turn to special spheres in the division of labor and appear to themselves to be working in an independent field.

And in so far as they form an independent group within the social division of labor, in so far do their productions, including their errors, react back as an influence upon the whole develop­ment of society, even on its economic development. But all the same they themselves remain under the dominating influence of economic development. In philosophy, for instance, this can be most readily proved in the bourgeois period. Hobbes was the first modem materialist (in the  18th‑century sense) but he was an absolutist in a period when absolute monarchy was at its height throughout the whole of Europe and when the fight of absolute monarchy versus the people was beginning in England. Locke, both in religion and politics, was the child of the class compro­mise of 1688. The English deists and their more consistent suc­cessors, the French materialists, were the true philosophers of the bourgeoisie, the French even of the bourgeois revolution. The German petty bourgeois runs through German philosophy from Kant to Hegel, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively.

But the philosophy of every epoch, since it is a definite sphere in the division of labor, has as its presupposition certain definite intellectual material handed down to it by its predecessors, from which it takes its start. And that is why economically backward countries can still play first fiddle in philosophy: France in the 18th century compared with England, on whose philosophy the French based themselves, and later Germany in comparison with both. But the philosophy both of France and Germany and the general blossoming of literature at that time were also the result of a rising economic development. I consider the ultimate su­premacy of economic development established in these spheres too,  but it comes to pass within conditions imposed by the par­ticular sphere itself: In philosophy, for instance, through the operation of economic influences (which again generally only act under political, etc., disguises) upon the existing philosophic material handed down by predecessors. Here economy creates nothing absolutely new (a novo), but it determines the way in which the existing material of thought is altered and further developed, and that too for the most part indirectly, for it is the political. legal, and moral reflexes which exercise the greatest direct influence upon philosophy.

About religion I have said the most necessary things in the last section on Feuerbach.[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡]

If therefore Barth supposes that we deny any and every reaction of the political, etc., reflexes of the economic movement upon the movement itself, he is simply tilting at windmills. He has only got to look at Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire, which deals almost exclusively with the particular part played by political struggles and events; of course, within their general dependence upon economic conditions. Or Capital, the section on the working day, for instance, where legislation, which is surely a political act, has such a trenchant effect. Or the section on the history of the bourgeoisie (Chapter XXIV). Or why do we fight for the political dictatorship of the proletariat if political power is economically impotent? Force (that is, state power) is also an economic power.

But I have no time to criticize the book now. I must first get Vol. III [of Marx's, Capital‑Ed.) out and besides I think too that Bernstein, for instance, could deal with it quite effectively.

What these gentlemen all lack is dialectic. They never see anything but here cause and there effect. That this is a hollow abstraction,  that such metaphysical polar opposites only exist in the real world during crises, while the whole vast process proceeds in the form of interaction (though of very unequal forces, the economic movement being by far the strongest, most elemental and most decisive) and that here everything is relative and nothing is absolute‑this they never begin to see. Hegel has never existed for them.

–ENGELS, Letter to Conrad Schmidt (1890), MARX and ENGELS,

Selected Correspondence, pp. 480‑84.

[10]

HOW MAN MAKES HIS OWN HISTORY: CONTRA­DICTION

BETWEEN HIS AIMS AND RESULTS

The specialization of the hand–this implies the tool, and the tool implies specific human activity, the transforming reaction of man on nature, production. Animals in the narrower sense also have tools, but only as limbs of their bodies‑the ant, the bee, the beaver; animals also produce, but their productive effect on surrounding nature in relation to the latter amounts to nothing at all. Man alone has succeeded in impressing his stamp on nature,  not only by shifting the plant and animal world from one place to another, but also by so altering the aspect and climate of his dwelling place, and even the plants and animals themselves, that the consequences of his activity can disappear only with the general extinction of the terrestrial globe. And he has accomplished this primarily and essentially by means of the hand. Even the steam engine, so far his most powerful tool for the transformation of nature, depends, because it is a tool, in the last resort on the hand. But step by step with the development of the hand went that of the brain; first of all consciousness of the conditions for separate practically useful actions, and later, among the more favored peoples arid arising from the preceding, insight into the natural laws governing them. And with the rapidly growing knowledge of the  laws of nature the means for reacting on nature also grew; the hand alone would never have achieved the steam engine if the brain of man had not attained a correlative development with it, and parallel to it, and partly owing to it.

With men we enter history. Animals also have a history, that of their derivation and gradual evolution to their present position. This history, however, is made for them, and in so far as they themselves take part in it, this occurs without their knowledge or desire. On the other hand,  the more that human beings become removed from animals in the narrower sense of the word, the more they make their own history consciously, the less becomes the influence of unforeseen effects and uncontrolled forces on this history, and the more accurately does the historical result correspond to the aim laid down in advance. If, however,  we apply this measure to human history, to that of even the most developed peoples of the present day, we find that there still exists here a colossal disproportion between the proposed aims and the results arrived at, that unforeseen effects predominate, and that the uncontrolled forces are far more powerful than those set into motion according to plan. And this cannot be otherwise as long as the most essential historical activity of men,  the one which has raised them from bestiality to humanity and which forms the material foundation of all their other activities, namely the production of their requirements of life, that is today social production, is above all subject to the interplay of unintended effects from uncontrolled forces and achieves its desired end only by way of exception and, much more frequently, the exact opposite. In the most advanced industrial countries we have subdued the forces of nature and pressed them into the service of mankind; we have thereby infinitely multiplied production, so that a child now produces more than 100 adults previously did. And what is the result? Increasing overwork, and increasing misery of the masses, and every ten years a great collapse. Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind, and especially on his countrymen, when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. Only conscious organization of social production,  in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species. Historical evolution makes such an organization daily more indispensable, but also with every day more possible. From it will date a new epoch of history, in which mankind itself, and with mankind all branches of its activity, and especially natural science, will experience an advance that will put everything preceding it in the deepest shade.

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 17‑20.

[11]

HISTORY AND IDEOLOGY

A.  THREE WAYS OF MAKING SPECULATIVE HISTORY

Once the ruling ideas have been separated from the ruling individuals and,  above all, from the relationships which result from a given stage of the mode of production, and in this way the conclusion has been reached that history is always under the sway of ideas, it is very easy to abstract from these various ideas  “the idea,” “die Idee,” etc., as the dominant force in history,  and thus to understand all these separate ideas and concepts as “forms of self‑determination” on the part of the concept developing in history. It follows then naturally, too, that all the ‑relationships of men can be derived from the concept of man, man as conceived, the essence of man, Man. This has been done by the speculative philosophers. Hegel himself confesses at the end of The Philosophy of History that he “has considered the progress of the concept only” and has represented in history “the true theodicy.” Now one can go back again to the “producers of the concept,” to the theoreticians, ideologists and philosophers, and one comes then to the conclusion that the philosophers, the thinkers as such, have at all times been dominant in history, a conclusion, as we see, already expressed by Hegel. The whole trick of proving the hegemony of the spirit in history (hierarchy, Stirner calls it) is thus confined to the following three tricks.

1. One must separate the ideas of those ruling for empirical reasons, under empirical conditions and as empirical individuals, from these actual rulers, and thus recognize the rule of ideas or illusions in history.

2. One must bring an order into this rule of ideas,  prove a mystical connection among the successive ruling ideas, which is managed by understanding them as “acts of self‑determination on the part of the concept” (this is possible because by virtue of their empirical basis these ideas are really connected with one another and because, conceived as mere ideas, they become self-distinctions, distinctions made by thought).

3. To remove the mystical appearance of this “self‑determining concept” it is changed into a person‑”self‑consciousness”–or,  to appear thoroughly materialistic, into a series of persons, who represent the “concept” in history, into the “thinkers,” the ‘philosophers,” the ideologists, who again are understood as the manufacturers of history, as “the council of guardians,” as the rulers. Thus the whole body of materialistic elements has been removed from history and now full rein can be given to the speculative steed.

Whilst in ordinary life every shopkeeper is very well able to distinguish between what somebody professes to be and what he really is, our historians have not yet won even this trivial insight. They take every epoch at its word and believe that everything it says and imagines about itself is true.

This historical method which reigned in Germany (and especially the reason why),  must be understood from its connection with the illusion of ideologists in general, e.g. the illusions of the jurists, politicians (of the practical statesmen among them, too), from the dogmatic dreamings and distortions of these fellows; this illusion is explained perfectly easily from their practical position in life, their job, and the division of labor.

–MARX AND ENGELS, The German Ideology (1846), pp. 42f.

B.  THE NATURE OF IDEOLOGY

Ideology is a process accomplished by the so‑called thinker consciously, indeed, but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him remain unknown to him, otherwise it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence he imagines false or apparent motives. Because it is a process of thought he derives both its form and its content from pure thought, either his own or that of his predecessors. He works with mere thought material which he accepts without  examination as the product of thought, he does not investigate further for a more remote process independent of thought; indeed its origin seems obvious to him, because as all action is produced through the medium of thought it also appears to him to be ultimately based upon thought. The ideologist who deals with history (history is here simply meant to comprise all the spheres– political, juridical, philosophical, theological‑belonging to society and not only to  nature), the ideologist dealing with history then, possesses in every sphere of science material which has formed itself inde­pendently out of the thought of previous generations and has gone through an independent series of developments in the brains of these successive generations. True,  external facts belonging to its own or other spheres may have exercised a codetermining influence on this development, but the tacit presupposition is that these facts themselves are also only the fruits of a process of thought, and so we still remain within that realm of pure thought which has successfully digested the hardest facts.

It is above all this appearance of an independent history of state constitutions. of systems of law. of ideological conceptions in every separate domain, which dazzles most people. If Luther and Calvin “overcome” the official Catholic religion,  or Hegel “overcomes” Fichte and Kant, or if the constitutional Montesquie is indirectly “overcome” by Rousseau with his “Social Contract,” each of these events remains within the sphere of theology, philosophy or political science, represents a stage in the history of these particular spheres of thought and never passes outside the sphere of thought. And since the bourgeois illusion of the eternity and the finality of capitalist production has been added as well,  even the victory of the physiocrats and Adam Smith over the mercantilists is accounted as a sheer victory of thought; not as the reflection in thought of changed economic facts but as the finally achieved correct understanding of actual conditions subsisting always and‑ everywhere–in fact if Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus had introduced free trade instead of getting mixed up in the crusades we should have been spared 500 years of misery and stupidity.

This side of the matter, which I can only indicate here, we have all, I think, neglected more than it deserves, It is the old story‑form is always neglected at first for content. As I say, I have done that too, and the mistake has always only struck me later. So I am not only far from reproaching you with this in any way, but as the older of the guilty parties I have no right to do so, on the contrary; but I would like all the same to draw lour attention to this point for the future. Hanging together with this too is the fatuous notion of the ideologists that because we deny an independent historical development to the various ideological spheres which play a part in history we also deny them any effect upon history. The basis of this is the common undialectical conception of cause and effect as rigidly opposite poles, the total disregarding of interaction; these gentlemen often almost deliberately forget that once an historic element has been brought into the world by other elements, ultimately by  economic facts, it also reacts in its turn and may react on its environment and even on its own causes.

–ENGELS, Letter to F. Mehring (1893), MARX and ENGELS,

Selected Correspondence, pp.‑ 51 If.

[12]

SOCIETY, CIVILIZATION,

AND THE STATE

The state is … by no means a power imposed on society from without; just as little is it “the reality of the moral idea,” “the image and the reality of reason,” as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a particular stage of development; it is the admission that this society has involved itself in insoluble self‑contradiction and is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise. But in order that these antagonisms,  classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the grounds of “order”; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state….

As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check,  but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slaveowners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage‑labor by capital. Exceptional periods, however, occur when the warring classes are so nearly equal in forces that the state power, as apparent mediator, acquires for the moment a certain independence in relation to both. This applies to the absolute monarchy of the 17th and 18th centuries, which balances the nobility and the bourgeoisie against one another; and to the Bonapartism of the First and particularly of the Second French Empire, which played off the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. . . .

The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies which have managed without it, which had no notion of the state or state power. At a definite stage of economic development, which necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity because of .this cleavage. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong‑into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax….

The binding force of civilized society is the state, which in all the typical periods is exclusively the state of the ruling class, and in all cases essentially a machine for keeping down the oppressed and exploited class. Other marks of civilization are:  on the one hand, the permanent antithesis between town and country as the basis of the entire division of social labor; on the other hand, the introduction of the bequest, by which the property holder is able to dispose of his property even after his death. This institution, which was a direct blow at the old gentile constitution, was unknown in Athens until the time of Solon; in Rome it was introduced very early, but we do not know when. Among the Germans it was introduced by the priests in order that the honest German might without hindrance bequeath his property to the Church.

With this fundamental constitution, civilization has accomplished things for which the old gentile society was totally unfitted. But it accomplished them by playing on the most sordid instincts and passions of man, and by developing them at the expense of all his other faculties. Naked greed has been the moving, spirit of civilization from the first day of its existence to the present time; wealth, more wealth and wealth again; wealth, not for society, but for this miserable individual, was its sole and determining aim. If, in the pursuit of this aim, the increasing development of science and repeated periods of the fullest blooming of art fell into its lap, it was only because without them the full realization of the attributes of wealth would have been impossible in our time.

Since the exploitation of one class by another is the basis of civilization, its whole development moves in a continuous contradiction. Every Advance in the sphere of production is at the same time a retrogression in the conditions of the oppressed class, that is, of the great majority. What is a boon for one is bane for another; the emancipation of one class always means the oppression of another class. The most striking proof of this is furnished by the introduction of machinery, the effects of which are well known today. And while among,  barbarians, as we have seen, hardly any distinction could be made between rights and duties, civilization makes the difference and contradiction between these two plain even to the dullest mind by giving one class nearly all the rights and assigning to the other class nearly all the duties.

But this is not what ought to be. What is good for the ruling class should be good for the whole. of society, with which the ruling class identifies itself. That is why the more civilization advances,  the more it is compelled to cover the evils it necessarily creates with the cloak of love, to excuse them, or to deny their existence; in short, to introduce conventional hypocrisy unknown both in previous forms of society and in the earliest stages of civilization‑that culminates in the declaration: The exploiting class exploits the oppressed class solely in the interest of the exploited class itself; and if the latter fails to recognize this, and even becomes rebellious, it thereby shows the worst ingratitude to its benefactors, the exploiters.

–ENGELS, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), pp. 155‑62.

[13]

A SUMMARY STATEMENT:

HISTORICAL

MATERIALISM THE BASIS OF

MODERN SOCIALISM

The materialist conception of history starts from the principle that production,  and with production the exchange of its products, is the basis of every social order; that in every society which has appeared in history the distribution of the products, and with it the division of society into classes or estates, is determined by what is produced and how it is produced, and how the product is exchanged. According to this conception, the ultimate causes of all social changes and  political revolutions are to be sought, not in the minds of men, in their increasing insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the mode of production and exchange; they are to be sought not in the Philosophy but in the economics of the epoch concerned. The growing realization that existing social institutions are irrational and unjust,  that reason has become nonsense and good deeds a scourge &only a sign that changes have been taking place quietly in the methods of production and forms of exchange with which the social order, adapted to previous economic conditions, is no longer in accord. This also involves that the means through which the abuses that have been revealed can be got rid of must likewise be present, in more or less developed form, in the altered conditions of productions. These means are not to be invented by the mind, but discovered by means of the mind in the existing material facts of production.

Where then, on this basis, does modem socialism stand?

The existing social order, as is now fairly generally admitted, is the creation of the present ruling class, the bourgeoisie. The mode of production peculiar to the bourgeoisie–called,  since Marx, the capitalist mode of production–was incompatible with the local privileges and privileges of birth as well as with the reciprocal personal ties of the feudal system; the bourgeoisie shattered the feudal system, and on its ruins established the bourgeois social order, the realm of free  competition, freedom of movement, equal rights for commodity owners, and all the other bourgeois glories. The capitalist mode of production could now develop freely. From the time when steam and the new toolmaking machinery had begun to transform the former manufacture into large‑scale industry, the productive forces evolved under bourgeois direction developed at a pace that was previously unknown and to an unprecedented degree. But just as manufacture,  and the handicraft industry which had been further developed under its influence, had previously come into conflict with the feudal fetters of the guilds, so large‑scale industry, as it develops more fully, comes into conflict with the barriers within which the capitalist mode of production holds it confined. The new forces of production have already outgrown the bourgeois form of using them; and this conflict between productive forces and mode  of production is not a conflict which has risen. in men’s heads, as for example the conflict between original sin and divine justice; but it exists in the facts, objectively, outside of us, independently of the will or purpose even of the men who brought it about. Modem socialism is nothing but the reflex in thought of this actual conflict, its ideal reflection in the minds first of the class which is directly suffering under it‑the working class. . . .

[The] solution can only consist in the recognition in practice of the social nature of the modern productive forces, in bringing, therefore, the mode of production, appropriation, and exchange into accord with the social character of the means of production. And this can only be brought about by society, openly and without deviation, taking possession of the productive forces which have outgrown all control other than that of society itself. Thereby the social character of the means of production and of the products–which today operates against the producers themselves,  periodically breaking through the mode of production and exchange and enforcing itself only as a blind law of nature, violently and destructively‑is quite consciously asserted by the producers, and is transformed from a cause of disorder and periodic collapse into the most powerful lever of production itself.

The forces operating in society work exactly like the forces operating in nature‑blindly, violently, destructively, so long as we do not understand them and fail to take them into account. But when once we have recognized them and understood how they work, their direction and their effects, the gradual subjection of them to our will and the use of them for the attainment of our aims depend entirely upon ourselves. And this is quite especially true of the mighty productive forces of the present day. So long as  we obstinately refuse to understand their nature and their character and the capitalist mode of production and its defenders set themselves against any such attempt‑so long do these forces operate in spite of us, against us, and so long do they control us, as we have shown in detail. But once their nature is grasped, in the hands of the producers working in association they can be transformed from demoniac masters into willing servants. It is the difference between the destructive force of electricity in the lightning of a thunderstorm and the tamed electricity of the telegraph and the arc light; the difference between a conflagration and fire in the service of man. This treatment of the productive forces of the present day,  on the basis of their real nature at last recognized by society, opens the way to the replacement of the anarchy of social production by a socially planned regulation of production in accordance with the needs both of society as a whole and of each individual. The capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then also the appropriator, will thereby be replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products based on the nature of the modem means of production themselves; on the one hand direct social appropriation as a means to the maintenance and extension of production, and on the other hand direct individual appropriation as a means to life and pleasure. . .

Since the emergence in history of the capitalist mode of production, the taking over of all means of production by society has often been dreamed of by individuals as well as by whole sects, more or less vaguely and as an ideal of the future. But it could only become possible, it could only become a historical necessity, when the material conditions for its realization had come into existence. Like every other social advance, it becomes realizable not through the perception that the existence of classes is in contradiction with justice, equality, etc., not through the mere will to abolish these classes, but through certain new economic conditions. The division of society into an exploiting and an exploited class, a ruling and an oppressed class, was the necessary outcome of the low development of production hitherto. So long as  the sum of social labor yielded a product which only slightly exceeded what was necessary for the bare existence of all; so long, therefore, as all or almost all the time of the great majority of the members of society was absorbed in labor, so long was society necessarily divided into classes. Alongside of this great majority exclusively absorbed in labor there developed a class, freed from direct productive labor, which managed the general business of society; the direction of labor, affairs of state, justice, science, art, and so forth. It is therefore the law of the division of labor which lies at the root of the division into classes. But this does not mean that this division into classes was not established by violence and robbery,  by deception and fraud, or that the ruling class, once in the saddle, has ever failed to strengthen its domination at the cost of the working class and to convert its social management into the exploitation of the masses.

But if, on these grounds, the division into classes has a certain historical justification, it has this only for a given period of time, for given social conditions, It was based on the insufficiency of production; it will be swept away by the full development of the modern productive forces. And in fact the abolition of social classes has as its presupposition a stage of historical development at which the existence not merely of some particular ruling class or other but of any ruling class at all,  that is to say, of class difference itself, has become an anachronism, is out of date. It therefore  presupposes that the development of production has reached a level at which the appropriation of means of production and of products, and with these, of political supremacy, the monopoly of education and intellectual leadership by a special class of society, has become not only superfluous but also economically, politically and intellectually a hindrance to development.

This point has now been reached. Their political and intellectual bankruptcy is hardly still a secret to the bourgeoisie themselves, and their economic bankruptcy recurs regularly every ten years. In each crisis society is smothered under the weight of its own productive forces and products of which it can make no use, and stands helpless in face of the absurd contradiction that the producers have nothing to consume because there are no consumers. The expanding force of the means of production bursts asunder the bonds imposed upon them by the capitalist mode of production. Their release from these bonds is the sole condition necessary for an unbroken and constantly more rapidly progressing development of the productive forces, and therewith of a practically limitless growth of production itself. Nor is this all. The appropriation by society of the means of production puts an end not only to the artificial restraints on production which exist today, but also to the positive waste and destruction of productive forces and products which is now the inevitable accompaniment of production and reaches its zenith in crises. Further, it sets free for society as a whole a mass of means of production and products by putting an end to the senseless luxury and extravagance of the present ruling class and its political representatives. The possibility of securing for every member of society,  through social production, an existence which is not only fully sufficient from a material standpoint and becoming richer from day to day, but also guarantees to them the completely unrestricted development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties–this possibility now exists for the first time, but it does exist.

The seizure of the means of production by society puts an end to commodity production, and therewith to the domination of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by conscious organization on a planned basis. The struggle for individual existence comes to an end. And at this point, in a certain sense, man finally cuts himself off from the animal world, leaves the conditions of animal existence behind him and enters conditions which are really human. The conditions of existence forming man’s environment,  which up to now have dominated man, at this point pass under the domination and control of man, who now for the first time becomes the real conscious master of nature, because and in so far as he has become master of his own social organization. The laws of his own social activity, which have hitherto confronted him as external, dominating laws of nature, will then be applied by man with complete understanding, and hence will be dominated by man. Men’s own social organization which has hitherto stood in opposition to them as if arbitrarily decreed by nature and history, will then become the voluntary act of men themselves. The objective, external forces which have hitherto dominated history, will then pass under the control of men themselves. It is only from this point that men, with full consciousness, will fashion their own history; it is only from this point that the social causes set in motion by men will have, predominantly and in constantly increasing measure, the effects willed by men. It is humanity’s leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.

To carry through this world‑emancipating act is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. And it is the task of scientific socialism,  the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, to establish the historical conditions and, with these, the nature of this act, and thus to bring to the consciousness of the now oppressed class the conditions and nature of the act which it is its destiny to accomplish.

–ENGELS, Anti‑Duhring (1878), pp. 292f; 305‑10.

PART SIX

RELIGION

All religion . . . is nothing but the fantastic

reflection in men’s minds of those forces which control their daily life.

–ENGELS, Anti‑Duhring (1878), p. 344.

Introduction

FEW ASPECTS of Marxist thought have been more consistently misunderstood and distorted than its position on religion. It is as if Marx and Engels together, in all their lives, had said nothing more on the score than “Religion is the opium of the people,” and that Marxists ever since have confined themselves to repeating this phrase. The fact is that while Marx was probably not the first to say it, others since, independently, have said the same thing. Four years after Marx wrote the involved and richly textured passage in which this phrase occurs, Charles Kingsley, a Canon of the Church of England, said that the Bible was used as an “opium dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being overloaded.”

The following passages reveal something of the complexity of the historical, social, and psychological levels on which Marx, Engels, and Lenin discussed religion. They had a certain sympathy for the atheism of the 18th century French philosophes, combined with considerable intellectual disdain for what they called the “bourgeois atheism” of the 19th century. There is nothing coarse‑grained in their analyses. Religion is seen as a many‑faceted reflection of the real world, including deep‑seated human needs for security, consolation, and beauty. They do not want to take away from people the solace, comfort or beauty that religion brings into their lives. They do want to do away with the need for this particular form of achieving these satisfactions by abolishing the conditions that require the “illusions” religion offers.

The second leading idea found in these selections is that religious beliefs are not merely illusory; they stand in the way of man’s mastering both nature and his social relations in the interests of a better and fuller life. If religion is used by exploiting classes ‑as an “opium dose” to make working people accept their teachings and the authority of the clergy, then, ipso facto, it is inextricably intertwined with the class struggle. These passages should make it clear that the founders of Marxism did not believe they brought religion into the class struggle; they found it there. They were convinced, in fact, that the major conflicts in the history of religion were  themselves forms of the class struggle.

This approach in no way overlooks the complex role religion has played in great social struggles. They saw, for example, in the origins of Christianity the role of the mass revolts that marked the decay of the Roman world. In the rise of Islam they called attention to the internal struggles between the Bedouins and the townspeople, the liberation of the Arabian peninsula from the Abyssinians, the desire to reestablish long dormant trade routes, and the awakening of an Arabian national consciousness. Similarly, their view of the Protestant Reformation was one of a vast complex of class struggles, taking place in different ways in various countries, but summed up in the sentence: “The ineradicability of the Protestant, heresy corresponded to the invincibility of the rising bourgeoisie.” (Engels, Feuerbach, p. 57f.)

The Lenin selections further develop the dialectics of religion and the class struggle by emphasizing that although   religion may retard the struggle for socialism, the opposition to religion must always be subordinated to the long‑range interests of the proletariat. On the other hand, workers and peasants and intellectuals who are religious and believe in socialism must not be estranged because of their religious beliefs. These beliefs can themselves, in certain circumstances, become powerful revolutionary forces. Not only in the class struggle but under socialism, Lenin believed, religious freedom must be maintained.

As will be easily seen in the following materials, Marxism differs from the atheism of “metaphysical” materialism by not ascribing all evil to religion and all good to atheism. It is able to avoid this pitfall, as well as that of ascribing all that is good in the world to religion, by refusing to regard religion as existing by itself, independent of the driving forces of society and history. Marxism does not blame the Crusades on religion, nor the persecution of such Copernicans as Bruno and Galileo. Neither does it credit religion with giving us morality and the “brotherhood of man.” It regards all these things, good and bad, as natural manifestations of social forces and movements expressing themselves in religious terms because religion has been the dominant form of ideology throughout almost all recorded history. Progressive and reactionary ideas, the vested interests of a ruling class or the demands of a submerged class, equally presented themselves in men’s minds, so long as men conceived the world in spiritualist terms, in religious guise. The recognition of this important truth avoids making religion a “thing‑in‑itself.” Marxism holds that the student of religion must seek its roots,  its varied forms, and its constant changes and developments, not in the unfolding of a “divine idea,” nor in the nature of man (Feuerbach), but in the concrete conditions of life, the forces of production, and the accompanying forms of social organization, the family, the state, and so on.

Marx and Engels wrote an enormous body of material on religion, especially during the middle 1840′s when religion was a central issue among German intellectuals, with Ludwig Feuerbach’s critique of Christianity, Bruno Bauer’s studies of the origins of Christianity, and David Strauss’ Life of Jesus being discussed intensively. Frequent suggestions of this occur in Appendix I as part of the materials from their formative period. Some of the selections in this section date from the same years but are nevertheless sufficiently clear to the modem reader to stand by themselves.

[I]

RELIGION “THE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE”

The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self‑feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, the state, society. This state, this society, produce religion, a reversed world‑consciousness, because they are a reversed world. Religion is the general theory of that world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence because the human essence has no true reality. The struggle against religion is therefore mediately the fight against the other world, of which religion is the spiritual aroma.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man will wear the chain without any fantasy or consolation but so that he will shake off the chain and cull the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man to make him think and act and shape his reality like a man who has been disillusioned and has come to reason, so that he will revolve round himself and therefore round his true sun. Religion is only the illusory sun which revolves round man as long as he does n t revolve round himself.

The task of history., therefore, once the world beyond the truth has disappeared, is to establish the truth of this world. The immediate task of philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the saintly form of human self‑alienation has been unmasked, is to unmask self‑alienation in its unholy forms. Thus the criticism of heaven turns into the criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of right and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

–Marx, “Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right” (1844),

MARX and ENGELS, On Religion, pp. 41f.

[2]

THE RELIGIOUS WORLD: THE REFLEX

OF THE REAL WORLD

A.  RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT A SOCIAL PRODUCT

Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self‑alienation, the duplication of the world into a religious, imaginary world and a real one. His work consists in the dissolution of the religious world into its secular basis. He overlooks the fact that after completing this work, the chief thing still remains to be done. For the fact that the secular foundation lifts itself above itself and establishes itself in the clouds as an independent realm is only to be explained by the self‑cleavage and self‑contradictoriness of this secular basis. The latter must itself, therefore, first be understood in its contradiction and then, by the removal of the contradiction, revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, once the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be theoretically criticized and radically changed in practice.

Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human.[§§§§§§§§§§§§§] But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.

Feuerbach, who does not attempt the criticism of this real essence, is consequently compelled:

1. To abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious sentiment as something for itself and to presuppose an abstract‑isolated‑human individual.

2. The human essence, therefore, can with him be comprehended only as “genus,” as a dumb internal generality which merely naturally unites the many individuals.

Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the “religious sentiment” is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyzes belongs in reality to a particular form of society.

–MARX, “Theses on Feuerbach,” IV, VI, VII (1845). [See Appendix I for all eleven theses.]

B.  WHEN WILL RELIGION VANISH?

The religious world is but the reflex of the real world. And for a society based upon the production of commodities, in which the producers in general enter into social relations with one another by treating their products as commodities and values,  whereby they reduce their individual private labor to the standard of homogeneous human labor‑for such a society, Christianity with its cultus of abstract man, more especially in its bourgeois developments, Protestantism, Deism, etc., is the most fitting form of religion. In the ancient Asiatic and other ancient modes of production, we find that the conversion of products into commodities, and therefore the conversion of men into producers of commodities, holds a subordinate place, which, however, increases in importance as the primitive communities approach nearer and nearer to their dissolution. Trading nations, properly so called, exist in the ancient world only in its interstices, like the gods of Epicurus in the lntermundia, or like Jews in. the pores of Polish society. These ancient social organisms of production are, as compared with bourgeois society, extremely simple and transparent. But they are founded either on the immature development of man individually, who has not yet severed the umbilical cord that unites him with his fellow men in a primitive tribal community, or upon direct relations of subjection. They can arise and exist only when the development of the productive power of labor has not risen beyond a low stage, and when, therefore, the social relations within the sphere of material life, between man and man, and between man and nature, are correspondingly narrow. This narrowness is reflected in the ancient worship of nature, and in the other elements of the popular religions. The religious reflex of the teal world can,, in any case, only then finally vanish, when the practical relations of everyday life offer to man none but perfectly intelligible and reasonable relations with regard to his fellowmen and to nature.

The life process of society, which is based on the process of material production, does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. This, however, demands for society a certain material groundwork or set of conditions of existence which in their turn are the spontaneous product of a long and painful process of development.

–MARX, Capital, vol. 1 (1867), pp. 51f.

C.   THE RELIGIOUS REFLEX: FROM    NATURAL TO SOCIAL FORCES

All religion, however, is nothing but the fantastic reflection in men’s minds of those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces. In the beginnings of history it was the forces. of nature which were at first so reflected, and in the course of further evolution they underwent the most manifold and varied personifications among the various peoples. Comparative mythology has traced back this first process,  at least in the case of the Indo‑European nations, to its origin in the Indian Vedas, and has shown its detailed evolution among the Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germans and, so far as material is available, also among the Celts, Lithuanians, and Slavs. But it is not long before, side by side with the forces of nature, social forces begin to be active; forces which present themselves to man as equally extraneous and at first equally inexplicable, dominating them with the same apparent necessity, as the forces of nature themselves. The fantastic personifications, ‑which at first only reflected the mysterious forces of nature, at this point acquire social attributes. become representatives of the forces of history. At a still further stage of evolution, all the natural and social attributes of the innumerable gods are transferred to one almighty God, who himself once more is only the reflex of the abstract man. Such was the origin of monotheism, which was historically the last product of the vulgarized philosophy of the later Greeks and found its incarnation in the exclusively national god of the Jews, Jehovah. In this convenient, handy and readily adaptable form, religion can continue to exist as the immediate, that is, the sentimental form of men’s relation to the extraneous natural and social forces which dominate them, so long as men remain under the control of these forces. We have already seen, more than once, that in existing bourgeois society men are dominated by the economic conditions created by themselves, by the means of production which they themselves have produced , as if by an extraneous force. The actual basis of religious reflex action therefore continues to exist, and with it the religious reflex itself. And although bourgeois political economy has given a certain insight into the causal basis of this domination by extraneous forces, this makes no essential difference. Bourgeois economics can neither prevent crises in general, nor protect the individual capitalists from losses, bad debts and bankruptcy, nor secure the individual workers against unemployment and destitution. It is still true that man proposes and God (that is, the extraneous force of the capitalist mode of production) disposes. Mere knowledge, even if it went much further and deeper than that of bourgeois economic science, is not enough to bring social forces under the control of society. What is above all necessary for this, is a social act. And when this act has been accomplished,  when society, by taking possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis, has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are at present held by these means of production which they themselves have produced but which now confront them as an irresistible extraneous force; when therefore man no longer merely proposes, but also disposes–only then will the last extraneous force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that then there will be nothing left to reflect.[**************]

–ENGELS, Anti‑Duhring (1878), pp. 344‑46.

[3]

FEUERBACH’S IDEALIST APPROACH

TO RELIGION

The real idealism of Feuerbach becomes evident as soon as we come to his philosophy of religion and ethics.. He , by no means wishes to abolish religion; he wants to perfect it. Philosophy itself must be absorbed in religion. “The periods of humanity are distinguished only by religious changes. A historical movement is fundamental only when it is rooted in the hearts of men. The heart is not a form of religion, so that the latter should exist also in the heart; the heart is the essence of religion.”

According to Feuerbach, religion is the relation based on the affections, the relation based on the heart, between man and man, which until now has sought its truth in a fantastic reflection of reality‑in the fantastic reflection of human qualities through the medium of one or many gods. But now it finds its truth directly and without any intermediary in the love between the “I” and the “Thou.” Thus, finally, with Feuerbach sex love becomes one of the highest forms, if not the highest form, of the practice of his religion….

Feuerbach’s idealism consists here in this:  He does not simply accept mutual relations based on reciprocal inclination between human beings, such as sex love, friendship, compassion, self-sacrifice, etc., as what they are in themselves‑without associating them with any particular religion which to him, too, belongs to the past; but instead he asserts that they will come to their full realization for the first time as soon as they are consecrated by the name of religion. The chief thing for him is not that these purely human relations exist, but that they shall be conceived of as the new, true religion. They are to have full value only after they have been marked with a religious stamp. Religion is derived from religare and meant originally “a bond.” Therefore, every bond between two men is a religion. Such etymological tricks are the last resource of idealist philosophy. Not what the word has meant according to the historical development of its actual use, but what it ought to mean according to its derivation is what counts. And so sex love and the intercourse between the sexes is apotheosized to a “religion,” merely in order that the word religion, which is so dear to idealistic memories, may not disappear from the language. The Parisian reformers of the type of Louis Blanc used to speak in precisely the same way in the ‘forties. They likewise could conceive of a man without religion only as a monster, and used to say: “Donc, l’atheisme c’est votre religion!” [Well, then, atheism is your religion!] If Feuerbach wishes to establish a true religion upon the basis of an essentially materialist conception of nature, that is the same as regarding modern chemistry as true alchemy….

Feuerbach’s assertion that “the periods of human development are distinguished only by religious changes” is decidedly false. Great historical turning points have been accompanied by religious changes only so far as the *three world religions which have existed up to the present‑Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are concerned. The old primitive tribal and national religions did not proselytize and lost all their power of resistance as soon as the independence of the tribe or people was lost. For the Germans it was sufficient to have simple contact with the decaying

Roman Empire and with its newly adopted Christian world reli­gion which fitted its economic, political and ideological condi­tions. Only with these more or less artificially created world religions, particularly Christianity and Islam, do we find that general historical movements acquire a religious imprint. Even  in regard to Christianity the religious stamp in revolutions of really universal significance is restricted to the first stages of the struggle for the emancipation of the bourgeoisie‑from the 13th to the 17th centuries‑and is to be accounted for not as Feuerbach thinks by the hearts of men and their religious needs but by the entire previous history of the Middle Ages which knew no other form of ideology than religion and theology. But when the bourgeoisie of the 18th century was strengthened enough likewise to possess an ideology of its own,  suited to its own class standpoint, it made its great and conclusive revolution, the French, appealing exclusively to juristic and political ideas, and troubling itself with religion only in so far as this stood in its way. But it never occurred to it to put a new religion in place of the old. Everyone knows how Robespierre failed in his attempt.

The possibility of purely human sentiments in the intercourse with other human beings has nowadays been sufficiently curtailed by the society in which we live, which is based upon class antagonism and class rule. We have therefore no reason to curtail it still more by exalting these sentiments to a religion. And similarly the understanding of the great historical class struggles has already been sufficiently obscured by current historiography,  particularly in Germany, so that there is also no need for us to make such an understanding totally impossible by transforming the history of these struggles into a mere appendix of ecclesiastical history.

–ENGELS, Ludwig Feuerbach (1888), pp. 33‑36.

[4]

HUMANISM VERSUS PANTHEISM:

ON THOMAS CARLYLE

The English have no pantheism, instead merely skepticism; the outcome of all English philosophizing is the doubting of reason, the admitted inability to resolve the contradictions to which one is driven in the end, and as a result of this on the one hand a falling back on faith, on the other the surrender to mere practice without further bothering one’s self over metaphysics and such things. Carlyle is, therefore, quite a “phenomenon” in England with his pantheism derived from German writings: a phenomenon rather incomprehensible to the practical and skeptical English. People gaze at him, talk of “German mysticism,” of strained English; others maintain there is in the end Something behind it, his English is of course unusual but still beautiful, he is a prophet, etc.–but no one really knows what to make of it all.

For us Germans who know the presuppositions for Carlyle’s viewpoint, the matter is clear enough. Survivals of Tory romanticism, along with humanitarian views from Goethe On the one hand, and from skeptical‑empirical England on the other‑these factors are sufficient for us to deduce Carlyle’s whole view of the world. Carlyle, like all pantheists, has not yet come out beyond the inner contradiction, and Carlyle’s dualism is the worse for the fact that he knows, of course, German literature but not its necessary complement, German philosophy. So all his views are immediate, intuitive, more like Schelling than like Hegel. With Schelling‑t‑hat is the old Schelling, not the Schelling of revelation ‑Carlyle has actually a great many points of contact; with Strauss, whose viewpoint is likewise pantheistic, he coincides in the “cult of heroes” or the “cult of genius.”. . .

Carlyle bewails the emptiness and shallowness of the age, the inner corruption of all social institutions. The complaint is just, but mere bewailing gets nowhere; in order to do away With the evil, the cause of t must be discovered; and if Carlyle had done this he would have found that this emptiness and shallowness, this “lack of soul,” this irreligion and this “atheism” have their basis in religion itself. Religion is essentially the emptying of man and nature of all content, the transferring of this content  to the phantom of a distant God who then in his turn graciously allows something from his abundance to come to human beings, and to nature. So long, then, as the belief in this distant phantom is strong and living, so long does man in this roundabout way arrive at some kind of content. The strong faith of the ‘Middle Ages lent, in this way, a significant energy to the whole epoch, but this energy came not from outside but lay already in the nature of man even though still unrecognized, still undeveloped. Faith became gradually weak, religion crumbled before the rising civilization, but still man did not yet see that he had worshipped and deified his own being as a strange being. In this unconscious and at the same time unbelieving state, man can have no sub­stance; he must doubt truth, reason and nature, and this hollow­ness and lack of content, the doubting of the enduring facts of the universe will continue so long as mankind does not understand that the Being  which it has honored as God, was his own not yet understood.  Being,  until‑but what! shall I copy from Feuerbach ?

The emptiness has been there a very long time, for religion is man’s act of digging himself out; and you are amazed that now after the purple which concealed it has faded, after the haze which veiled it has died away, it now steps into daylight and frightens you?

Carlyle complains further–this is the immediate result of the foregoing–over the age of hypocrisy and falsehood. Of course, the hollowness and distress must still be veiled and held upright by draperies, decorated walls, and fishbone splints! We even understand the hypocrisy of the present world state of Christianity;  the struggle against it, our release from it and the release of the world from it are at the end of our single job; but because through the development of philosophy we have come to recognize this hypocrisy, and because we lead the struggle scientifically, the essence of this hypocrisy is no longer so strange and mysterious as it still is, at least for Carlyle. This hypocrisy we trace also back to the religion of which the first word is a falsehood–or does religion not begin by showing us something human and declaring that it is something superhuman, divine? But because  we know that all this lying and hypocrisy follows from religion, that the religious hypocrisy, theology, is the great original of all other lies and hypocrisy, we are justified in spreading the word theology over the whole falsehood and hypocrisy of the present time as was first done by Feuerbach and B. Bauer. Carlyle may read their writings if he wishes to know whence comes the immorality which taints all our relationships.

A new religion. a pantheistic hero worship, worship of labor might be founded or must be awaited! Impossible; all possibilities of religion are exhausted; after Christianity, after the absolute, that is, abstract religion, after “religion as such” no other form of religion can still arise. Carlyle himself realizes that Catholic, Protestant, or whatever other Christianity moves irresistibly toward extinction; if he knew the nature of Christianity, he would realize that after it no other religion is still possible. Not even pantheism! Pantheism is itself still‑according to its own premises‑an inseparable result of Christianity, at least the modern pantheism of Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, and even of Carlyle! The trouble of providing evidence for this has again been spared me by Feuerbach.

As I have said,  the responsibility therefore rests upon us to fight against the superficiality, the inner emptiness, the intellectual death, the untruthfulness of the age; against all these things we carry on a war of life and death, just as did Carlyle, and we have far greater probability of success than he had, because we know what we want. We want to raise up atheism as Carlyle pictures it, while we give man the substance which he has lost through religion; not as a divine but as a human content, and the whole restitution consists simply in the awakening of self‑consciousness. We wish to get everything out of the way which offers itself as supernatural and superhuman, and thereby remove untruthfulness; for the pretense of the human and natural to desire to be superhuman, supernatural, is the root of all untruth and falsehood. Therefore we have once for all declared war on religion and religious conceptions, and are quite indifferent whether they call us atheists or anything else. But if Carlyle’s pantheistic definition of atheism were correct, not we but our Christian opponents would be the true atheists. It does not occur to us to grasp the “eternal inner facts of the Universe”; on the contrary, we have for the first time truly established them while we emphasized their eternal quality and protected them from the almighty will of an essentially contradictory God. It does not occur to us to call “the world,  Man and his life, a lie”; on the contrary, our Christian opponents are guilty of this immorality, when they make the world and man dependent upon the favor of a God who actually was produced only as man saw himself reflected in the desert of his own undeveloped consciousness. It does not occur to us to doubt or to despise the “revelation of history”;  history is our one and all and is more highly regarded by us than by any other, earlier, philosophical school, more highly even than by Hegel to whom in the end it was to serve only as the test of his logical mathematical problems. The scorn of history,  the disregard for the development of mankind is entirely on the other side; it is rather the Christians who with the setting forth of a separate “history of the kingdom of God” deny all inner significance to actual history and appropriate this significance only for their partisan, abstract and even also fictional history which, by the perfecting of the human race in their Christ, has history reaching an imaginary goal, breaking it off in the midst of its course, and now compelled as a result to picture the following 1800 years as barren folly and sheer emptiness. We reclaim the content of history; but we see in history not the revelation of “God,” but of man and only of man.

In order to see the grandeur of the human being, to recognize the development of the race in history,  its ceaseless progress, its always certain victory over the unreason of the individual, its conquest of all that is apparently superhuman*, its difficult but successful struggle with nature, even to the final achievement of the free human self‑consciousness, with insight into the unity of man with nature and the free spontaneous creation of a new world based on purely humane and moral conditions of living‑we have no need, in order to recognize all this in its greatness, to summon first the abstraction of a “God” and ascribe to it all that is beautiful,, great, sublime, and truly human; we do not need this by‑path, we need not first set the stamp of “divine” on that which is truly human in order to be assured of its greatness and splendor. On the contrary, the more “divine,” the more unhuman something is, the less shall we be able to wonder at it. Only the human origin of the content of all religions preserves for them here and there still some claim to respect;  only the consciousness that even the wildest superstition contains a t bottom the eternal decisions of the human race, even if in so twisted and distorted a form, only this consciousness saves the history of religion, and especially of the Middle Ages from complete rejection and eternal oblivion which would otherwise certainly be the fate of these “godly” stories. The more “godfly,” the more unhuman, the more animal, and the “godly” Middle Ages certainly produced the perfection of human bestiality, bondage, jus primae noctis [right of the first night], etc. The godlessness of our age, of which Carlyle complains so much, is actually its godfullness. From this it becomes also clear why 1 have given the human being as the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx. The question has always been, hitherto, What is God‑, and German philosophy has solved the question thus: God is Alan. Alan has only to know himself, to measure all conditions of life against himself, to judge according to his being, to arrange the world in a truly human way according to the needs of his nature‑then he has solved the riddle of our time. Not in distant regions that do not exist; not out beyond time and space; not through a “God” immanent in the world or set over against it is truth to be found, but much nearer, in the human being’s own breast. The human being’s own nature is much more glorious and sublime than the imaginary nature of all possible “Gods,” which are after all only the more or less unclear and distorted image of the human being himself. So if Carlyle (after Ben Jonson) says man has lost his soul and now begins to notice t e lack of it,  the correct statement for this would be: Man has in religion lost his own existence, he has renounced his humanity, and now is aware (since through the progress of history religion has begun to totter) of its emptiness and lack of content. But there is no other salvation for him, he can once more win his humanity, his essence only through a basic overcoming of all religious assumptions and a decisive, honest return not to “God,” but to himself.

All this is to be found also in Goethe, the “prophet,” and he who has open eyes can read it there. Goethe did not like to have anything to do with “God”; the word made him uncomfortable, he felt himself at home in that which is human, and this humanity, this emancipation of art from the chains of religion, constitutes exactly Goethe’s greatness. Neither the Ancients, nor Shakespeare can compare with him in this respect. But this complete humanity,  this surmounting of religious dualism can be grasped in its full historic significance only by one to whom the other side of the German national development‑philosophy is not alien. What Goethe was able for the first time to express directly, in a certain sense, at least, “as a prophet,” is developed and established in the latest German philosophy. Carlyle also brings certain hypotheses which must in logical sequence lead to the viewpoint developed above. Pantheism is itself only the last preliminary step to the free human approach. History which Carlyle sets up as the genuine “revelation,” actually contains only that which is human, and only by violent distortion can its substance be removed from humanity and placed to the credit of a “God.” The labor, the free activity, in which Carlyle likewise sees a “cult,” is again a purely human affair and can also only in a violent manner be brought into connection with “God.” Why continually press into the foreground a word that, at best, expresses only the endlessness of uncertainty and further maintains the appearance of dualism? A word that in itself is a declaration of the nothingness of nature and humanity?

So much for the inner religious side of the Carlyle viewpoint. judgment of the outer, political‑social is directly tied to it; Carlyle has still enough religion to remain in a condition of bondage; pantheism always recognizes something higher than man as such. Therefore his desire for a “genuine aristocracy,” for “heroes”; as if these heroes might at best be Something more than human beings. If he could have grasped man as man in his whole boundless essence,  so he would not have arrived at the idea of separating humanity in two groups, sheep and goats, ruling and ruled, aristocrats and mob, gentlemen and blockheads; he would have found the correct social placing of talent not in forcible ruling but in stimulating and leading. Talent has to persuade the masses of the truth of its ideas, and will then no longer have to complain about the carrying out of these ideas which will follow as a matter of course. Humanity makes its way through democracy, in truth, not in order, to arrive at last at the point from which it started. What further Carlyle says about democracy leaves little more to be desired, if we except that lack of clarity (just noted) about the goal, the purpose of modem democracy. Democracy is of course only a transition, but not to a new improved aristocracy, but to genuine human freedom; just as the irreligion of the age will lead at last to complete emancipation from all that is religious, superhuman and supernatural, but not to their better re‑establishment.

–ENGELS, “Review of Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present” (Deutsch‑Franzoische” Jahrbucher, 1844),

MARX and ENGELS, Werke, Berlin, 1958, vol. 1, pp. 542‑48.

[5]

THE DECAY OF RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY

From the period of the Protestant Reformation, the upper classes in every European nation, whether it remained Catholic or adopted Protestantism, and especially the statesmen, lawyers, and diplomatists, began to unfasten themselves individually from all religious belief, and become free‑thinkers so‑called. This intellectual movement in the higher circles manifested itself without reserve in France from the time of Louis XIV, resulting in the universal predilection for what was denominated philosophy during the 18th century. But when Voltaire found residence in France no longer safe, not because of his opinions,  nor because he had given oral expression to them, but because he had communicated them by his writings to the whole reading public, he betook himself to England and testified that he found the salons of high life in London still “freer” than those of Paris. Indeed, the men ‑and women of the court of Charles 11, Bolingbroke, the Walpoles., Hume, Gibbon, and Charles Fox, are names which all suggest a prevalent unbelief in religious dogmas, and a general adhesion to the philosophy of that age on the part of the upper classes, statesmen, and politicians of England. This may be called, by way of distinction, the era of aristocratic revolt against ecclesiastical authority. Comte, in one short sentence, has characterized this situation:

“From the opening of the revolutionary period in ‘the 16th century this system of hypocrisy has been more and more elaborated in practice, permitting the emancipation of all mind’s of a certain bearing, on the tacit condition that they should aid in protracting the submission of the masses. This was eminently the policy of the Jesuits.”

This brings us down to the period of the French Revolution, when the masses, firstly of France, and afterwards of all Western Europe, along with a desire for political and social freedom, began to entertain an ever‑growing aversion from religious dogma. The total abolition of Christianity, as a recognized institution of State,  by the French Republican Convention of 1793, and since then the gradual repeal in Western Europe, wherever the popular voice has had power, of religious tests and political and civil disabilities of the same character, together with the Italian movement of 1848, sufficiently announce the well‑known direction of the popular mind in Europe. We are still witnesses of this epoch, which may be characterized as the era of democratic revolt against ecclesiastical authority.

But this very movement among the masses since the French Revolution, bound up‑as it was with the movement for social equality, brought about a violent reaction in favor of church authority in high quarters. Nobility and c0lergy, lords temporal and lords spiritual, found themselves equally threatened by the popular movement, and it naturally came to pass that the upper classes of Europe threw aside their skepticism in public life and made an outward alliance with the State churches and their systems. This reaction was most apparent in France, first under Bonaparte, and during the Restoration under the elder branch of the Bourbons, but it was not less the case with the rest of Western Europe. In our own day we have seen renewed on a smaller scale this patching up of an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the upper classes and the ecclesiastical interest. Since the epoch of 1830 the statesmen had begun to manifest anew a spirit of independence towards ecclesiastical control, but the events of 1848 threw them back into the arms of Mother Church. Again France gave the clearest exemplification of this phenomenon. In 1849, when the terror of the Democratic deluge was at its height, Messrs. Thiers, De Hauranne, and the Universitarians (who had passed for Atheists with the clergy), were unanimous in supporting that admirably qualified “savior of religion,” M. Bonaparte, in his project for the violent restoration of the Pope of Rome, while the Whig Ministry of Protestant England, at whose head was a member of the ultra‑Protestant family of Russell, were warm in their approval of the same expedition. This religious restoration by such processes was indeed only redeemed from universal ridicule by the extremely critical posture of affairs which, for the moment, in the interest of “order” did not allow the public men of Europe to indulge in the sense of the ludicrous.

But the submission of the classes of leading social influence to ecclesiastical control,  which was hollow and hypocritical at the beginning of this century after the Revolution of 1792, has been far more precarious and superficial since 1848, and is only acknowledged by those classes so far as it suits their immediate political interest. The humiliating position of utter dependence which the ecclesiastical power sustains toward the temporal arm of government has been made full), manifest since 1848. The Pope indebted to the French Government for his present tenure of the chair of St. Peter: the French clergy, for the sake of their salaries, blessing trees of liberty and proclaiming the sovereignty of the people. and afterwards canonizing the present Emperor of France as the chosen instrument of God and the savior of religion, their old proper doctrines of legitimacy  and the divine right of kings being in each case laid aside with the downfall of the corresponding political regime; the Anglican clergy, whose ex officio head is a temporal Queen, dependent for promotion on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, now generally a Liberal, and looking for favors and support against popular encroachment to Parliament, in which the Liberal element is ever on the increase, constitute an ensemble from which it would be absurd to expect acts of pure ecclesiastical independence, except in the normally impossible case of an overwhelming popular support to fall back upon.

–MARX, Editorial, New York Daily Tribune, Oct. 24, 1854

[6]

GOD AND NATURAL SCIENCE

God is nowhere treated worse than by natural scientists, who believe in him. Materialists simply explain the facts, without making use of such phrases,  they do this first when importunate pious believers try to force God upon them, and then they answer curtly, either like Laplace: Sire, je n’avais pas, etc.,[††††††††††††††] or more rudely in the manner of the Dutch merchants who,  when German commercial travellers press their shoddy goods on them, are accustomed to turn them away with the words: Ik kan die zaken niet gebruiken [I have no use for the things], and that is the end of the matter. But what God has had to suffer at the hands of his defenders! In the history of modern natural science, God is treated by his defenders as Frederick William III was treated by his generals and officials in the campaign of Jena. One division of the army after another lowers its weapons, one fortress after another capitulates before the march of science, until at last the whole infinite realm of nature is conquered by science, and there is no place left in it for the Creator. Newton still allowed Him the “first impulse” but forbade Him any further interference in his solar system. Father Secchi bows Him out of the solar system altogether, with all canonical honors it is true, but none the less categorically for all that, and he only allows Him a creative act‑as regards the primordial nebula. And so in all spheres. In biology, His last great Don Quixote, Agassiz, even ascribes positive nonsense to Him; He is supposed to have created not only the actual animals but also abstract animals, the fish as such! And finally Tyndall totally forbids Him any entry into nature and relegates him to the world of emotional processes, only admitting Him because, after all, there must be somebody who knows more about all these things (nature) than J. Tyndall! What a distance from the old God‑the Creator of heaven and earth, the maintainer of all things–without whom not a hair can fall from the head!

Tyndall’s emotional need proves nothing. The Chevalier des Grieux also had an emotional need to love and possess Manon Lescaut, who sold herself and him over and over again; for her sake he became a card‑sharper and pimp, and if Tyndall wants to reproach him, he replies with his “emotional need!”

God = nescio [to be ignorant]; but ignorantia non est argumentum [ignorance is not an argument] (Spinoza).

–ENGELS, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp. 176‑78.

[7]

RELIGION AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE

A.   HOW MARXISTS FIGHT RELIGION

Marxism is materialism. As such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion as was the materialism of the Encyclopedists of the 18th century or the materialism of Feuerbach. This is beyond doubt. But the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels goes further than the Encyclopedists and Feuerbach by applying the materialist philosophy to the field of history, to the field of the social sciences. We must combat religion‑that is the rudiment of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism. But Marxism is not a materialism which stops at rudiments. Marxism goes further. It says:  We must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses materialistically. The fight against religion must not be confined to abstract ideological preaching or reduced to such preaching. The fight must be linked up with the concrete practical work of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion. Why does religion retain its hold over the backward sections of the urban proletariat, over the broad sections of the semi‑proletariat, and over the peasant mass? Because of the ignorance of the people, replies the bourgeois progressivist, the radical, and the bourgeois materialist. And so, down with religion and long live atheism!–the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task. The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view and narrow, bourgeois culturism. This view does not profoundly enough explain the roots of religion; it explains them not materialistically but idealistically. In modern capitalist countries these roots are mainly social. The deepest root of religion today is the social oppression of’ the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blind forces of capitalism,  which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events, such as wars, earthquakes, etc. ‘Tear created the gods.” Fear of the blind force of capital‑blind because it cannot be foreseen by the masses of the people–a force which at   every step in life threatens to inflict, and does inflict, on the proletarian and small owner “sudden … “unexpected” “accidental” destruction, ruin, pauperism, prostitution, and death from starvation‑such is the root of modern religion which the materialist must bear in mind first and foremost if he does not want to remain an infant‑school materialist. No educational book can eradicate religion from the minds of the masses,  who are crushed by the grinding toil of capitalism and who are at the mercy of the blind destructive forces of capitalism, until these masses themselves learn to fight this root of religion, the rule of capitol in all its forms, in a united, organized, planned and conscious way.

–LENIN, “The Attitude of the Worker’s Party Towards Religion” (1909),

Selected Works, vol. XI, pp. 666f.

B.   SOCIALISM, ATHEISM, AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression that every­ where weighs on the masses of the people, who are crushed by perpetual toil for the benefit of others, and by want and isolation. The impotence of the exploited classes in the struggle against the exploiters engenders faith in a better life beyond the grave just as inevitably as the impotence of the savage in his struggle against nature engenders faith in gods, devils, miracles and so forth. To him who toils and suffers want all his life religion teaches humility and patience on earth, consoling him with the hope of reward in heaven. And to those who live on the labor of others religion teaches charity on earth, offering them a very cheap justification for their w I hole existence as exploiters and selling them at a suitable price tickets for admission to heavenly bliss. Religion is the opium of the people. Religion is a kind of spiritual gin in which the slaves of capital drown their human shape and their claims to any decent human life.

But a slave who has realized his slavery and has risen tip to fight for his emancipation is already only half a slave. The present‑day class‑conscious worker, trained by large‑scale factory industry and educated by urban life, rejects religious superstitions with contempt, leaves heaven to the priests and the bourgeois hypocrites and fights for a better life here on earth. The modem proletariat is coming over to Socialism, which enlists science in the struggle against religious obscurity and emancipates the workers from belief in a life hereafter by welding them together for a real fight for a better life on earth.

Religion should be declared a private affair‑these are the words in which the attitude of Socialists to religion is customarily expressed. But the meaning of these words must be precisely defined so as to leave no room for misunderstanding. We demand that religion should be a private affair as far as the state is concerned, but under no circumstances can we regard religion as a private affair as far as our own party is concerned. The state must not be concerned with religion, religious societies should have no connection with the state power. Everybody must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases or not to believe in any religion at all, that is, to be an atheist, as every Socialist usually is. No distinction whatever between citizens, as regards their rights, depending upon their religious beliefs can be tolerated. Every reference to the belief of citizens must be unconditionally expunged from all official documents. There must be absolutely no subsidies to a state church, no grants of government funds to church and religious societies, which must become associations absolutely free and independent of the state, associations of citizens holding the same ideas. Only the complete fulfilment of these demands can put an end to the disgraceful and accursed past,  when the church was in feudal dependence on the state and the Russian citizens were in feudal dependence on the state church, when medieval, inquisitorial laws existed and were enforced (laws which to this day remain on our criminal statute books), laws which prosecuted people for their faith or lack of faith, which did violence to the conscience of man, which associated government posts and government incomes with the distribution of the state‑clerical gin. The complete separation of the church from the state‑that is the demand which the Socialist proletariat makes of the modern state and the modern church…. Religion is not a private affair in relation to the party of the Socialist proletariat. Our party is a league of class‑conscious and advanced fighters‑ for the emancipation of the working class. Such a league must not be indifferent to unenlightenment,  ignorance, and obscurantism in the form of religious beliefs. We demand the complete separation of the church from the state in order to combat religious darkness with a purely ideological, and exclusively ideological, weapon, our printed and oral propaganda.

One reason why we have founded our league, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, is just to wage such a fight against all religious stultification of the workers. For us therefore the ideological fight is not a private affair but a general affair of the party and the proletariat.

If that is so, why do we not declare in our program that we are atheists? Why do we not refuse Christians and those who believe in God admission to our party?

The reply to this question should serve to explain a very important difference between the bourgeois‑democratic and the Social‑Democratic attitude towards religion.

Our program is entirely based on the scientific, that is, the materialist world‑outlook. The explanation of our program therefore necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of religious obscurantism. Our propaganda necessarily includes,  the propaganda of atheism; the publication of appropriate scientific literature, which the feudal‑autocratic government has hitherto strictly prohibited and persecuted, must now  constitute one of the branches of our party work. We shall now, apparently, have to follow the advice which Engels once gave the German Socialists, namely, to translate and widely  disseminate the literature of the French enlighteners and atheists of the 18th century.

But in this connection, we must not under any circumstances fall into the abstract and idealist error of arguing the religious question from the standpoint of “reason,”  apart from the class struggle–as is not infrequently done by bourgeois radical democrats. It would be absurd to think that in a society which is based on the endless oppression and stultification of the Working class masses religious prejudices can be dispelled merely by preaching. It would be bourgeois narrow‑mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion on mankind is only a product and reflection of the economic yoke in society. No books or sermons can enlighten the proletariat if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism. Unity in this truly revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of opinion among the proletarians about a paradise in heaven.

That is why we do not and must not proclaim our atheism in our program; that is why we do not and must not forbid proletarians who still cherish certain relics of the old superstitions to approach our party. We shall always preach a scientific outlook,  it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of “Christians”; but this does not mean that the religious question must be given a prominence which it does not deserve, that we must consent to a division of the forces of the truly revolutionary economic and political struggle for the sake of unimportant opinions or ravines which are rapidly losing all political significance and are being rapidly cast on to the scrap heap by the very course of economic development.

–LENIN, “Socialism and Religion” (1905), Selected Works, vol. XI, pp. 658‑62.

PART SEVEN

ETHICS

In place of the old bourgeois society,

with its classes and class antagonisms,

we shall have on association in which the

free development of each is the condition

for the free development of all.

–MARX and ENGELS, Communist Manifesto (1848), p. 31.

Introduction

MARXISM HAS been accused both of having no ethics and of allowing ethical considerations to direct and color its economic and political theories. Marx, Engels, and Lenin wrote little on ethical theory, yet moral judgments and ethical theories are ever implicit in their writings.

Marxism believes that it constitutes the scientific approach to society and at the same time it readily acknowledges that it has an ethics‑a theory of good and bad, right and wrong, progress and reaction. Marx and Engels, in the mid‑1840′s, held that the only way out of utopian socialism was to transform the grounds for socialism from moral judgments to a scientific analysis of capitalism and socioeconomic history generally. They objected to the moral position of the utopians not because it was “moral” but because it was not scientifically grounded.

Engels sought to explain this problem forty years later in his preface to the first German edition of Marx’s Poverty of Philosophy (pp. 12‑13). If we say that it is unjust under the laws of bourgeois economics that the greatest part of the product does not belong to the workers who produce it, we say nothing about economics but merely express our moral sentiments. That is why, he continued, Marx “never based his communist demands upon this [moral sentiments], but upon the inevitable collapse of the capitalist mode of production. . . .” Marx was examining, in short, not the “immorality” of capitalism but its inherent contradictions which would bring it to an end. His purpose in Capital was not to pass judgment on surplus value as evil, but to point out that it consists of unpaid labor–something he believed to be a simple economic fact.

The question immediately arises whether the two realms of morals and economics ever meet. It may be wrong, Engels admits, from a strictly scientific economic point of view to speak of the workers’ unjust share under capitalism. “But,” he argued, “what formally may be economically incorrect, may all the same be correct from the point of view of world history.” And he  added, “If the moral consciousness of the mass declares an economic fact to be unjust, as it has done in the case of slavery or serf labor, that is a proof that the fact itself has been outlived, that other economic facts have made their appearance, owing to which the former has become unbearable and untenable. Therefore, a very true economic content may be concealed behind the formal economic incorrectness.”

Only in the historical process, Marxists believe, can the unity of ethical judgments and scientific analyses be found. Hence they refuse to condemn capitalism and praise socialism solely on ethical grounds, even though they are firmly convinced that socialism is morally superior. Different economic forms do not succeed one another for ethical reasons but because they are more or less successful in carrying on the business of life‑of producing and distributing the means of subsistence. And, while ethical judgments change through definite causes in historical development, the only sound basis for enlightened ethical judgments must be found in scientific analyses of nature, man, and his social relations.

Some of the leading ideas in this section are: The idea of justice,  “eternal justice,” does not regulate the production of commodities, but is derived from the mode of production;  it is the real needs and interests of the proletariat that impel it in the struggle against capitalism, not the ideas of justice or right although such ideas become powerful forces when the masses become convinced the), stiffer injustice and wrong. There are no eternal moral truths and there is no absolute universal good. Capitalist ethics, like that of all other ruling classes, necessarily identifies its class interest with universal good; all ethical notions and systems have a specific: historical origin and are relative to particular forms of society. Communist ethics is the highest possible ethics at this period of historical development because it represents the need,, and interests of that class alone which call raise society to it higher level through the elimination of capitalist exploitation and the release of the developing forces of production from the fetters capitalist relations impose upon them.

To base ethics on the process of history, Marxists believe, is to derive ethics from its only possible source‑the life of man in nature and society. And if that life reveals an ethical process towards ever greater freedom it is only because men necessarily seek to master nature and their social inter‑relationships more effectively. Marxist ethics therefore sees “Justice,” the “good,” and the “right,” as developmental  concepts in terms of man’s relationship to nature and his historic struggle to make this relationship serve ever better his own evolving purposes.

There is, of course, no iron‑clad guarantee that the process of transition from capitalism to communism will not have its moral ups and downs as well as its economic ones. The USSR has had its full share of both, but aberrations of right and perversions of justice in the case of socialism necessarily become hindrances that must be corrected if the society itself is to survive, much less develop.

Marxists, rather than ignoring, ethics and morality, believe that they put it on a higher plane than have all previous societies. Ethical and moral considerations are involved in everyday matters in farm, factory, and office, and are not merely precepts reserved for use on the sabbath. The most advanced socialist countries, looking towards the transition to communism, recognize that not only a high level of production is required but a universally high ethical level as well. The widespread concept of “communist man” embraces many qualities,  including willingness to work without economic compulsion, ability to place the public welfare ahead of limited individual interests, respect for the producers and the products of labor, the endeavor to develop one’s talents and capacities to their fullest, not merely for personal satisfaction or Prestige but as a means of advancing the material and cultural well‑being of society as a whole. To most people in the capitalist world the idea that such men and women could exist is the dream of a utopian. For Marxists it is the logical and ethical outcome of a whole theory of society and history.

[1]

THE CLASS NATURE OF MORALITY

The conceptions of good and bad have varied so much from nation to nation and from age to age‑that they have often been, in direct contradiction to each other. But all the same, some one may object, good is not bad and bad is not good; if good is confused with bad there is an end to all morality, and everyone can do and leave undone whatever he cares…. But the matter cannot be so simply disposed of. If it was such an easy business there would certainly be no dispute at all over good and bad; everyone would know what was good and what was bad. But how do things stand today? What morality is preached to us today? There is first Christian‑feudal morality, inherited from past periods of faith; and this again has two main subdivisions, Catholic and Protestant moralities, each of which in turn has no lack of further subdivisions from the Jesuit‑Catholic and Orthodox‑Protestant to loose “advanced” moralities. Alongside of these we find the modern bourgeois morality and with it too the  proletarian morality of the future, so that in the most advanced European countries alone the past, present, and future provide three great groups of moral theories which are in force simultaneously and alongside of one another. Which is then the true one? Not one of them, in the sense of having absolute validity; but certainly that morality which contains the maximum of durable elements is the one, which, in the present, represents the overthrow of the present, represents the future‑that is, the proletarian.

But when we see that the three classes of modern society,  the feudal aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat, each have their special morality, we can only draw the conclusion that men, consciously or unconsciously, derive their moral ideas in the last resort from the practical relations on which their class position is based‑from the economic relations in which they carry on production and exchange.

But nevertheless there is much that is common to the three moral theories mentioned above‑is this not at least a portion of a morality which is externally fixed? These moral theories represent three different stages of the same historical development, and have therefore a common historical background, and for that reason alone they necessarily have much in common. Even more. In similar or approximately similar stages of economic development moral theories must of necessity be more or less in agreement. From the moment when private property in movable objects developed, in all societies in which this private property existed there must be this moral law in common: Thou shalt not steal. Does this law thereby become an eternal moral law? By no means. In a society in which the motive for stealing has been done away with, in which therefore at the very most only lunatics would ever steal, how the teacher of morals would be laughed at who tried solemnly to proclaim the eternal truth: Thou shalt not steal!

We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma whatsoever as an eternal, ultimate, and forever immutable moral law on the pretext that the moral world too has its permanent principles which transcend history and the differences between nations. We maintain on the contrary that all former moral theories are the product, in the last analysis, of the economic stage which society had reached at that particular epoch.

And as society has hitherto moved in class antagonisms,  morality was always a class morality; it has either justified the domination and the interests of the ruling class, or, as soon as the oppressed class has become powerful enough, it has represented the revolt against this domination and the future interests of the oppressed.

That in this process there has on the whole been progress in morality, as in all   other branches of human knowledge, cannot be doubted. But we have not yet passed beyond class morality.

A really human morality which transcends class antagonisms and their legacies in thought becomes possible only at a stage of society which has not only overcome class contradictions but has even forgotten them in practical life. … .

Our ideologist may turn and twist as he likes,  but the historical reality which he cast out at the door comes in again at the window, and while he thinks he is framing a doctrine of morals and law for all times and for all worlds, he is in fact only making an image of the conservative or revolutionary tendencies of his time‑an image which is distorted because it has been torn from its real basis and, like a reflection in a concave mirror, is standing on its head.

–ENGELS, Anti‑Duhring (1878), pp. 103‑105; 107.

[2]

FEUERBACH: LOVE AND THE

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

[As concerns morality] Feuerbach’s astonishing poverty when compared with Hegel again becomes striking. The latter’s ethics or doctrine of moral conduct is the philosophy of law and embraces: (1) abstract right; (2) morality; (3) moral conduct under which again are comprised the family, civil society, and the state.

Here the content is as realistic as the form is idealistic. Besides morality the whole sphere of law, economy, politics is here in­cluded. With Feuerbach it is just the reverse. In form he is realistic since he takes his start from man; but there is absolutely no mention of the world in which this man lives; hence this man” remains always the same abstract man who occupied the field in his philosophy of religion. For this man is not born of woman; he issues, as from a chrysalis, from the God of the monotheistic religions. He therefore does not live in a real world historically created and historically determined. It is true he has intercourse with other men, but each one of them is, however,  just as much an abstraction as he himself is. In his philosophy of religion we still had men and women, but in his ethics even this last distinction disappears altogether. Feuerbach, to be sure, at long intervals makes such statements as: “A man thinks differently in a palace and in a hut.” “If because of hunger, of misery, you have no foodstuff in your body, you likewise have no stuff for morality in your head or heart.” “Politics must become our religion,” etc. But Feuerbach is absolutely incapable of  achieving anything with these remarks. They remain purely figures of speech; and even Starcke[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] has to admit that for Feuerbach politics constituted an impassable frontier and the “science of society, sociology, was terra incognita to him. . . .”

What Feuerbach has to tell us about morals can, therefore, only be extremely meager. The urge towards happiness is innate in man, and must therefore form the basis of all morals. But the urge towards happiness is subject to a double correction. First, by the natural consequences of our action; after the debauch come the “blues,” and habitual excess is followed by illness. Secondly, by its social consequences; if we do not respect the similar urge of other people towards happiness they will defend themselves, and so interfere with our own urge towards happiness.

Consequently, in order to satisfy our urge, we must be in a position to appreciate rightly the results of our conduct and must likewise allow others an equal right to seek happiness.

Rational self‑restraint with regard to ourselves, and love‑again and again love!–in our intercourse with others‑these are the basic laws of Feuerbach’s morality; from them all others are derived. And neither the most talented utterances of Feuerbach nor the strongest eulogies of Starcke can hide the tenuity and superficiality of these few propositions.

Only very exceptionally, and in no case to his and other people’s profit, can an individual satisfy his urge towards happiness by preoccupation with himself. Rather it requires preoccupation with the outside world, means to satisfy his needs, that is to say means of subsistence, an individual of the opposite sex, books, conversation, argument, activities, articles for use and working up. Feuerbach’s morality either presupposes that these means and objects of satisfaction are given to every individual as a matter of course, or else it offers only inapplicable good advice and is therefore not worth a brass farthing to people who are without these means. And Feuerbach himself states this in dry words: “A man thinks differently in a palace and in a hut. If because of hunger, of misery, you have no foodstuff in your body you likewise have no stuff for morality in your head or heart.”

Do matters fare any better in regard to the equal right of others to the pursuit of happiness? Feuerbach posed this claim  as absolute, as holding good in all times and circumstances. But since when has it been valid? Was there ever in antiquity between slaves and masters, or in the Middle Ages between serfs and barons, any talk about an equal right to the pursuit of happiness? Was not the urge towards happiness of the oppressed class sacrificed ruthlessly and “by right of law” to the interests of the ruling class? Yes,  that was indeed immoral; nowadays, however, equality of rights is recognized‑recognized in words, since the bourgeoisie, in its fight against feudalism and in the development of capitalist production, was compelled to abolish all privileges of estate, i.e., personal privileges, and to introduce the equality of all individuals before the law, first in the sphere of private law, then gradually also in the sphere of state law.

But the urge towards happiness thrives   only to a trivial extent  on ideal rights. To the greatest extent of all it thrives on mate­rial means; and capitalist production takes care to ensure that the great majority of those with equal rights shall get only what is essential for bare existence. Capitalist production has therefore little more respect, if indeed any more, for the “equal right to the pursuit of happiness” of the majority than had slavery or serfdom. And are we better off in regard to the mental means to happiness, the educational means? . . .

But love!–yes, with Feuerbach, love is everywhere and at all times the wonder‑working god who should help to surmount all difficulties of practical life‑and that in a society which is split into classes with diametrically opposite interests. At this point the last relic‑of its revolutionary character disappears from the philosophy, leaving only the old cant: Love one another‑fall into each other’s arms regardless of distinctions of sex or estate–a universal orgy of reconciliation.

In short, the Feuerbachian theory of morals fares like all its predecessors. It is designed to suit all periods, all peoples, and all conditions, and precisely for that reason it is never and nowhere applicable. It remains, as regards the real world, as powerless as Kant’s categorical imperative. In reality every class, even every profession, has its own morality, and even this it violates whenever it can do so with impunity. And “love,” which is to unite all, manifests itself in wars, altercations, law. suits, domestic broils, divorces and every possible exploitation of one by another.

Now how was it possible that the powerful impetus given by Feuerbach turned out ‑to be so unfruitful for himself? For the simple reason that Feuerbach himself never contrives to escape from the realm of abstraction‑for which h   e has a deadly hatred ‑into that of living reality, He clings hard to nature and humanity; but nature and humanity remain always mere words with him. He is incapable of telling us anything definite either about real nature or real men. But from the abstract men of Feuerbach one arrives at real living men only when one considers them as participants in history. And that is what Feuerbach resisted, and therefore the year 1848, which he did not understand, signified for him merely the final break with the real world, retirement into solitude. The blame for this again chiefly falls on the conditions then obtaining in Germany, which condemned him to  *rot away miserably.

But the step which Feuerbach did not take nevertheless had to be taken. The cult of abstract man which formed the kernel of Feuerbach’s new religion had to be replaced by the science of real men and of their historical‑ development. This further development of Feuerbach’s standpoint beyond Feuerbach himself was inaugurated by Marx in 1845 in The Holy Family.

–ENGELS, Ludwig Feuerbach (1888), pp. 36‑41.

[3]

EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF EQUALITY

The idea that all men, as men, have something in common, and that they are therefore equal so far as these common characteristics go, is of course primeval. But the modem demand for equality is something entirely different from that;  this consists rather in deducing from those common characteristics of humanity, from that equality of men as men, a claim to equal political or social status for all human beings, or at least for all citizens of a state or all members of a society. Before the original conception of relative equality could, lead to the conclusion that men should have equal rights in the state and in society, before this conclusion could appear to be something even natural and self-evident, however, thousands of years had to pass and did pass. In the oldest primitive communities equality of rights existed at most for members of the community; women, slaves, and strangers were excluded from this equality as a matter of course Among the Greeks and Romans the inequalities of men were of greater importance than any form of equality. It would necessarily have seemed idiotic to the ancients that Greeks and barbarians, freemen and slaves, citizens and dependents, Roman. citizens and Roman subjects (to use a comprehensive term) should have a claim to equal political status. Under the Roman Empire all these distinctions gradually disappeared,  except the distinction between freemen and slaves, and in this way there arose, for the freemen at least, that equality as between private individuals on the basis of which Roman law developed‑the, complete elaboration of law based on private property which we know. But so long as the distinction between freemen and slaves existed, there could be no talk of drawing legal conclusions from the fact of general equality as men; and we saw this again quite recently, in the slaveowning states of the North American Union.

Christianity knew only one point in which all men were equal ‑that all were equally born in original sin, which corresponded perfectly with its character as the religion of the slaves and the oppressed. Apart from this is recognized, at most, the equality of the elect, which however was only stressed at the very beginning. The traces of common ownership which are also found in the early stages of the new religion can be ascribed to the solidarity of a proscribed sect rather than to real equalitarian ideas. Within a very short time the establishment of the distinction between priests and laymen put an end even to this tendency to Christian equality. The overrunning of Western Europe by the Germans abolished for centuries all ideas of equality, through the gradual building up of a complicated social and political hierarchy such as had never before existed. But at the same time the invasion drew Western and Central Europe into the course of historical development,  created for the first, time a compact cultural area, and within this area also for the first time a system of predominantly national states exerting mutual influence on each other and mutually holding each other in check. Thereby it prepared the ground on which alone the question of the equal status of men, of the rights of man, could at a later period be raised.

The feudal Middle Ages also developed in its womb the class which was destined in the future course of its evolution to be the standard‑bearer of the modem demand for equality, the bourgeoisie. Itself in its origin one of the “estates” of the feudal order,  the bourgeoisie developed the predominantly handicraft industry and the exchange of products within feudal society to a relatively high level, when at the end of the 15th century the great maritime discoveries opened to it a new and more comprehensive career. Trade beyond the confines of Europe, which had previously been carried on only between Italy and the Levant, was now extended to America and India, and soon surpassed in importance both the mutual exchange between the various European countries and the internal trade within each separate country. American gold and silver flooded Europe and forced its way like a disintegrating element into every fissure, hole, and pore of feudal society. Handicraft industry could no longer satisfy the rising demand; in the leading industries of the most ‑advanced countries it was replaced by manufacture.

But this mighty revolution in the economic conditions of life in society was not followed immediately by any corresponding change in its political structure. The state order remained feudal, while society became more and more bourgeois. Trade on a large scale,  that is to say, international and, even more, world trade, requires free owners of commodities who are unrestricted in their movements and have equal rights as traders to exchange their commodities on the basis of laws that are equal for them all, at least in each separate place. The transition from handicraft to manufacture presupposes the existence of a number of free workers–free on the one hand from the fetters of the guild and on the other from the means whereby they could themselves utilize their labor power;  workers who can contract with their employers for the hire of their labor power, and as parties to the contract have rights equal with his. And finally the equality and equal status of all human labor, because and in so far as it is human labor,  found its unconscious but clearest expression in the law of value or modern bourgeois economics, according to which the value of a commodity is measured by the socially necessary labor embodied in it.[§§§§§§§§§§§§§§] But where economic relations required freedom and equality of rights, the political system opposed them at every ‑step with guild restrictions and special privileges. Local privileges, differential duties, exceptional laws of all kinds affected in trading not only foreigners or people living in the colonies, but often enough also whole categories of the nationals of each country; the privileges of the guilds everywhere. and ever anew formed barriers to the path of development of manufacture. Nowhere was the path open and the chances equal for the bourgeois competitors‑and yet this was the first and ever more pressing need.

The demand for liberation from feudal fetters and the establishment of equality of rights by the abolition of feudal inequalities was bound soon to assume wider dimensions from the moment when the economic advance of society first placed it on the order of the day. If it was raised in the interests of industry and trade, it was also necessary to demand the same equality of rights for the great mass of the peasantry who, in every degree of bondage from total serfdom upwards, were compelled to give the greater part of their labor time to their feudal lord without payment and in addition to render innumerable other dues to ,him and to the state. Oft the other hand, it was impossible to avoid the demand for the abolition also of feudal privileges, the freedom from taxation of the nobility, the political privileges of the various feudal estates. And as people were no longer living in a world empire such as the Roman Empire had been,  but in a system of independent states dealing with each other on an equal footing and at approximately the same degree of bourgeois development, it was a matter of course that the demand for equality should assume a general character reaching out beyond the individual state, that freedom and equality should be proclaimed as human rights. And it is significant of the specifically bourgeois character of these human rights that the American Constitution, the first to recognize the rights of man, in the same breath confirmed the slavery of the colored races in America; class privileges were proscribed, race privileges sanctified.

As is well known,  however, from the moment when, like a butterfly from the chrysalis, the bourgeoisie arose out, of the burghers of the feudal period, when this “estate” of the Middle Ages developed into a class of modern society, it was always and inevitably accompanied by its shadow, the proletariat. And in the same way the bourgeois demand for equality was accompanied by the proletarian demand for equality. From the moment when the bourgeois demand for the abolition of class privileges was put forward, alongside of it. appeared the proletarian demand for the abolition of the classes themselves–at first in religious form, basing itself on primitive Christianity, and later drawing support from the bourgeois equalitarian theories themselves. The proletarians took the bourgeoisie at their word: Equality must not be merely apparent, must not apply merely to the sphere of the state, but must also be real, must be extended to the social and economic sphere. And especially since the time when the French bourgeoisie, from the Great Revolution on, brought bourgeois equality to the forefront, the French proletariat has answered it blow for blow with the demand for social and economic equality, and equality has become the battle‑cry particularly of the French proletariat.

The demand for equality in the mouth of the proletariat has therefore a   double ‑meaning. It is either–as was especially the case at the very start,  for example in the peasants’ war‑the spontaneous reaction against the crying social inequalities, against the contrast of rich and poor, the feudal lords and their serfs, surfeit and starvation; as such it is the simple expression of the revolutionary instinct, and finds its justification in that, and indeed only in that. Or, on the other. hand, the proletarian demand for equality has arisen as the reaction against the bourgeois demand for equality, drawing more or less correct and more far reaching demands from this bourgeois demand, and serving as an agitational means in order to rouse the workers against the capitalists on the basis of the capitalists’ own assertions, and in this case it stands and falls with bourgeois equality itself. In both cases the real content of the proletarian demand for equality is the demand for the abolition of classes. Any demand for equality which goes beyond that,  of necessity passes into absurdity. We have given examples of this, and shall find enough additional ones later when we come to Herr Duhring’s fantasies of the future.

The idea of equality, therefore, both in its bourgeois and in its proletarian form, is itself a historical product, the creation of which required definite historical conditions which in turn themselves presuppose a long previous historical development. It is therefore anything but an eternal truth. And if today it is taken for granted by the general public‑in one sense or another ‑if, as Marx says, it “already possesses the fixity of a popular prejudice,” this is not the consequence of its axiomatic truth, but the result of the general diffusion. and the continued appropriateness of the ideas of the 18th century.

–ENGELS, Anti‑Duhring (1878), pp. 113‑18.

[4]

EQUALITY VERSUS EQUALITARIANISM

What we have to deal with here[***************] is a communist society,  not as if it had developed on a basis of its own, but on the contrary as it emerges from capitalist society, which is thus in every respect tainted economically, morally, and intellectually with the hereditary diseases of the old society from whose womb it is emerging. In this way the individual producer receives back again from society, with deductions, exactly what he gives. What he has given to society is his individual amount of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individuals’ hours of work. The individual working time of the individual producer is that part of the social working day contributed by him, his part thereof. He receives from society a voucher that he has contributed such and such a quantity of work (after deductions from his work for the common fund) and draws through this voucher on the social storehouse as much of the means of consumption as the same quantity of work costs. The same amount of work which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Here obviously the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities so far as this exchange is of equal values. Content and form are changed because under the changed conditions no one can contribute anything except his labor and, on the other hand, nothing can pass into the possession of individuals except individual objects of consumption. But, so far as the distribution of the latter among individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity‑equivalents, i.e. equal quantities of labor in one form are exchanged for equal quantities of labor in another form.

The equal right is here still based on the same principle as bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at daggers drawn, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange only exists for the average and not for the individual case.

In spite of this advance, this equal right is still continually handicapped by bourgeois limitations. The right of the producers is proportional to the amount of labor they contribute; the equality consists in the fact that everything is measured by an equal measure, labor.

But one man will excel another physically or intellectually and so contributes in the same time more labor, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by‑ its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard measure. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal work. It recognizes no class differences because every worker ranks as a ‑worker like his fellows, but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus capacities for production, as natural privileges. It is therefore a right of inequality in its content,  as in general is every right. Right can by its very nature only consist in the application of an equal standard;  but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal), are only measurable by an equal standard in so far as they can be brought under an equal observation, be regarded from one definite aspect only, e.g. in the case under review, they must be considered only as workers and nothing more be seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another single, one has more children than another and so on. Given an equal capacity for labor and thence an equal share in the funds for social consumption, the one will in practice receive more than the other, the one will be richer than the other and so forth. To avoid all these inconveniences, rights must be unequal instead of being equal.

But these deficiencies are unavoidable in the first phase of communist society when it is just emerging after prolonged birthpangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure and the cultural development of society conditioned by it.

In a higher phase of communist society,  after the tyrannical subordination of individuals according to the distribution of labor and thereby also the distinction between manual and intellectual work, have disappeared, after labor has become not merely a means to live but is in itself the first necessity of living after the powers of production have also increased and all the springs of cooperative wealth are gushing more freely together with the all‑round development of the individual, then and then only can the narrow bourgeois horizon of rights be left far behind and society will inscribe on its banner: “From each according to his capacity, to each according to his need.”

–MARX, Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), pp. 29‑31.

[5]

EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT

OF JUSTICE

At a certain, very primitive stage of the development of society, the need arises to coordinate under a common regulation the daily recurring acts of production, distribution, and exchange of products, to see to it that the individual subordinates himself to the common conditions of production and exchange. This regu­lation,          which is at first custom, soon becomes law. With law, organs                necessarily arise which are entrusted with its maintenance ‑public authority, the state. With further social development, law develops into a more or less comprehensive legal system. The more complicated this legal system becomes, the more its terminology, becomes removed from that in which the usual eco­nomic conditions of the life of society are expressed. It appears as an independent element which derives the justification for its existence and the reason for its further development not out of the existing economic conditions, but out of its own inner logic, or, if you like, out of “the concept of will.” People forget the derivation of their legal system from their economic conditions of life, just as they have forgotten their own derivation from the animal world.

With the development of the legal system into a complicated and comprehensive whole the necessity arises for a new social division of labor; an order of professional jurists develops and with these legal science comes into being. In its further development this science compares the legal systems of various peoples and various times, not as the expression of the given economic relationships, but as systems which find their justification in themselves. The comparison assumes something common to them all, and this the jurists find by summing up that which is more or less common to all these legal systems as natural law. However, the standard which is taken to determine what is natural law and what is not,. is precisely the most abstract expression of law itself, namely justice.

From this point on, therefore, the development of law for the jurists, and for those who believe them uncritically, is nothing more than the striving to bring human conditions, so far as they are expressed in legal terms, into closer and closer conformity with the ideal of justice, eternal justice. And this justice is never anything but the ideologized, glorified expression of the existing ‑economic relations, at times from the conservative side, at times from the revolutionary side. The justice of the Greeks and Romans held slavery to be just. The justice of the bourgeois of 1789 demanded the abolition of feudalism because it was unjust. For the Prussian Junker even the miserable Kreisordnung [legislation establishing distinct local authorities] is a violation of c) eternal justice. The conception of eternal justice therefore varies not only according to time and place, but also according to persons, and it belongs among those things of which Mulberger  correctly says, “everyone understands something different.” While in everyday life,  in view of the simplicity of the relations which come into question, expressions like right, wrong, justice, conception of justice, can be used without misunderstanding even in relation to social matters, they create, as we have seen, hopeless confusion in any scientific investigation of economic relations, in fact, much the same confusion as would be created in modem chemistry if the terminology of the phlogiston theory were to be retained. The confusion becomes still worse if one, like Proudhon, believes in this social. phlogiston, “justice,”‘ or if one, like Mulberger, declares that the phlogiston theory no less than the oxygen theory is perfectly correct.

–ENGELS, The Housing Question (1872), pp. 91‑93.

[6]

MARXISM AND “ABSOLUTE” JUSTICE

A.   UNSCIENTIFIC NATURE OF “ETERNAL JUSTICE”

Proudhon begins by taking his ideal of justice, of “justice eternelle,” from the juridical relations that correspond to the production of commodities; thereby, it may be noted, he proves, to the consolation of all good citizens, that the production of commodities is a form of production as everlasting as justice. Then he turns round and seeks to reform the actual production of commodities, and the actual legal system corresponding thereto, in accordance with this ideal. What opinion should we have of a chemist,  who, instead of studying the actual laws of the molecu­lar changes in the composition and decomposition of matter, and on that foundation solving definite problems, claimed to regulate the composition and decomposition of matter by means of the “eternal ideas,” of “naturalite” and “affinite?” Do we really know any more about “usury,” when we say it contradicts. “justice eternelle,” “equite eternelle,” “mutualite eternelle,” and other “verites eternelles”, than the fathers of   the church did when they said it was incompatible with “grace eternelle,” “foi eternelle,” and “la volonte eternelle de Dieu?”

–MARX, Capital, vol. 1 (1867), p. 96, note 2.

B.  JUSTICE DETERMINED BY MODE OF PRODUCTION

To speak in such a case of natural justice, as Gilbart is doing (“That a man, who borrows money with the intention of making   profit on it, should give a portion of the profit to the lender, is  self‑understood principle of natural justice.” Gilbart, The History and Principles of Banking, London, 1834, p. 163.) is nonsense. The justice of the transactions between the agents of production rests on the fact that these transactions arise as natural consequences from the conditions of production. The juristic forms, in which these economic transactions appear as activities of the will of the parties concerned, as expressions of their common will and as contracts which may be enforced by law against some individual party, cannot determine their content, since they are only forms. They merely express this content. This content is just, whenever it corresponds, and is adequate, to the mode of production. It is unjust, whenever it contradicts that mode. Slavery on the basis of capitalist production is unjust; likewise fraud in the quality of commodities.

–MARX, Capital, vol. in (1894), p. 399.

[7]

THE ‘MEANING OF FREEDOM

Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the appreciation of necessity. “Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not understood.” Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence of natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility  this gives of systematically making them work‑ towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental existence of men themselves‑two classes of laws which we can separate from each other at most only in thought but not. in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with real knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a man’s judgment is in relation to a definite question,  with so much the greater necessity is the content of this judgment determined; while the uncertainty, founded on ignorance, which seems to make‑an arbitrary choice among many different and conflicting possible decisions, shows by this precisely that it is not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control. Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature which is founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a product of historical development.

The first men who separated themselves from the animal kingdom were in all essentials as unfree as the animals themselves. but each step forward in civilization was a step towards freedom. On the threshold of human history stands the discovery that mechanical motion can be transformed into heat‑the production of fire by friction; at the close of the development so far gone through stands the discovery that heat can be transformed into mechanical motion‑the steam engine. And, in spite of the gigantic and liberating revolution in the social world which the steam engine is carrying through–and which is not yet half completed‑it is beyond question that the generation of fire by friction was of even greater effectiveness for the liberation of. man. kind. For the generation of fire by friction gave man for the first. time control over one of the forces of nature, and thereby separated him for ever from the animal kingdom. The steam engine will never bring about such a mighty leap forward in human development,  however important it may seem in our eyes as representing all those powerful productive forces dependent on it‑forces which alone make possible a state of society in which there are no longer class distinctions or anxiety over the means of subsistence for the individual, and in which for the first time there can be talk of real human freedom and of an existence in harmony with the established laws of nature. But how young the whole of human history still is,  and how ridiculous it would be to attempt to ascribe any absolute validity to our present views, is evident from the simple fact that all past history can be characterized as the history of the epoch from the practical discovery of the transformation of mechanical motion into heat up to that of the transformation of heat into mechanical motion.

–ENGELS, Anti‑Duhring (1878), pp. 125f.

[8]

TWO REALMS OF FREEDOM AND THEIR

MATERIAL PRECONDITIONS

We have seen that the capitalist process of production is a historically determined form of the social process of production in general. This process is on the one hand the process by which the material requirements of life are produced,  and on the other hand a process which takes place under specific historical and economic conditions of production and which produces and reproduces these conditions of production themselves and with them the human agents of this process, their material conditions of existence and their mutual relations, that is, their particular economic form of society. For the aggregate of these relations, in which the agents of this production live with regard to nature and to themselves, and in which they produce, is precisely their society, considered from the point of view of its economic structure. Like all its predecessors, the capitalist process of production takes place under definite material conditions, which are at the same time the bearers of. definite social relations maintained towards one another by the individuals in the process of producing their life’s requirements. These conditions and these relations are on the one hand prerequisites, on the other hand results and creations of the capitalist process of production. They are produced and reproduced by it. We have also seen that capital (the capitalist is merely capital personified and‑functions in the process of production as the agent of capital), in the social process of production corresponding to it, pumps a certain quantity of surplus labor out of the direct producer, or laborer. It extorts this surplus without returning an equivalent. This surplus labor always remains forced labor in essence, no matter how much it may seem to be the result of free contract. This surplus labor is represented by a surplus value, and this surplus value is materialized in a surplus product. It must always remain surplus labor in the sense that it is labor performed above the normal requirements of the producer. In the capitalist system as well as in the slave system, etc., it merely assumes an antagonistic form and is supplemented by the complete idleness of a portion of society. A certain quantity of surplus labor is required for the purpose of discounting accidents, and by the necessary and progressive expansion of the process of reproduction in keeping with the development of the needs and the advance of population, called accumulation from the point of view of the capitalist. It is one of the civilizing sides of capital that it enforces this surplus labor in a manner and under conditions which promote the development of the productive forces,  of social conditions, and the creation of the elements for a new and higher formation better than Aid the preceding forms of slavery, serfdom, etc. Thus it leads on the one hand to a stage,  in which the coercion and the monopolization of the social development (including its material and intellectual advantages) by a portion of society at the expense of the other portion are eliminated; on the other hand it creates the material requirements and the germ of conditions, which make it possible to combine this surplus labor in a higher form of society with a greater reduction of the time devoted to material labor. For, according to the development of the productive power of labor, surplus labor may be large in a small total labor day, and relatively small in a large total labor day. If the necessary labor time equals three, and the surplus labor three, then the total working day is equal to six, and the rate of surplus labor 100%. If the necessary labor is equal to nine, and the surplus labor three, then the total ‑working clay is 12 and the rate of surplus labor only 33 1/3%. Furthermore, it depends upon the productivity of labor, how much use value shall be produced in a definite time, hence also in a definite surplus labor time. The actual wealth of society, and the possibility of a continued expansion of its process of reproduction, do not depend upon the duration of the surplus labor, but upon its productivity and upon the more or less fertile conditions of production, under which it is performed.

In fact, the realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and of external utility is required. In the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of material production in the strict meaning of the term. just as the savage must wrestle with nature, in order to satisfy his wants, in order to maintain his life and reproduce it, so civilized man has to do it, and he must do it in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production. With his development the realm of natural necessity expands, because his wants increase; but at the same time the forces of production increase, by which these wants are satisfied. The freedom in this field cannot consist of anything else but of the fact that socialized man,  the associated producers, regulate their interchange with nature rationally, bring it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power; that they accomplish their task, with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most adequate to their human nature and most worthy of it. But it always remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human power, which is its own end, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can flourish only upon that realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working day is its fundamental premise.[†††††††††††††††]

–MARX, Capital, vol. 111 (1894), pp. 952‑55.

[9]

CLASSLESS SOCIETY: BASIS FOR

REAL PERSONAL FREEDOM

The transformation, through the division of labor, of personal powers (relationships) into material powers, cannot be dispelled by dismissing the general idea of it from one’s mind, but only by the action of individuals in again subjecting these material powers to themselves and abolishing the division of labor. This is not possible without the community. Only in community with others has each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions’; only in the community, therefore, is personal freedom possible. In the previous substitutes for the community, in the state, etc., personal freedom has existed only for the individuals who developed within the relationships of the ruling class, and only in so far as they were individuals of this class. The illusory community, in which individuals have up till, now combined, always took on an independent existence in relation to them, and was at the same time, since it was the combination of one class over against another, not only a completely illusory community, but a new fetter as well. In the real community the individuals ‑obtain their freedom in and through their association.

It follows from all we have been saying up till now that the communal relationship into which the individuals of a class entered,  and which was determined by their common interests over against a third party, was always a community to which these individuals belonged only as average individuals, only in so far as they lived within the conditions of existence of their class–a relationship in which they participated not as individuals but as members of a class. With the community of revolutionary proletarians on the other hand, who take their conditions of existence .and those of all members of society under their control, it is just the reverse; it is as individuals that the individuals participate in it. It is just this combination of individuals (assuming the advanced stage of modern productive forces,  of course) which puts the conditions of the free development and movement of individuals under their control‑conditions which were previously abandoned to chance and had won an independent existence over against the separate individuals just because of their separation as individuals, and because their combination had been determined by the division of labor, and through their separation had become a bond alien to them. Combination up till now (by no means an arbitrary one,  such as is expounded for example in the Contrat Social, but a necessary one) was permitted only upon these conditions, within which the individuals were at the mercy of chance (compare, e.g. the formation of the North American State and the South American republics). This right to the undisturbed enjoyment, upon certain conditions, of fortuity and chance has up till now been called personal freedom; but these conditions are, of course, only the productive forces and forms of intercourse[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] at any particular time.

–MARX and ENGELS, The German Ideology (1846), pp. 74‑75.

[10]

PROGRESS:  FROM BLIND NECESSITY TO FREEDOM

The bourgeois period of history has to create the material basis of the new world‑on the one hand universal intercourse. founded upon the mutual dependency of mankind, and the means of that intercourse; on the other hand the development of the productive powers of man and the transformation of material production into a scientific domination of natural agencies. Bourgeois industry and commerce create these material conditions of a new world in the same way as geological revolutions have created the surface of the earth. When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, the market of the world and the modem powers of production, and subjected them to  the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that Hindoo pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.

–MARX, New York Daily Tribune, Aug. 8, 1853.

[11]

THE NATURE OF COMMUNIST ETHICS

The whole object of training, educating, and teaching the youth of today should be to imbue them with communist ethics..

But is there such a thing as communist ethics? Is there such a thing as communist morality? Of course, there is. It is often made to appear that we have no ethics of our own; and very often the bourgeoisie accuse us Communists of repudiating all ethics. This is” a method of shuffling concepts, of throwing dust in the eyes of ‘the workers and peasants.

In what sense do we repudiate ethics and morality?

In the sense that it is preached by the bourgeoisie, who derived ethics from God’s commandments. We, of course, say that we do not believe in God, and know perfectly well that the clergy, the landlords, and the bourgeoisie spoke in the name of God in ‑pursuit of their own interests as exploiters. Or instead of deriving ethics from the commandments of morality, from the commandments of God, they derived them from idealist or semi‑idealist phrases, which always amounted to something very similar to God’s commandments.

We repudiate all morality derived from non‑human and nonclass concepts. We say that it is a deception, a fraud, a befogging of the minds of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landlords and capitalists.

We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. Our morality is derived’ from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.[§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§]

The old society was based on the oppression of the workers and peasants by the landlords and capitalists. We had to destroy this, we had to overthrow them; but to do so we had to create unity. No God will create such unity.

This unity could be created only by factories and workshops, only by the proletariat, trained and roused, from its long slumber.

Only when that class had been formed did the mass movement begin which led to what we see now–the victory of the proletarian revolution in one of the weakest of countries, which for three years has been resisting the onslaught of the bourgeoisie of the whole world.

And we see that the proletarian revolution is growing all over the world. We now say, on the basis of experience, that only the proletariat could have created that compact force which has the following of the disunited and scattered peasantry and which has withstood all the onslaughts of the exploiters. Only this class can help the laboring masses to unite, rally their ranks and definitely uphold, definitely consolidate, and definitely build up communist society.

That is why we say that for us there is no such thing as morality apart from human society; it is a fraud. Morality for us is subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat….

We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all laboring people around the proletariat, which is creating a new, communist society.

Communist morality is the morality which serves this struggle, ‑which unites the toilers against all exploitation, against all small property; for small property puts into the hands of one person what has been created by the labor of the whole of society.

The land in our country is common property.

But suppose I take a piece of this common property and grow on it twice as much grain as I need and profiteer on the surplus? Suppose I argue that the more starving people there are the more they will pay? Would I then be behaving like a Communist?

No, I would be behaving like an exploiter, like a proprietor. This must be combated.

If this is allowed to go on we shall slide back to the rule of the capitalists, to the rule of the bourgeoisie, as has more than once happened in earlier revolutions. And in order to prevent the restoration of the rule of the capitalists and the bourgeoisie we must not   allow such things to happen, we must not allow individuals, to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest, and all laboring people must unite with the proletariat and form a communist society.

This is the principal feature of the fundamental task of the League and of the organizations of the Communist youth.

The old society was based on the principle: Rob or be robbed, work for others or make others work for you, be a slaveowner or a slave. Naturally, people brought up in such a society imbibe with their mother’s milk, so to speak, the psychology,  the habit, is, the concept: You are either a slaveowner or a slave, or else a small owner, a small employee, a small official, an intellectual–in short, a man who thinks only of himself, and doesn’t care a hang for anybody else.

If 1 work, this plot of land, 1 don’t care a hang for anybody else; if others starve, all the better, the more 1 will get for my grain. If 1 have a job as a doctor, engineer, teacher, or clerk, 1 don’t care a hang for anybody else. Perhaps if 1 toady and please the powers that be I shall keep my job, and even get on in life and become a bourgeois. A Communist cannot have such a psychology and such sentiments.

When the workers and peasants proved that they were able by their own efforts to defend themselves and create a new society,  a new communist schooling began, a schooling in the fight against the exploiters, a schooling in alliance with the proletariat against the self‑seekers, against the psychology and habits which say: I seek my own profit and I don’t care a hang for anything else. . .

When people talk to us about morality, we say: For the Communist, morality lies entirely in this compact, united disciplined, and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not .believe in an eternal morality, and we expose all the lying fables about morality.

Morality serves to help human society rise to a higher level and get rid of the exploitation of labor.

–LENIN, “Address at Congress of Russian Young

Communist League” (1920), The Young Generation, pp. 36‑41.

# # #

For  Appendix, Sources & Biographical Index  see file Apdx-RMP w/in this diskette.

[†] For Hegel the categories of logical  thought were conceived as the driving force and inner substance of the world of nature, society, and mind, whereas for Marxian  materialism  they are nothing else than the abstract reflection in the human mind  of the material  world. –Ed.

[‡] For example Lamettrie’s Man a Machine (1748). – Ed.

[§] The nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system. –Ed.

[**] A term used by Aristotle to describe the particles or “seeds” which Anaxagoras held  made up all things. –Ed.

[††] Marx and Engels refer here, of course, to pre-Marxian socialism and communism. The reader will recall that this was written in 1844 – Ed.

[‡‡] See page 56-60 for remainder of quotation, omitted here, from The Holy Family. –Ed.

[§§] The reliance on faith  rather than reason in questions of philosophy and religion. –Ed.

[***] Works of George Berkeley, edited by A.C. Fraser, 1871, Vol. I, p. 155.

[†††] In his preface Fraser insists that both Berkeley and Locke “appeal exclusively to experience” (p. 117).

[‡‡‡] See pp. 142f.—Ed.

[§§§] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Essays and Treatises, London, 1882, Vol. IT, pp. 151-53.

[****] Psychologie de Hume. Traite’ de la nature humaine, etc. Trad. Par.  Ch. Renotwier et F. Pillon, Paris 1878. Introduction, p. x.

[††††] Thomas Huxley, Hume, London, 1879, p. 74.

[‡‡‡‡] (Euvres completes de Diderot, ed. par J. Assezat. Paris, 1875, Vol. 1, p. 304.

[§§§§] This section, which appears near the end of Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, summarizes Lenin’s view of the social significance of what he regards as the two main camps in philosophy-Ed.

[*****] Karl Grun, Ludwig Feuerbach in seinem Brietwechsel und Nachlass, sowie in seiner philosophischen Charakierentwicklung, Vol. 1. Leipzig 1874, p. 361.

[†††††] These dates refer to the publication of Anti-Duhring. Ludwig Feuerbach, and the introduction to the English edition of Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, respectively -Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡] Here is another example of how the widespread currents of reactionary bourgeois philosophy make use of Machism in practice. Perhaps the “latest fashion” in the latest American philosophy is “pragmatism” (from the Greek word “pragma”-action; that is, a philosophy of action). The philosophical journals perhaps speak more of pragmatism than of anything else. Pragmatism ridicules the metaphysics both of idealism and materialism, acclaims experience and only experience,  recognizes practice as the only criterion, refers to the positivist movement in general, especially turns for support to Ostwald, Mach, Pearson, Poincare and Duhem for the belief that science is not an “absolute copy of reality” and . . . successfully deduces from all this a God for practical purposes, and only for practical purposes, without any metaphysics, and without transcending the bounds of experience (cf. William James, Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, New York, 1907, pp. 57 and 106 especially). From the standpoint of materialism the difference between Machism and pragmatism is as insignificant and unimportant as the difference between empirio-criticism and empirio-monism. Compare, for example, Bogdanov’s definition of truth with the pragmatist definition of truth, which is: “Truth for a pragmatist becomes a class-name for all sorts of definite working values in experience” (ibid., p. 68).

[§§§§§] See above, p. 64 for work referred to.–Ed.

[******] Contained in The Positive Outcome of Philosophy, Kerr, Chicago, 1928. This translation varies somewhat from that given below.-Ed.

[††††††] *The words of Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust: “Alles, was besteht, ist wert, dass es zugrunde geht.”-Ed

[‡‡‡‡‡‡] Marx is refer-ring to several works written in 1844, selections from which are contained in Appendix I.-Ed.

[§§§§§§] See Christian Wolff in Biographical Index.-Ed

[*******] Marx, in a letter to Engels in 1858, said of Lassalle “the fellow is proposing to present political economy in the Hegelian manner in his second great work. He will learn to his Cost that to bring a science by criticism to the point where it can be dialectically presented is an altogether different thing from applying an abstract ready-made system of logic to mere inklings of such a system.” (Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, p. 105.)

[†††††††] See, for example, Dirk J. Struik, “Marx and Mathematics,” Science and Society, vol. XII. No. 1, Winter, 1948.-Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] It is much easier, along with the unthinking mob a la Karl Vogt, to assail the old natural philosophy than to appreciate its historical significance. It contains a great deal of nonsense and phantasy, but not more than the contemporary unphilosophical theories of the empirical natural scientists and that there was also in it much that was sensible and rational is beginning to be perceived now that the theory of evolution is becoming widespread. Haeckel, for example, was fully justified in recognizing the merits of Treviranus and Oken. In his primordial slime and primordial vesicle Oken put forward as biological postulates what were in fact subsequently discovered as protoplasm and cell. As far as Hegel is concerned, in many respects he is head and shoulders above his empiricist contemporaries,  who thought that they had explained all unexplained phenomena when they had endowed them with some power-the power of gravity, the power of buoyancy, the power of electrical contact, etc., or where this would not do, with some unknown substance–the substance of light, of warmth, of electricity, etc. . . . The natural philosophers stand in the same relation to consciously dialectical natural science as the utopians to modem communism.

[§§§§§§§] 1920, at a Moscow conference on the trade unions–Ed.

[********] Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. XI

[††††††††] Capital, Vol. 1. Ch. XXXII.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] Ibid., pp.788 f.

[§§§§§§§§] In general, the position attributed here to the agnostic corresponds with that of 20th century pragmatists and logical positivists.–Ed.

[*********] Beltov was one of the pen-names of George V. Plekhanov.–Ed.

[†††††††††] For further development of this point see Lenin, Appendix 11, Nos. 24-26, 33-34.-Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] In the preceding pages Engels discussed the rise and development of early modem science. He showed, however, that with all its gigantic advances and revolutionary achievements, it still looked upon the world “as something ossified, something immutable,” and for the most part “something that had been created at one stroke.”–Ed.

[§§§§§§§§§] The defect of Lyell’s view-at least in its first form-lay in conceiving the forces at work on the earth as constant, both in quality and quantity. The cooling of the earth does not exist for him; the earth does not develop in a definite direction but merely changes in an inconsequent fortuitous manner.

[**********] Amphioxus. A headless marine animal with some of the characteristics of a fish, but much more primitive–Ed.

[††††††††††] Lepidosiren. One of the lungfish which can breathe air for months on end. -Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] Prolista. Single-celled animals and plants such as Paramecium, Ameba, Bacillus.-Ed.

[§§§§§§§§§§] Compare The German Ideology, p. 36: “Even this ‘pure’ natural science is provided with an aim, as with its material, only through trade and commerce, through the sensuous activity of men.”–Ed.

[***********] The king-crab, shown by Marx’s friend Ray Lankester to be an arachnid, i.e., * related to the spiders and scorpions, though not, of course, exactly a  spider.–Ed.

[†††††††††††] A see-squirt. Though the adult is sessile, the larva resembles a tadpole.–Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] Lungfishes–Ed.

[§§§§§§§§§§§] Assises de Jerwalem: The statute book of Godfrey of Bouillon for the kingdom of Jerusalem in the 11th century.-Ed.

[************] For another statement of the relation of the concrete and abstract see Lenin, Appendix 11, No. 16–Ed.

[††††††††††††] Compare  Marx, Capital, vol. III, p. 1030.‑Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] Marx himself said of Darwin’s Origin of Species, which appeared in 1859, the same year as Marx’s Critique of Political Economy: “Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.”–Ed.

[§§§§§§§§§§§§] For another summary statement by Engels of the materialist conception of history, see Anti‑Duhring, p.292,–Ed.

[*************] An instrument that projected, by means of mirrors, an inverted image of a scene on a plane surface.–Ed.

[†††††††††††††] Lenin is here carrying on a polemic against the Russian sociologist, N. Mikhailovsky, who defined the task of sociology as follows: “to ascertain the social conditions under which any particular requirement of human nature is satisfied.”–Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] See Ludwig Feuerbach, pp. 65–69.‑Ed.

[§§§§§§§§§§§§§] In his “Essence of Christianity.”–Ed.

[**************] Duhring had said that a “socialitarian system, rightly conceived, has therefore . . . to abolish all the paraphernalia of religious magic, and therewith all the essential elements of religious cults.” Engels replied to this at the close of the passage above: “Herr Duhring, however, cannot wait until religion dies this natural death. . . he incites his gendarmes of the future to attack religion, and thereby helps it to martyrdom and a prolonged lease of life” (ibid., p. 346).‑Ed.

[††††††††††††††] When Napoleon asked him why God did not appear in his “System of the World,” he is reputed to have answered, “But Sir, I find no need of that hypothesis.”–Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] Engels’ Ludwig Feuerbach is a revised version of two articles lie contributed to Die Neue Zeit in 1886 in which he made a critical analysis of C. N. Starcke’s book, Ludwig Feuerbach.–Ed.

[§§§§§§§§§§§§§§] This tracing of the origin of the modern ideas of equality to the economic conditions of bourgeois society was first developed by Marx in Capital. [See. for example, vol. I, p. 69.‑Ed.]

[***************] In this selection Marx is criticizing a statement in the Gotha Program drawn up by a congress of German Socialists at Gotha in 1875. The program called for ‑an equitable distribution of the proceeds of labor,” on the grounds that “the whole proceeds of labor belong with equal rights to all members of society.”–Ed.

[†††††††††††††††] Compare the following, from Theories of Surplus Value (Theorien uber den Mehrwert, Berlin 1923, vol. it, p. 334): “The worker himself appears in this [the bourgeois] conception as what he really is in capitalist production–a mere means of production; not as an end in himself and the goal of production.”–Ed.

[‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡] Marx later changed this phrase into a more precise one, namely, the relations of production. –Ed.

[§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§] Lenin is here applying to ethics the position he held with regard to all areas of ideology. Compare, for example: –‑in a society tom by class antagonisms there can never be non‑class or above‑class ideology.” (What is to be Done? p. 41.)–Ed.

U.S. imperialism is on a war footing after having declared a protracted, borderless, all-encompassing “war on terror” and against “evildoers.” Alternately couched in the rhetoric of peace and freedom or in moral terms, it is merely affirmation of imperialism’s perpetual drive for profits and hegemony. How does war boost U.S. imperialism’s economic interests? How does political-military dominance underpin U.S. monopoly capital’s profits? In turn, how does the U.S.’s global economic spread necessitate equally global political-military dominance? What are the factors behind U.S. imperialism’s long-term relative economic decline? Finally, what are the economic limits of the United States’ drive for political-military hegemony and of state monopoly capitalism in stemming capitalism’s fundamental crisis of overproduction? This paper argues that U.S. imperialism is in the end much weaker than it projects itself to be.

Introduction

The world capitalist system periodically erupts in severe economic crises – the so-called “booms and busts” characteristic of monopoly capitalism’s chronic crisis of overproduction. The present crisis is especially brutal. An extended global recession is certain and, to be sure, the possibility of the deepest global depression the world has ever seen is greater than ever.

Between the imperialist Group of 7 (G7) countries (United States, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, United Kingdom, and Canada), the rest of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), plus China, Russia and the four East Asian newly-industrialized countries (NICs), global industrial overcapacity is unprecedented. Neoliberal globalization has mired the over 150 neocolonies in ever deeper crises and sparked resistance. Financial markets are wracked by bubbles and enormous instability. Fiscal resources are scarce and overall economic opportunities even thinner.

Amidst these, United States (U.S.) imperialism is working to surmount its grave economic problems. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the United States’ self-declared and -led “war on terror” are the pretext for its most recent campaign to consolidate its hegemony and get through the current economic crisis. It has two fronts: domestically, the dominant faction of the monopoly bourgeoisie, especially the military-industrial complex, is more brazen in manipulating economic policy in its favor. Abroad, there is a greater push to open foreign markets to U.S. trade and investment.

There is also a strategic reason why the U.S. is extending and deepening its overseas military presence, including resorting to direct armed intervention: to try and enforce a world order favorable to U.S. monopoly capital’s commercial and economic interests. This requires asserting its ascendancy over imperialist rivals and so-called “peer competitors,” intimidating any country aiming to break out of the U.S.-dominated world capitalist system, and putting down national liberation struggles. In short, imposing a geopolitical pseudo-stability in which U.S. political-military power and its economic advantages are unchallenged.

The stakes for U.S. imperialism are high. While it remains the world’s pre-eminent imperialist superpower, American hegemony has been in relative decline for decades. The outcome of its current campaign will determine whether this accelerates or if the U.S. is able to extend its lease on global supremacy. But as U.S. imperialism strives to cope in the only ways it knows how, it lays the ground for ever-greater economic and social upheavals.

U.S. imperialism’s economic crisis in historical perspective

U.S. imperialism’s most fundamental aim is to protect, advance and promote the profit-seeking interests of U.S. monopoly capital. This is the core of its foreign and domestic economic policies. The objective economic tendencies resulting from that and, more generally, the workings of monopoly capitalism are what keep not only the United States but also the world in seemingly endless cycles of crises, some worse than others.[1] The vicious logic is that overcapacity always develops and renewed growth only occurs after a round of destruction of productive forces: factory closures, business bankruptcies, job losses and rising poverty. The specific way in which this process unravels varies with any given episode, with different proximate economic shocks or triggers, but the underlying dynamic is constant.

The United States’ current economic crisis is the result of processes underway since at least the end of the Second World War (WW2). More to the point, U.S. monopoly capitalism’s political, military and economic policies in its unrelenting drive for superprofits over the past half century have resulted in the resurgence of its imperialist rivals, the erosion of its production and commercial advantages, the inflating of financial bubbles, and the intensification of its domestic crisis of overproduction. The concurrence of all these, in turn, are what have led to the long-term relative decline of American economic supremacy.

A full appreciation of the roots of U.S. imperialism’s current economic troubles then requires looking back on the most significant events in its economic history over the last half century. But before this, we can begin with a macro-historical overview of U.S. imperialism’s rise and relative decline. A brief account of its rise to global economic dominance and economic strengths in the 19^th century will also be useful to provide a historical counterpoint to its weaknesses today, over a hundred years later.

U.S. imperialism’s rise and relative decline

U.S. imperialism’s rise to world hegemony and the decline of the older powers began in the aftermath of the world recession of 1873. The U.S.’s territorial expansion during the 19^th century captured the fertile agricultural lands of the Northwest Territories, Midwest and Great Plains, the vast iron ore deposits of Minnesota, Tennessee and Alabama, the rich coal resources of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and the abundant oil fields in the Southwest – i.e. abundant agricultural, mineral and energy resources.[2] Mainland and then overseas expansion eventually gave it the largest domestic economy among its major rivals.[3] The U.S. economy was bigger than that of the United Kingdom (U.K.), France, Germany and Japan in 1870 although, like China and India, it did not have the global economic strength the Western European powers had by virtue of their colonial empires (Table 1).

Table 1: Relative Levels of GDP in Selected Countries, 1870-2000 (PPS: U.S.=100)[4]

Sources: A Maddison, The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective, (University of Groningen and The Conference Board, GGDC Total Economy Database, 2002), http://www.eco.rug.nl/ggdc; V Valli, “Relative Economic Ascent, Relative Economic Decline and the Fordist Model of Growth in the World Economy” (Turin University, 2002), Preliminary Draft.

However the U.S. economy started to grow much faster than its rivals in the decades that followed as pioneering mass production methods came into use. Its annual average rate of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita over the long period 1870-1950 far outstripped its rivals and was above the world average (Table 2). The United States’ industrial challenge was on the strength first of its steel, farm machinery, and shipbuilding enterprises then later of its automobile, electrical equipment, heavy machinery, and chemical industries.[5] Industrial and financial oligopolies also matured into monopoly finance capital at this time, ushering in the era of imperialism.

Table 2: Real GDP Per Capita Growth in Selected Countries or Areas: 1870-1950[6]

Source: Ibid.

In 1870 the U.S. economy was only slightly larger than the U.K. and France, twice as big as Germany or Italy, and four times as big as Japan. By 1950 it loomed large over them all: four times as big as the U.K., seven times as big as France or Germany, and ten times as big as Italy or Japan (Table 1). The European powers were further undermined by the successes of national liberation movements and waves of decolonization. Nonetheless Europe, with the exception of the U.K., and especially Japan outpaced the U.S. during the post-war “boom” and by 1973 were able to recover some lost ground.

Then generalized stagnation and crisis set in beginning the early 1970s and average world real per capita GDP growth collapsed from 4.1% in 1950-73 to 1.8% in 1973-2000 (Table 2). Since the United States slowed down the least, Europe lost some of the ground it had previously gained while Japan just kept pace. China’s growth is notable and it almost quadrupled its size relative to the U.S. economy between 1950 and 2000.
The continued economic dominance of the United States over the major imperialist powers since the end of WW2 is indisputable (Chart 1).[7] However this dominance in terms of total GDP has been diminishing since the 1950s. The combined GDP of Japan, Germany, France and the U.K. rose from 67% of U.S. GDP in 1950 to 99% in 1973 and stayed around that level for the next two decades (Chart 2). Although this started falling after the world recession of the early 1990s, down to 86% in 2001, it still remains much higher than in 1950.

These trends in the United States’ rise and relative decline are also reflected in its share in world GDP. This increased steadily from less than a tenth in 1870 to peak at nearly 30% in the immediate post-WW2 years (Table 3). This then fell rapidly with post-war reconstruction until the early 1970s, especially as its imperialist rivals recovered, then remained more or less the same at around 22% until the end of the 20th century. Again, China’s rapid growth is notable and it more than doubled its share of world GDP between 1950 and 1998.

Table 3: Shares of Major Imperialist Powers in World GDP, 1820-1998

(% of world GDP)

Source: A Maddison, The World Economy…, Table B-18.

The United States’ falling shares in foreign direct investment (FDI) and worsening trade deficits are also important indicators of the accelerating decline in U.S. economic hegemony since the 1970s. It’s share of total foreign direct investment has fallen steeply since the 1970s, from over half of total world outward FDI in 1971 to just a little over a fifth in 2000 (Table 4). Most of the share it lost was taken up by its European and Japanese imperialist rivals and only very little by a handful of upstart capitalist countries.

Table 4: Foreign Direct Investment Outward Stock of Major Imperialist Powers, 1971-2000
(% of total world FDI outward stock)

Sources: 1971 data from Harpal Brar, “Imperialism: Decadent, Moribund, Parasitic Capitalism” (London: Harpal Brar Publications, 1997); 1980-2000 based on data from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report 2001, Annex table B.4, p. 307.

The United States increased its export dominance from 1870 to 1950 and lost ground from 1950 to 1973 (Table 5). While this decline seemed to have been partially reversed from the early 1970s, this subsequent export performance is qualitatively different from the earlier periods – not only did U.S. merchandise imports also concurrently start to increase, they did so at an even faster rate, eventually resulting in unprecedented trade deficits (discussed in more detail below). With these overall trends in mind we can now turn to a more detailed account of U.S. imperialism’s economic performance since the end of WW2.

Table 5: Value of Merchandise Exports of Major Imperialist Powers, 1820-1998

(% of U.S. merchandise exports)

Source: A Maddison, The World Economy…, Table F-2.

The post-war “boom”

The inter-imperialist Second World War between 1939 and 1945 devastated productive forces on a massive and truly worldwide scale. In the European, Asian and African theaters of war, millions of the working class were killed and factories, farms, machinery, roads, buildings, ports and other productive infrastructure were destroyed. In the aftermath U.S. imperialism alone among the major powers was unscathed. And more than that, it was stronger than ever.

The war years saw profitable trade in armaments and in the consumer and producer goods that war-ravaged economies elsewhere could no longer produce. U.S. industry and agriculture so flourished that its economy doubled in size: GDP soared from US$903.5 billion in 1939 to US$1,714.1 billion in 1944 and US$1,495.1 billion in 1945.[8] By the end of the war, U.S. imperialism held two-thirds of the world’s gold stock and had unquestionable primacy in arms, finance and productive capacity.

With hegemonic self-confidence it set about constructing a global trading and investment environment multilateralist in form but essentially one that it could dominate with its matchless economic and military might. Two things were important for favorable trading and investment conditions for the United States: first, more or less stable exchange rates (which meant preventing competitive devaluations and potentially destabilizing capital flows); and, second, dismantling the pre-war system of tariff and investment barriers.

These requisites were achieved through the fixed exchange rate regime set up by the Bretton Woods conference and the trade-promoting General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Bretton Woods also created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, or more popularly known as the World Bank [WB]). These enshrined the unique place of the U.S. dollar in global finance.[9]

The US$17 billion Marshall Plan for European reconstruction, in addition, paved the way for U.S. investments in an area that had socialist revolution knocking on its eastern front while providing a profitable outlet for surplus U.S. capital.[10] The Japanese economy would be boosted by massive U.S. war spending during the Korean War (and later the Vietnam War). Elsewhere, unilateral threats of economic sanctions and various bilateral treaties were also used.

At home, U.S. imperialism fostered monopoly practices and market controls put in place in the 1930s and built up during the war years. Big business interests profited from state protection or regulation of key sectors of the economy – manufacturing, railroads, air transportation, trucking, oil, electricity, telecommunications, mining, agriculture and financial markets – and from labor repression.[11]

These laid the foundations for the so-called “golden age” (for the bourgeoisie). Commerce and investment boomed and the United States’ imperialist rivals grew as post-war reconstruction – in large part driven by U.S. monopoly capitalism’s drive for profits and by the wars it waged – took place. The combination of expanding trade, dampened wages and low commodity prices made per capita output in the advanced capitalist countries, especially Japan, rise spectacularly in the years until 1973.

The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China likewise grew although through socialist planning methods rather than capitalist accumulation. Especially in the case of China, this growth was in a much more broad-based manner. The neocolonies of Latin America and Asia had much more moderate growth, however, while Africa vacillated between stagnation and decline.[12]

The U.S. economy as a whole continued to grow but even so went into relative decline against its imperialist rivals. The Cold War drag of heavy military production and global military deployments – with “defense” spending averaging 9.5% of gross national product (GNP) between 1950 and 1970[13] – diverted resources and caused a long-term slowdown in capital accumulation. The United States committed less of its GNP to investment in fixed capital than its imperialist rivals in the post-war years: about half as much as Japan and about two-thirds as much as Germany.[14] The annual rate of growth of its manufacturing capital stock of 3.1% from 1960-73 was less than half that of Germany’s 6.5% and less than a quarter of Japan’s 12.8%.[15] The U.S.’s rivals also took advantage of the market access and technology transfers the U.S. granted them as support to strategic frontliners against the advancing Socialist bloc (as did, later, the East Asian NICs).

Post-war reconstruction was basically completed by the start of the 1960s and the decade saw the exhaustion of profitable opportunities for production and investment. By the 1970s, Western Europe, especially Germany, and Japan were directly competing with the United States in a wide range of manufactures in home markets and abroad. First it was in labor-intensive products like textiles and clothing but soon it was also in more capital- and technology-intensive goods like steel, cars, chemicals, machinery, electronics and agricultural equipment. They began to capture increasing shares of the world market for manufactures at the expense of U.S. producers and also started to challenge U.S. primacy in global finance. Germany for instance increased its share in world exports almost four-fold from 3.3% in 1950 to 11.5% in 1973 it even had more merchandise exports than the United States.[16]

The United States’ diminishing underlying competitiveness is well reflected in its balance of trade (Chart 3).[17] The overall trade surplus turned into a deficit in 1971 and has drastically worsened since the early 1980s. Although there have been consistent surpluses in trade in services, these have been persistently overwhelmed by widening deficits in trade in goods and the long-term decline is clear.

Deepened crisis since the 1970s

The 1970s was a watershed not only for U.S. imperialism but also the world capitalist system as mounting industrial overcapacity induced a system-wide crisis of profitability. Between 1965 and 1973, the manufacturing sectors of the G7 as a whole experienced a fall in the rate of profit on their capital stock of about 25%; for the U.S., profitability declined 43.5%.[18] The “win-win” situation for the imperialists in the first years of the post-war era had turned into a zero-sum game.

The fixed exchange rate regime that played such an important role in facilitating global trade was also under pressure. U.S. balance of payments (BoP) deficits began to soar, especially in the late 1960s, because of mounting industrial competition and imports, increasing overseas direct investments by U.S. transnational corporations, support to client states, maintenance of overseas military bases, and Vietnam War- and other proxy war-related military expenditures. Enormous volumes of dollars flowed abroad. It had a cumulative BoP deficit of US$31.6 billion in the years 1950-70 or about US$1.5 billion annually. World financial markets were gravely imbalanced as claims against the dollar far outstripped the U.S. gold reserves that supposedly backed these.

The limits of the post-war order had been reached. The only way to restore balance under the fixed-exchange rate system instituted at Bretton Woods was for the United States to reverse on the main sources of pressure: meaning significantly deflating its economy to decrease imports, reining in overseas investments and checking its runaway military spending. But these would have worsened U.S. imperialism’s international position; instead, exercising a luxury available only to the world’s biggest superpower, it initiated the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in 1971-73.

The move to flexible exchange rates was a boon to the United States and an important factor in giving it unprecedented economic room to maneuver. The U.S. dollar sharply devalued – and, correspondingly, the Japanese yen and German mark revalued – boosting U.S. manufacturing at the expense of its rivals. The U.S. dollar turned from being “as good as gold” to being “better than gold.” Not only did it remain the world’s key currency, this status was even been bolstered by how the massive outflow of dollars in years past had made its way to the reserves of the world’s central banks and underpinned their countries’ currencies. The United States, sans the constraint of a dollar-gold link, could now create its currency at will and essentially finance unlimited trade deficits with the rest of the world.[19] This unprecedented situation is why the United States could keep increasing it imports at a rate far exceeding the increases in its exports (Chart 3).

Industrial overcapacity bore heavily on all the imperialist powers but it was the United States that was best able to turn this to its advantage. To stimulate the domestic economy, it undertook expansionary monetary and fiscal policies unrestrained by any concerns about reducing overseas deficits. The U.S. dollar was devalued by 17% between 1973 and 1979 to boost manufacturing competitiveness at the expense of its rivals.

New trade barriers were also raised. The International Multi-Fiber Arrangement was set up in 1973 to restrict the entry of textiles and clothing from neocolonial producers. The Trade Act of 1974 and its infamous Section 301 also set up the mechanism for the U.S. to take punitive action against “unfair” traders, resulting in the notorious “voluntary export restraints” (VERS) forced by the U.S. on its trading rivals. Steel and cars from Japan and Germany were among the most important targets.

As a result of these moves, and in stark contrast to the 1960-73 period, the annual rate of growth of the United States’ manufacturing capital stock of 4.3% in 1973-80 was more than double Germany’s 2.1% and approaching Japan’s 5.5%.[20] The United States was able to consolidate somewhat and recovered some of the economic ground it lost to Western Europe and Japan in the previous three decades.

Nonetheless it was a time of deep crisis all around. The world capitalist system shifted onto a decidedly new and worse level of its general crisis. The oil price shock-induced worldwide recession of 1974-75 segued into years of sustained rising unemployment, slow growth and continued high inflation until the next deep recession in the early 1980s.[21] Comparing the 1960-73 to the 1973-81 period, unemployment in the OECD countries increased from 3.2% to 5.5%, inflation more than doubled from 3.9% to 10.4%, GNP growth halved from 5.0% to 2.4%, and productivity growth more than halved from 3.9% to 1.4%.[22] In the imperialist G7 countries, average annual gross manufacturing output growth slowed drastically from 6.4% in 1960-73 to 2.5% in 1973-79; productivity growth also slowed, from 5.2% to 3.8%.[23]

At any rate, U.S. efforts to revitalize its manufacturing through protection, easing of monetary policy, competitive devaluations and deficit spending resulted not in a generalized increase in profitability but in over-investment, runaway inflation that was the highest among the three major powers, and record current account deficits. Average profit rates in manufacturing still fell from 16.6% in 1969-73 to 14.0% in 1973-79.[24] The unemployment rate more than tripled from an average of 2.9% over 1965-73 to 9.0% in 1982.[25] Consumer prices rose 13.3 percent in 1979, the largest increase in 33 years.

The “boom-bust” cycle persists and periodically gives the impression of renewed economic vitality as the world moves from recessions to recoveries. However world economic growth has been markedly slowing since the 1970s (Chart 4).[26]

Finance capital unleashed, workers’ earnings suppressed

Significantly, it was also around this time that capital flows were freed and that international financial markets started to become such a destabilizing factor on the economic landscape.

U.S. finance capital started to more actively seek returns outside of the increasingly exhausted industrial sectors. The United States prodded the expansion of international financial markets when it sanctioned the creation of the unregulated Eurodollar market in the late 1960s and removed capital controls in 1974. The first significant attempt to exploit these was when a handful of U.S. and other international banks cornered hundreds of billions of dollars in Arab oil surpluses for recycling towards neocolonial governments – the idea being to accelerate the turnover of capital, to rake in profits from interest and other loan charges, and to profit from the increased exports to the neocolonies that these loans financed.[27] The shift to floating exchange rates by 1973 also opened the floodgate to unbridled speculation on foreign exchange movements.

By the late 1970s, stagflation turned real interest rates negative and cut deeply into U.S. finance capital’s profits. With little prospects for spurring higher returns through expanding industrial output, U.S. policy instead relied on a sharp turn to high interest rates to increase returns to U.S. finance capital and, by stifling productive investment and forcing unemployment, to reduce overcapacity. Treasury Bill rates rose from 10.0% in 1979 to 14.0% in 1981 and bank prime rates from 12.7% to 18.9% (peaking at 20.4% in December 1980), the largest such increases in the post-war era.

The resulting 1981-1982 recession was the deepest since the 1930s. In the U.S., quarterly negative growth rates of as high as minus 7.9% were registered between 1980 and 1982.[28] Unemployment rates reached historic highs of up to 10.8% and the number of civilian unemployed increased from 7.8 million at the end of 1980 to a peak of 12.1 million by the end of 1982 (compared to around 8.5 million in the first half of 2002).[29] With sharply higher interest rates, some US$750 billion out of US$1.5 trillion in loans were suddenly regarded as high risk. The global debt crisis sparked also left a swathe of economic devastation in the neocolonies.[30]

The U.S. aimed for recovery from the industrial shake-out through unprecedented peacetime military spending. The national defense budget of US$317.8 billion in 1980 steadily and rapidly increased to a peak of US$474.3 billion in 1985, compared to the Korean War high of US$570.4 billion (1952) and Vietnam War high of US$430.5 billion (1968).[31] Industrial interventions were also commonplace with, for instance, billion-dollar bailouts for mega-companies Lockheed defense corporation and Chrysler auto corporation and federal takeovers of the railroads of the northeast and their merger into Conrail. The debt crisis was also used as a springboard to increase entry into neocolonial markets through the IMF and the WB. So-called “stabilization” and “structural adjustment programs” were imposed to gain sources of cheap raw materials and labor, provide trade and investment opportunities, and ensure continued debt repayments.

But global overproduction still persisted. Manufacturing net profit rates in the United States, Germany and Japan increased after 1981 but the peak rate in 1988 was lower than was achieved at anytime in the entire 1948-1970 period, and barely half the peaks achieved then (in 1951 and 1965).[32] The United States cornered much of these gains at the expense of Germany and Japan. Key to its being able to do this were: first, extracting a dollar devaluation with the Plaza Accord in 1985 (between 1985 and 1990, the yen and the mark appreciated against the dollar at average annual rates of 10.5% and 12.7%, respectively); and secondly, suppressing real wages (average annual increase in real hourly manufacturing wages was 0.15% in the U.S., 2.85% in Germany and 2.90% in Japan).[33]

Indeed a key feature of the worsened U.S. economic crisis since the 1970s is intensified working class exploitation due to severe deunionization and the undermining of workers’ bargaining power. Minimum wages collapsed and job insecurity gravely worsened. Substandard part-time, contingent and contractual employment which offered low wages, sparse or no health and pension benefits and job insecurity became widespread.

Average real wages were stagnant – and for many years even falling – from 1972 to 1997 (Chart 5).[34] Correspondingly, growth in real median family income of 2.8% annually between 1947 and 1973 slowed to 0.4% between 1973 and 1995; although when wage growth temporarily accelerated during the bubble-driven 1995-2000 this increased to 2.2% per year.[35] Over the 1980s and 1990s, job instability worsened where temporary work doubled each decade and workers spent less and less time with one employer.

As a result, in 2000, the last year of available data, the share of the United States’ poor was about equal to its level in 1973.[36] Despite positive and even robust income growth, poverty remains stuck at relatively high levels. Inequality remains staggering: the wealthiest 1% of all households control about 38% of national wealth, while the bottom 80% of households hold only 17%.

Higher returns were also sought in speculative activities with corporations increasingly relying on financial operations to generate profits. As much as 75% of total returns in the United States and Britain since the start of the 1980s resulted from capital gains rather than earnings – i.e. in an appreciation of the market value of securities rather than dividends or interest plus reinvested profits.[37] Between 1984 and 1989, U.S. nonfinancial corporations spent an annual average of US$184 billion on mergers and acquisitions compared to just US$84 billion on non-residential fixed investment (an over-estimating proxy for manufacturing investment), much of which was heavily leveraged by easy corporate debt.[38] Huge financial bubbles developed, fueling leveraged buyouts and stock buybacks, which inflated corporate debt and bubbles further.

International finance also boomed with the world bond market of around US$1 trillion in 1970 doubling to US$2 trillion in 1980 and then growing six-fold to US$12 trillion in 1990.[39] This continued increasing to US$20 trillion in 1995 and US$25 trillion in 1998. There were ever-greater cross-border capital movements. In 1976, over 80% of all international transactions involved the buying and selling of goods and services. This dropped steeply through the 1980s and by 1997 was a scant 2.5% – i.e. some 97.5% of transactions went to speculation in currencies, equities, bonds, financial derivatives and other securities.[40] Massive amounts of capital went to speculation and not to productive activities.

Real interest rates dropped as finance capital found other means of generating profits and, in addition, to spur manufacturing investment. But the process of using financial resources to generate fictitious profits could only go so far in the face of diminishing opportunities for profitable productive investment and U.S. equity markets eventually crashed in 1987, precipitating the global recession of the early 1990s. In 1991-93 the U.S. business failure rate exceeded the previous record post-war levels of the first half of the 1980s.[41]

The trouble with the U.S. bubble

While the basic conditions for the crisis of overproduction are due to the contradictions inherent in capitalist exploitation, the defining feature of the U.S. economic crisis at the end of the 20^th century are the unprecedented financial bubbles that came on top of these. When before personal savings and retained business earnings generated in the course of productive activity constituted the bulk of capital accumulation for reinvestment, paper capital and wealth especially in the course of over-borrowing and speculation became more and more paramount in the 1990s. The artificial dynamism and expansion of the real economy could not be sustained for very long and the shock of economic reality eventually hit in 2000.

No “New Economy”

There was much hype about a  “New Economy” in the United States because of supposedly miraculous rapid growth in GDP, investment, employment and productivity in the second half of the 1990s. By now though it is clear that there was no such transformation and the forces behind the prolonged stagnation of the capitalist world economy since the mid-1970s remain. The capitalist crisis of overproduction is unremitting and all the U.S. has been doing, in effect, is maneuver more or less around that trend.

On one hand, U.S. monopoly capital exploited opportunities opened up with the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s. It capitalized on the capitalist triumphalism following the end of the Cold War and mobilized its vast economic policy-making and -influencing arsenal to place countries on the “free market” footing that works so well to the United States’ advantage – so-called neoliberal globalization. The premiere instruments were the multilateral IMF-WB and, since 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO), backstopped by regional arrangements like the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and bolstered further by diverse bilateral, business and diplomatic offensives on a country-to-country basis.

In less than a decade, the United States crafted more than 300 trade and investment agreements including NAFTA, GATT-WTO, the accord establishing permanent normal trade relations with China, the international moratorium on tariffs on e-commerce, and multilateral agreements in telecommunications, information technology equipment, and financial services.[42] Between 1993 and 1997, U.S. manufacturing export growth averaged 11.2%, raising the ratio of manufacturing exports to manufacturing value-added from around 32% to 42%.[43] The strongest growth especially after 1996 was in capital goods promoted by the “New Economy” hype: computers, semiconductors, and telecommunications equipment.

These exports were partly compromised with the reverse Plaza Accord and the engineered appreciation of the U.S. dollar of 20% against the mark and by 50% against the yen between the spring of 1995 and 1998. But the potentially dampening economic effect of this was more than offset by the unprecedented financial bubble of the second half of the 1990s resulting from U.S. financial deregulation in the early 1990s, the Federal Reserve’s “easy money policies,” and various corporate financial shenanigans. The bubble, too, was itself very much fueled by the “stronger” dollar.

Yet for the business cycle as a whole, the average GDP growth rate of 3.1% from 1990 to 2001 was much lower than in the 1950s (3.7%) and 1960s (4.4%), and still slightly below the pace of the 1970s (3.3%).[44] Real wage growth in the 1990s in turn averaged less than half a percentage point annually for a typical worker. These alone belie even the tempered claims that the 1990s were at least better than in any comparable period since the start of the global slowdown in the early 1970s though still worse than at any time during the post-war “boom.”

Indeed much of the growth that was achieved was unstable, vulnerable and driven by paper capital and wealth. Irrational stock market valuations (especially of technology and telecommunications firms), falsified corporate profits, reckless growth in household and corporate debt, rising consumption, and unjustifiable investments all fed off each other in a speculative frenzy that showed up as “New Economy” macroeconomic performance.

Take the stock market: stock market indices soared with unprecedented rapidity to unprecedented heights (Chart 6).[45] Capitalization shot up from US$6.3 trillion in 1994 to US$19.6 trillion in early 2000. The over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market in swaps and options meanwhile also grew from US$8 trillion of OTC derivatives outstanding in 1993 to over US$50 trillion in 1998.[46]

But this was all flash and little substance. The financial wizardry obscured basically collapsing real incomes and swelling industrial overcapacity, especially since it was the behemoth U.S. economy – long the world’s largest consumer and capital haven of last resort – at work. Equity prices soared with less and less relation to real economy corporate profits which, despite low real wages, ultimately remained stifled by the underlying crisis of overproduction.

And stocks and mutual funds are in any case heavily concentrated and some 90% of total value is held by 10% of households.[47] Indeed the top 1% of stock owners hold almost half (47.7%) of all stocks, by value, while the bottom 80% own just 4.1% of total stock holdings.[48] Lower- and middle-income families enjoyed less than 3% of stock market gains between 1989 and 1998 even as – to compensate for falling incomes – they accounted for some 40% of the increase in household debt.[49] Still, many Americans’ economic status has been tied to the stock market and about 40% of households in 1995 owned stock either directly or through a mutual fund or some sort of retirement plan. The repercussions of a stock market bust will then be keenly felt even among middle-income and some lower-income families who were dragged into the bubble economy.

Meanwhile, debt levels are at historic highs. Household debts have been inexorably rising for decades, accelerating in the mid-1980s and again in the mid-1990s (Chart 7).[50] They rose fourfold from US$2,119.9 billion or 51% of GDP in 1985 to US$7,866.9 billion or 74% of GDP in 2001. American households breached a debt threshold in 1999 when, for the first time ever, they had more debt than disposable income: their debt as a percentage of disposable income was about 62% in 1978, 102% in 1999 and over 120% by the beginning of 2001.[51] About four-fifths of these are in mortgage debt – with households borrowing heavily against the value of their homes – with the balance in consumer debt.

Buoyed by the stock market boom and corporate accounting fraud, corporate debt in turn doubled since its levels in the mid-1990s, from US$2,714.9 billion in 1995 to US$4,843.3 billion at the start of 2002 (Chart 8). They are also at a record high of almost twelve times corporate profits today. Another indicator of the size of the financial bubble is how share prices went up by 200% since the mid-1990s but corporate profits by just 40%.

The debt problem becomes even starker taken all together. Total outstanding debt including the domestic nonfinancial sectors (government, household and business), domestic financial sectors and foreign debt were a staggering US$29,968.5 billion or thrice the size of GDP (290.6%) at the beginning of 2002 (Chart 9). This is double its size in the early 1970s when it was just around 150% of GDP. The growth was artificially sustained for many years with the monopoly bourgeoisie justifying their financial decisions – and drawing their profits – with ever more incredible rationalizations and deceits.

The big role of foreign capital in fueling demand as well as the investment and stock market boom is significant. In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. was the world’s biggest source of liquidity and investment. Then it became the world’s biggest debtor and recipient of foreign capital in the 1980s. Since then, over US$2.5 trillion worth has flowed into the United States. U.S. net international debt reached US$1.2 trillion at the end of 1998 and is estimated to reach US$3.8 trillion by 2005. In 2000, there were some US$6.6 trillion in foreign-owned assets in the U.S. including US$3.6 trillion in U.S. treasury bonds (two-fifths of the total), corporate bonds (one-fourth) and equities (over a tenth). Counting U.S. assets held by foreign governments brings the total to over US$8 trillion or over 80% of U.S. GDP.

Finally, even the much-touted productivity gains attributed to a new “information age” have been shown to be illusory. Productivity gains were touted as the key to bolstering the U.S. monopoly firms’ international economic situation and to increasing worker compensation. Although net productivity growth in the 1990s (1.7%) was better than in the 1980s (1.1%), it was much worse than that in the 1950s (2.9%), 1960s (2.8%) and 1970s (1.8%).[52] Even productivity growth in the supposedly hyperactive second half of the 1990s was, at barely 2.0%, generally lower than in the 1950s-1970s.

The U.S. “New Economy,” in short, was a sham. Corporations were investing in ventures doomed to be unprofitable by overproduction, or otherwise just driving up their share prices, using money that they didn’t have. Households were going deeper into debt to make up for low and falling wage incomes. The U.S. economy as a whole had to draw in massive amounts of capital from abroad just to keep the illusion going. But none of this could go on forever.

Bubbles always burst

The signal bursts of the brewing global crisis started in Mexico in 1994, Asia in 1997, and Russia and Brazil in 1998 before landing in the U.S. with the collapse of the US$3.6 billion hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM). With one last gasp, U.S. stock market indices peaked in early 2000 and then collapsed (Chart 6). The S&P 500 index has fallen by more than 40% and well over US$7 trillion, or some 70% of U.S. GDP, has been wiped off the value of American shares so far.[53] Share prices have suffered their steepest slide since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Growth slowed by the middle of 2000 and business equipment investment, after expanding at a double digit pace for eight years, collapsed and turned negative in the fourth quarter. Manufacturing was hit particularly hard: in the five quarters starting in the summer of 2000, the manufacturing sector lost some 1.4 million jobs.[54] In 2001, 95 big, publicly owned firms with combined assets totaling over US$220 billion filed for bankruptcy – more in one year than in the whole decade, at least, before it.[55]

But that was only the beginning and the U.S. economy remains in a precarious state. Overcapacity in the world economy – the gap between actual output and its potential – is still at its widest level since the 1930s and augurs the worst. There is still much industrial capacity to be shaken out before prospects for real economy profitability for the monopoly bourgeoisie pick up and a return to a higher level of growth is achieved.

High levels of household, corporate and public debt that were three times GDP by the first quarter of 2002 debilitate the United States.[56] There has already been a steep increase in the default rate on high-risk corporate bonds, from 6.5% in 2000 to 11% in 2001, not even counting mounting downgrades of credit ratings.

The string of high-profile corporate scams involving giants of international business – including Enron and WorldCom (the two biggest insolvencies in U.S. history), Global Crossing, Lucent, Adelphia, Xerox and K-Mart – are micro instances of capitalism’s desperate profit-seeking logic and case studies of how the financial bubbles were inflated. Declining rates of real economy profit and billions of dollars in losses were pathologically manipulated out of corporate accounts through misrepresentation, false entries, semantic maneuvers, understatements, fund juggling, or simply not recorded at all. Declared S&P 500 operating profits should more or less approximate and be reflected in whole economy national accounts profits but corporate overstatement caused them to be persistently higher especially since 1997, for instance by over 25% in 2001.[57] These are affirmations of how profit-seeking monopoly interests will always be able to manipulate, ignore or evade supposedly meaningful regulation of their corporate finances and financial institutions.

The unrelenting and widening trade deficit since the 1970s – a result of the competitive gains of rival economic powers and of increasing offshore assembly by U.S. transnational corporations (TNCs) – is also a flashpoint. U.S. imports of goods and services exceeded its exports by US$358 billion in 2001 or more than 3½ times the trade deficit in 1996. The current account deficit stands at US$393 billion or 4.3% of GDP and may reach 6% of GDP at year’s end. At this rate, the U.S. will need to draw in close to US$2 billion a day from abroad by 2003. Foreign investors and creditors are still willing to keep the money flowing but the vulnerability is real.

While this does not on its own indicate a hollowed-out economy, any adverse movements in the capital accounts that hinder the U.S.’s immediate ability to finance the trade deficit will send destabilizing shocks through the system.[58] More and more of the current account deficit is financed by short-term capital inflows or “hot money,” increasing to some 57% of capital flows in 2000 from 9% in 1999.[59] For the U.S. the main defense against this happening, particularly since the collapse of the fixed exchange rate system in the early 1970s, has been the special position of the dollar as the world’s dominant currency – its value in terms of other currencies has always been expected on the whole not to fall even when the U.S. economy is functioning at full capacity.

The politics of economics

In the final analysis it is U.S. imperialism’s economic, political and military might which underpins the exclusive position of the dollar in global finance and, indeed, of the U.S. economy. This was further boosted in the 1990s by much unfounded thinking about a new age of information technology-driven productivity and the dawning of a “New Economy.” Today it is supported as well by a mixture of denial, desperate optimism, and buying into the U.S.’s swaggering as the world’s last remaining and greatest superpower.

But the U.S. economy is fraying at the edges and reeling from sluggish industrial performance, the worst official unemployment in two decades, soaring debt, high-profile corporate fraud and bankruptcies, and grossly inflated U.S. share prices. The soaring deficits in the balance of trade since the start of the 1990s also seem more unsustainable than ever.

The dollar’s value is being undermined and it is no longer a question of whether or not there will be an eventual flight from the dollar but how and when. Gold prices, returns on long-term European bonds, the value of the euro and European stock indices – key alternatives to investing in the United States – are already creeping upwards. Tensions are also already mounting as the United States becomes less coy about subsidizing and protecting its national economy.[60]

Although a fall in the dollar will immediately show up as a short-term transactions problem, the resulting volatility in finance and generalized instability will cascade through the real economy via some combination of accelerating inflation, higher interest rates, increased debt defaults, falling investments and collapsing incomes, first in the United States and then spreading across the globe. When that happens – as it must to lay the ground for a return to corporate profitability – the U.S. and the rest of the world will be plunged into an even deeper and more prolonged period of economic crisis and instability.

As things stand the tendency of the U.S. economy towards at the very least a prolonged recession is clear. With so much capacity built up on the basis of financial and stock market bubbles, there is no avoiding a deep round of destruction of productive forces in the real economy of jobs, production and investment – already manifest in mounting unemployment, corporate bankruptcies, business failures.

All in all, the crisis is an acid test of U.S. imperialism’s power. It is true for instance that exchange rate movements in the current era of formally deregulated finance can result in capital flows with a momentum of their own. This may seem ominous for the U.S. dollar which has been estimated as anywhere between 15-30% overvalued. Any rapid loss of value – real or perceived – could cause trillions of dollars worth of investments to be liquidated as investors seek better investment opportunities elsewhere and try to avoid massive exchange rate losses.

But it is also true that the world’s financial assets are under the control of a handful of global custodians: the five biggest – Bank of New York, JPMorgan Chase, State Street, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank – have between them over US$28 trillion in total assets in their custody.[61] Some 75% of foreign exchange transactions are handled by 13 banks in the United States.[62] As with the Plaza Accord of 1985 and the Reverse Plaza Accord of 1995, the direction the U.S. dollar eventually takes and the resulting flow of capital and the ultimate impact on the real economy will be the result of negotiations between United States, German and Japanese monopoly capital. When all is said and done there is going to be coordination at the highest levels of imperialist power, more so considering the extent of adjustment needed in the global economy.

It is a delicate task given the state of the global economy three decades into its generalized slowdown. The instability is without equal with, for example, more frequent, longer and deeper global recessions. The average annual global real GDP per capita growth of about 1.8% in the period 1973-2000 was less than half the 4.1% of the previous period 1950-1973 (Table 2). On average, almost three times as many years were spent in recessions and output declines were some 20% larger.[63] As it is, world GDP growth fell from 4.7% in 2000 to 2.5% last year which is the slowest since 1992.

Average annual growth rates of the imperialist G7 (who account for over 65% of global GDP) in the period 1964-73 ranged from 3% to 10%. In 1983-92 this fell to between 2% and 4%; from 1993 to 2001 it slowed even more to between negative growth and 3%. Average annual G7 country growth rates in productivity ranged from 2.8% to 8.6% from 1963 to 1973 but not one of them exceeded 3% on average from 1973 to 1995.

But it is the neocolonies who are worst off. More than eighty of them actually have lower per capita incomes today than a decade ago. Per capita GDP growth rates of the bottom three-fourths of the world fell by at least five percentage points between 1960-80 and 1980-2000.[64] Inequality has also been worsening: the income of the top fifth of the world’s population was 30 times that of the bottom fifth in 1960, 45 times more in 1980, and 74 times more in 1997.[65] In short, the world capitalist system remains torn by the contradictions inherent in monopoly capitalism.

U.S. imperialism’s renewed economic aggression: Exploiting 9/11

It is no coincidence that the timing of U.S. imperialism’s “war on terrorism” coincides with the bust of the U.S. economy – the barefaced escalation of state monopoly capitalism and imperialist aggression is driven by the viciousness of the current crisis.

The bursting of domestic financial bubbles and the exhaustion of debt- and speculation-driven growth has destroyed markets and ruined commercial opportunities, hence the need for the state to step in to support the favored factions of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie. This is being done through a domestic fiscal stimulus (especially via a war-spending boost) and a more aggressive globalizing offensive.[66] Increased state intervention in the economy and around the world to the benefit of U.S. monopoly capital has been justified, however tenuously, in one fell swoop: it is a matter of national and global security.

Domestically, it is an attempt to overcome the fundamental capitalist malady of overcapacity and overproduction afflicting the U.S. economy. Overseas, the worsening global crisis has resulted in increasing competition from rival imperialist powers and “peer competitors” as well as burgeoning protest, nationalist and liberation movements. The objective conditions have thrown up threats to U.S. imperialism’s sources of cheap raw materials and labor, markets for surplus goods and services, and outlets for recycling surplus capital. U.S. imperialism has responded with a renewed effort to secure these as well as to create new trading and investment links that will allow it to exploit and retain its monopoly advantages in the “free market.” This is while it protects domestic sectors as it sees fit.

The “war on terror,” moreover, has been declared from the outset to be protracted, without borders, and against an invisible and treacherous enemy. The implications of conceiving it in this way are far-reaching and, from the point of view of its aims, eminently logical: virtually anything anywhere including pro-elite economic policies can be justified as for the sake of the “war” effort.

The basic tendency of U.S. imperialism is towards state monopoly capitalism and economic regulation in the interests of the monopoly bourgeoisie.[67] If we take total government expenditure as a very rough proxy, this tendency has even been steadily increasing for the past 50 years albeit with a few years of reversal in the 1990s (Chart 10).[68] As ever, U.S. imperialism today is just working to support the most ailing sections of the dominant ruling elite.

There are many ways to regulate economic activity in monopolies’ interests including: fiscal policies (awarding of contracts and tax policies); trade policies (protectionist barriers, producer subsidies); finance and credit policies (directed credit, financial and audit crackdowns); and administrative controls.

Indeed, “regulation” in monopoly capital’s interests is possible through both direct state interventionist and market mechanisms. The difference between a “Keynesian” or “neoliberal” bias is in many ways merely a matter of which economic policy tools are used to promote the monopoly bourgeoisie’s interests as geopolitically and economically expedient for the time or situation. It is also important not to obscure how the consistent motive of imperialism under either kind of policy is to secure monopoly superprofits and the ultimate impact on the working people is always their increased exploitation.

The eruption of financial crises, economic instability and mounting resistance to “free market” measures however makes “regulation” through the market difficult today, hence U.S. imperialism’s resort to increasingly more direct interventions. The most brazen of these are the massive increases in war-related spending.

The U.S. and wartime expansions

U.S. imperialism’s war machine is important for it in two interlinked ways. First, the economic interests of the military-industrial complex at the heart of the U.S. monopoly bourgeoisie depend on using the state’s powers to channel shares of the social surplus towards it. Massive military spending, with or without open or extended armed conflicts, guarantees them sure and sustained profits. And second, U.S. military dominance and armed strength ultimately underpin the U.S.’s international position and its influence over the neocolonies, potential “peer competitors” and the other imperialist powers. At the end of the day, the business activities and profits of the U.S.’s transnational corporations and financial institutions are protected and promoted by U.S. military strength.

Thus, U.S. imperialism has historically relied on wartime expansions to boost its economy and the monopoly bourgeoisie’s profits sooner if not later. Consider the ten longest U.S. economic expansions during the very long historical period 1854-2001 (Table 6).[69] Out of the total 680 months these expansions cover, 510 months or 75% of these were during times of “hot” or “cold” wartime mobilizations – i.e. the U.S. Civil War, First and Second World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War and the rest of the Cold War (including Reagan’s unprecedented 1980s “peacetime” war mobilization). It could even be argued that the 50 month-long expansion from 1933-37 was itself already part of a simmering war effort. The remaining 120 months or 18% of expansion were during the exceptional bubble- and debt-driven 1990s.

Table 6: Ten Longest U.S. Economic Expansions: 1854-2001

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research website, “U.S. Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions” (2001), http://www.nber.org, accessed Aug. 14, 2002.

Chart 11 gives an overview of U.S. real GDP from 1929 to 2001.[70] The close association between major growth spurts and increased war and war-related spending is apparent, again except for the 1990s. Note that the chart presents the absolute level of GDP so the continued increase does not refute the phenomenon of general stagnation since the 1970s which is determined relative to overall growth and economic performance. This particularly shows in the slowdown in world growth rates and real GDP per capita growth rates (Chart 3, Table 2).

Military spending in the last half century peaked during the Korean War, Vietnam War and the unprecedented “peacetime” spending of the Reagan administration (Chart 12a).[71] Spending dropped from 1991 to 1997 but started to increase again since 1998, long before the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Even with the supposed end of the Cold War, military spending never fell below the Cold War average annual spending of US$354.4 billion and, if anything, is even rapidly approaching peak spending then. The absolute level of overall defense spending in constant dollar terms is substantial and far higher than the Cold War average, even if it has been falling as a percentage of GDP (Chart 12b).

War and war-related spending boosts monopoly profits immediately by granting military contracts to the most favored factions of the monopoly bourgeoisie. They also mean to boost the economy by starting and, it is hoped, sustaining a dynamic of increased demand, stimulated investment and increased production. The process begins with increased consumer demand from military and military-related personnel, increased government demand for war materiel, and direct state investment in military-related capital goods and research and development. These last two particularly work in vested interests’ favor.

Any other sources of increased demand (such as during WW2 when other countries increased their purchases of U.S. goods and services) or increased investment (as might be attracted from overseas into an increasingly profitable arms industry) would just boost the dynamic further.

The persistent bias of the state towards the U.S. military-industrial complex is clear and total U.S. defense consumption and investment spending have always been high and far above nondefense consumption and investment spending (Chart 13).[72] Since 1946, it has ranged from twice to over ten times as much as nondefense spending, albeit on the low end in recent years. Recall that increased levels of spending have always been accompanied by faster rates of GDP growth (Chart 11).

The first war boost of the 21^st Century

The most blatant and extensive state support for U.S. monopoly capital is that given to the military-industrial complex. Although national defense spending had been slowly falling since 1990 with the end of the Cold War this actually started increasing again after 1998 – long before the 9/11 terrorist attacks but, however, coinciding with the onset of crisis. The last large increases in U.S. military spending began around 1979 and were sustained until the mid-1980s – i.e. during the U.S.’s long stagflation-recession crisis (see Charts 12a and 12b).

The federal national defense budget in real terms fell from US$416.8 billion in 1990 to US$309.1 billion in 1998 until it started creeping up again to US$325.3 billion in 1999.[73] This increased to US$329.9 billion in 2000, US$346.5 in 2001 and US$358.5 billion in 2002 (Chart 12 and Annex 1a). Invoking the “war on terrorism,” the U.S. government has programmed ever larger amounts starting with US$396.8 billion in 2003 – “plus $10 billion more if the war against terrorism requires it,” according to the Office of Management and Budget – reaching US$426.1 billion in 2007. These projections do not even yet factor in the cost of a renewed assault and invasion of Iraq that by some estimates could come to over US$50 billion.[74]

This is a deliberate, sustained and brazen effort to support military-industrial profits. Between the years 1998 and 2003, the greatest spending increases are in the high mark-up items procurement (42% increase), operation and maintenance (36%) and research and development (34%) – for a total increase of US$73.7 billion in 2003 from their 1998 levels. A total US$1,105.6 billion will be forthcoming for just these three items from 2004 to 2007.[75]

The levels of military spending are clearly hardly related to the actual level of military threats it stands at a third of global military spending, almost seven times that of its nearest rival Russia, and more than the combined spending of the next 25 nations.[76] The U.S. war machine is far more dangerous and lethal than anyone else’s in the world and would be so for generations even if its development stood still. The massive military spending indeed only makes sense within the hegemonic logic of imperialism and, in particular, the avarice of the U.S.’s military megacompanies (see Box 1).

Financing wars

The main constraint to U.S. imperialism’s flexing its military muscles – whether to boost the economy or to assert its global hegemony – is where it will get the resources to pay for this. Financial resources are finite. Also, the basic tendency of capitalism to erupt in periodic crisis can in any case never be forestalled for very long. To be sure, no possible amount of government spending – whatever the complementary tinkering with money supply, interest rates, taxation, and exchange, wage and price controls – will ever be enough to overcome capitalism’s contradictions and the economic busts are always bound to happen. Otherwise the U.S. government would have been able to prevent the ten recessions that have struck since 1945, totaling over 100 months so far, which ate into monopoly capital’s profits.

The capacity of the U.S. economy to sustain U.S. imperialism’s war machine, costly military adventures, sustained overseas military presence and projection and arms industry profits is then a point of weakness. Military-related spending is evidently basically unyielding over the long-term and war mobilizations, in particular, are extremely costly (see Box 2). Yet the overall economic crisis undermines government revenue sources.

Table B1: Costs of Major U.S. Wars/Interventions Since 1900

Source: Center for Defense Information, Military Almanac 2000-2001 (2002), pp. 47-49.

Increasing levels of military spending are programmed at least until 2007 but the question is how far these and any more beyond them can be sustainably financed. Federal receipts have historically hovered around a little less than 20% of GDP (Annex 5).

Fiscal expansions for the sake of boosting monopoly profits however add great pressure on the budget. In the post-war years these were mediated by the growing receipts attendant to a rapidly growing economy, which also permitted very high levels of military spending relative to GDP.

But the U.S. government hit a financial wall of sorts in the early 1970s with the onset of generalized crisis, undermined revenues, and the accumulated expenses of the Vietnam War. Especially since the 1980s and accelerating rapidly in the 1990s, federal deficits have had to be filled by massive amounts of government debt – soaring from US$909.1 billion or 33% of GDP in 1980 to US$6,137.1 billion or 59% of GDP in 2002 (Chart 14).[77] These augur ever mounting fiscal pressures that will severely constrain future action and whose servicing will inevitably fall on the American working people.

The U.S. government has been increasingly reliant on debt since the late 1970s and even the reversal as a share of GDP through most of the 1990s has itself started to reverse (Chart 15).[78]

Military financing problems will only become more acute in case of full-scale war mobilizations by the U.S. especially if they are unilateral ones. Lower revenues, higher debt and a lack of substantial financial support from allies will all bear heavily on the U.S. economy, all the more with any resulting intensification of the economic crisis for instance due to disruptions in global energy supplies (as might result for instance with a full-scale war against Iraq).[79]

The deepening domestic and global crisis however puts U.S. imperialism in a dilemma. On one hand, it probably does not have the economic means to sustainably wage a full-blown war on the scale desired by the military-industrial complex for the huge and easy profits it so yearns for. This is compounded by how the grossly exaggerated “terrorist” threat and the overall political environment do not yet allow for a full-scale wartime mobilization either domestically or with the financial support of “allies.”

On the other hand, mounting global opposition to capitalist exploitation and to U.S. imperialism as well as the rise of rival big economy powers seems to oblige, at the very least, pre-emptive or deterrent maneuvering which will cost money. Steeply falling corporate profits, mounting bankruptcies and economic competition from overseas are also driving demands for bailouts or other similar state support.

However the U.S. economy is far less dominant and powerful than it was during its peak at the end of WW2 just half a century ago. It is wracked by the deepening of the crisis of overproduction since the 1970s and the inflating of dangerous financial bubbles since the 1980s and 1990s. These greatly constrain its options in working for a war-driven boost to monopoly profits and the economy and in waging wars against its enemies. With the United States’ declining economic dominance the threat of complete and absolute U.S. global domination is in some ways then becoming more apparent than real.

The contradictions it faces, in short, are greater than they ever were not least because the conditions for greater social unrest within the United States itself are being laid.

Elite welfare, the people’s burden: Who pays?

The working class and the broad strata of the population bear the burden of paying for the defense of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie’s interests and profits. Ever greater parts of the social surplus are extracted through higher and increasingly regressive taxes, the pillage of social security funds and cuts in social services.

On one hand, in the past 50 years, federal receipts have been coming more and more from individual income taxes and social security payments and less and less from corporate income taxes (Chart 16).[80] Corporate income taxes as a percentage of GDP relentlessly fell from 5.6% of GDP during WW2 to 1.6% during the Reagan and Bush, Sr. administrations, increasing slightly to 2.1% under Clinton. The corporate tax bill enacted by Bush, Jr. in early 2002 however will bring this down further to just 1.3% of GDP or the second lowest annual level in six decades.[81]

Corporate tax breaks are estimated to total US$346.3 billion in just 2002 and 2003.[82] These come on the heels of massive tax breaks since the mid-1990s, totaling US$50 billion for just ten of the U.S. largest companies – including the likes of Microsoft and General Electric (US$12 billion in tax breaks), Ford (US$9.1 billion), IBM (US$4.7 billion), General Motors (US$3.6 billion) and failed WorldCom (US$5.3 billion) and Enron (US$1.0 billion).

Of the US$100 billion in programmed income tax cuts enacted by the Bush administration in 2001, comprising accelerated tax breaks and capital gains cuts, 41% will go to the richest 1% of taxpayers and almost three-quarters to the top 10%.[83] Over the ten-year period until 2010, tax cuts for the richest 1% will come to US$477 billion or over half a trillion dollars. Payroll taxes on lower- and middle-income Americans on the other hand are expected to increase – and social security benefits expected to decrease –in the struggle to meet looming social security payments in the coming decade.

The tax burden on the working class is increasing even as they already get a disproportionately small share of state spending which is heavily cornered by the military-industrial complex. As it is, military spending takes up a very high and, since 1998, increasing share of total discretionary federal spending – taking up anywhere from half to over 70% (Chart 17).[84] These high levels are very much at the expense of the rest of the government’s programs including its social services (Chart 18).

And all this is happening while the U.S. working class has been left behind even during the so-called “boom” years. Inequality has been rising. From 1973 to 1998, the income of the richest 5% of the population soared 59.3% while that of the poorest fifth barely rose by 4.0%, resulting in a level of polarization in the U.S. unseen since the 1930s.[85] Taking just the sub-period 1989 to 1998, the income of the top 5% of the population rose 22.4% while that of the bottom fifth even fell by 0.1%.

Diminishing productive capacity

The sheer burden of maintaining and especially mobilizing the U.S. war machine is a significant drag on the U.S. economy and a long-term hindrance to its performance as labor, capital and raw materials are diverted from potentially more productive uses elsewhere. The short-term profits of a narrow section of the monopoly bourgeoisie are attained at the expense of fostering [exploitative] capital accumulation which could improve the United States’ prospects in inter-imperialist economic competition.

The burden of waging the Cold War – especially prosecuting the Vietnam War – compounded by the economic resurgence of imperialist Europe and Japan precipitated the secular decline of the U.S. economy since the early 1970s. A large reason for the U.S.’s relative decline in the post-war era is its diminishing productive capacity as vast resources went to military consumption instead of non-military investment (Chart 19).[86] The other imperialist powers on the other hand were and are able to devote more of their resources to productive investment, albeit at the cost of much weaker military forces. It may also be noted that the unprecedented “peacetime” war spending during the Reagan years precipitated the recession in the early 1990s.

Increasing federal support for military research and development in particular has been at the expense of other initiatives which may have a more direct bearing on increasing U.S. competitiveness vis-à-vis its rivals (Annex 6). Although this may be partially offset to the extent that military technologies have civilian applications (such as laser technology and the Internet) and to the extent that political-military leverage improves the terms of economic policy negotiations, it nonetheless remains a burdensome technological effort for the United States that its militarily-stunted rivals have less of.

Crisis economics: Fiscal expansions and U.S. exceptionalism

But the increase in state subsidies, trade protection and fiscal incentives also goes beyond the arms industry to a multiplicity of sectors.

As things stand, the combined 2003 “defense” and homeland security budget of US$391 billion already takes up 52.4% of the U.S. discretionary budget.[87] Homeland security spending doubles to nearly US$38 billion, including some US$13 billion programmed in the defense budget. Nearly every federal government department will receive new funding justified, however tenuously, on the grounds of being in support of the “war on terrorism.” These include protecting the food supply from bio-terrorism, increasing security at national parks and monuments, increasing airport security, tighter border controls, and expanding local emergency services (firefighters, police and medical personnel).[88]

It’s already well known that agricultural support is on the increase. The Agricultural Act of 2001 renamed the Farm Security Act of 2002 raises the level of federal subsidies by an additional US$82.8 billion over 10 years, for total projected spending of US$451.3 billion.[89] These are on top of annual agricultural subsidies of some US$60 billion already and U.S. subsidies per farm may soon be thrice or four times European levels. Maybe less well known is that the growth rate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget authority earlier already leaped three-fold from 4% in 1999 and 2000 to 13% in 2001, or before the 9/11 attacks.[90]

Multi-billion dollar airline bail-outs in late September totaling US$15 billion are due to be followed with a US$4.5 billion funding bill for Amtrak recently repackaged as the National Defense Rail Act of 2002, even if the problems of either industry are only dimly connected with the 9/11 attacks.

There is also other civilian spending justified by a national security veneer. Only rough orders of magnitude are possible but some idea may be given by markedly higher levels of federal grants to state and local governments. Comparing the periods 1996-2001 with 2002-2007 these shoot up an unprecedented 33%, from US$1.5 trillion to US$2.0 trillion or an increase from 2.9% to 3.4% of GDP.[91]

The United States advocates trade and investment liberalization only to the extent that an unrestricted international economy is to its advantage. Yet, reaffirming the strategic significance of steel, the U.S. has raised tariffs and imposed quotas on imports of steel, affecting Europe, Japan, China and South Korea steel exporters particularly hard. Besieged, the U.S. steel industry lost more than 20,000 jobs in the past four years and 30 companies have gone bankrupt. Ten steel byproducts are covered and tariffs ranging from 8-30% will remain in effect at least until 2004.[92] Protecting the steel industry is also tantamount to providing its firms with a stronger base for competition in world markets.

U.S. imperialism has also been self-serving in its approach to a broad range of international economic, security and environmental agreements (see Box 3). The military-industrial complex has been assiduously protected against any cumbersome treaties that might hinder overseas military adventures or otherwise impinge on the protectionist policies and state support given to the operations and profits of domestic military firms.

So far there is little indication of more direct measures at regulating the economy such as the outright state distribution of raw materials and energy. Yet it could be read as ominous that there are moves to place the “security” of key utilities and infrastructure – such as power plants and water systems – under coordinated federal and state control, especially under the purview of the newly-created Department of Homeland Security.

The global offensive

U.S. imperialism is unrelenting in its effort to obtain global economic advantages for its monopoly commercial and financial interests. Other countries are valuable for the United States either in directly meeting its economic needs – i.e. for cheap raw materials, energy resources and labor, markets for surplus goods and services, and outlets for recycling surplus capital – or otherwise helping ensure that those needs will be met elsewhere.[93]

In the 19^th century it took the traditional colonial route of carving out exclusive territories or spheres of influence. After WW2, the United States eschewed this and instead relied on its preponderant economic and political might to dominate the neocolonies and its imperialist rivals. To this day its basic approach is for a hegemonic double-standard: pressure the rest of the world to adopt trade and investment policies that allow the United States to exploit its economic strengths yet, at the same time, protect critical sectors of the domestic economy as necessary. It has also used direct armed interventions and wars to create the overseas political and economic conditions most conducive for American business (which has had serious economic repercussions on the United States).[94]

Thus, the United States’ economic strength is buttressed by economic interests that span the globe. However its relative decline also means that its rivals and other potential “peer competitors” are increasingly engaged in competitive maneuvering against it both in the U.S. market and elsewhere around the world. The United States’ sources of low-cost raw materials and labor, markets and investment outlets are coming under threat. Also, it has yet to dominate the newly-opened post-Soviet bloc territories which remain up for grabs. It is imperative for the United States to protect and expand its worldwide interests lest its monopoly capitalists lose out or its economy be undermined further. This is the context of the United States’ renewed global offensive.

Here we can focus on the United States’ reliance on overseas sources of some critical energy and mineral resources. The global distribution of these naturally occurring resources goes far in explaining U.S. policy thrusts in, for instance, the Middle East and Central Asia. We can also review U.S. imperialism’s presence in foreign markets and briefly look into its most important efforts to expand this through further trade and investment liberalization. Taken together these will broadly cover the overseas investment interests that the United States must defend and the countries whose policies it must influence.

Appetite for raw materials

Monopoly capitalist excesses make the United States a voracious consumer of energy and mineral resources. U.S. foreign policy is then inevitably very much tied up with the need to ensure cheap supplies of essential raw materials. It may be recalled how initially abundant domestic supplies of cheap raw materials fueled rapid U.S. expansion from the late 19^th to the early 20^th century.

The United States is the world’s largest energy producer, consumer, and net importer.[95] Closely tracking U.S. growth rates, energy consumption rose rapidly during the post-war years until 1973 and less rapidly after to stand at 98,497,649 billion British Thermal Units (BBtu) or 25% of world total energy consumption in 2000 (Annex 7).[96] This was also accompanied by increasing energy consumption per capita. Energy use per person was 215 million Btu (MBtu) in 1949 and kept on increasing until the oil price shocks of the mid-1970s and early 1980s caused the pattern to reverse from its peak of 361 MBtu in 1979. It fell to 339 MBtu in 1990 but has been on an uptrend again since, reaching 350 MBtu per person in 2000.

But as the United States’ energy consumption increased, so did its production shortfall, indeed at a much faster rate (Chart 20).[97] The U.S. was self-sufficient in energy until the late 1950s when energy consumption began to outpace domestic production. From 1970 to 2000, U.S. energy consumption grew 45% while production rose only 13%. Because of this the share of U.S. energy imports in total consumption soared six-fold from just 4.6% in 1949, to 19.4% in 1973, to 29.0% in 2000 (Chart 23). The United States’ dependence on imported energy reached historic highs in the late 1990s and continues to increase.

Petroleum is a vital energy resource and the United States relies on it for some two-fifths of its energy needs: petroleum met 38.7 % of total energy consumption from 1991-2000.[98] The United States consumes 26.1% of the world’s petroleum – twice as much as Germany, France and Japan combined – yet it has barely 2% of the world’s crude oil reserves.[99] It started to import more petroleum than it produced in 1995. In 2000, a record-high level of 8.9 million barrels of crude oil and 2 million more barrels of other petroleum products was imported per day. Between 80-90% of annual energy imports in the last decade were just of petroleum.[100] The United States imported 60% of its crude oil needs in 2000 – or 8.9 million barrels imported per day out of total daily supply of 14.8 million barrels – about a quarter of which came from the Persian Gulf and another quarter from U.S. rigs in Venezuela and Mexico (Chart 21).
Within the United States, the single biggest consumer of energy is the state and, within the government, the overwhelmingly largest consumer of energy is the Department of Defense (DoD). Massive amounts are needed to keep the U.S. war machine going. It used up 95,815 hundred billion Btu (HBBtu) or 82.3% of the total 115,903 HBBtu that the state consumed from 1991-2000 (Chart 22). In 2000 alone the DoD consumed 82.4% of the total government demand of 10,335 HBBtu for the year.

All these go far in explaining U.S. policy towards not only the oil-rich monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait but also Israel. The largest and most concentrated proven conventional oil reserves are in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states – 66.5% of the world’s total – notwithstanding deepwater finds off the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caspian Sea (Table 7, Chart 23).[101]

Table 7: World Proven Crude Oil Reserves by Region (billion barrels, as of Jan 1, 2001)

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Seen in the context of U.S. imperialism’s vast resource needs, its war against Afghanistan clearly yields vast direct economic benefits apart from being a key effort in its global geopolitical and security strategy. The former Soviet republics in Central Asia directly encompass or facilitate access to huge untapped oil and natural gas resources. The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates a “good chance” that the Caspian region’s proven crude oil reserves could rival the amount now held by Saudi Arabia and come to 20-25% of total world proven reserves and that of natural gas may at least equal present United States and Saudi Arabian reserves.[102] U.S. policy towards the region as a whole and Afghanistan in particular is intimately tied up with this and it aims to outmaneuver Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China in staking a claim.

As with energy, the United States is the largest consumer and importer of metals and minerals in the world. Over the span of the 20th century, demand for these in the United States grew from a little over 160 million tons in 1900 to about 3.3 billion tons in 2000.[103] It consumes about one-third of the reported world total materials consumed, by weight, even though it accounts for only some 5 percent of the global population.[104]

Nonfuel minerals and mineral-based products cover a wide range of raw materials such as fertilizers for agriculture, concrete and building materials for construction, aggregate for road building, copper for electronics, and steel to make guns, planes, cars and bombs. U.S. output of mineral-based materials was US$429 billion in 2000 and, due to the onset of recession, down to US$374 billion in 2001; imports of raw and processed mineral materials came to US$67 billion and exports to US$45 billion in 2001.

Yet the United States is extremely dependent on imports of critical metals. All or virtually all of the United States’ aluminum, nickel, tin and platinum needs are sourced from abroad as is around half of its gold, lead, and copper, three-fifths of its zinc, and three-quarters of its silver and titanium concentrates (Table 8). Latin America’s importance in this regard is clear: in 2000, the region produced 43% of the world’s copper, 41% of tin, 39% of silver, and 26% of bauxite; it also produced 24% of iron ore, 19% of zinc, 17% of nickel, 15% of gold, and 14% of lead.[105] U.S. control over the region’s natural resources has increased with investment liberalization in the Andean Pact and the Mercosur countries and the privatization of many Latin American mineral, oil and gas, and utilities. It has been able to force full 100% foreign equity ownership in the mineral industries as well as complete repatriation of profits.

Table 8: Selected Metals Production (Mined) and Imports, 2000
(thousand metric tons unless otherwise specified)

* Data on the quantity of recoverable/usable ore is used over gross weight whenever possible.

** Total imports in all forms covering ore, concentrates, ash, residues, slag, skimmings, sponge, scrap, bars, bullion, billets, ingots, compounds, powder, pigments, precipitates, dore, dross, sheets, crude/semicrude, etc. unless otherwise specified.

Source: S D Smith, USGS Minerals Yearbook 2000 Statistical Summary(U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2001), Tables 1, 8 and 9.

The important role in this regard of two of U.S.’s imperialism’s junior partners, Australia and Canada, is worth noting. They are among the world’s largest producers of industrial metals, minerals and fossil fuels and are the world’s largest exporters of metals and minerals with much of this going to the United States. Canada had US$48.8 billion in mineral and mineral product exports in 1999 which was one-fourth of all Canadian exports for the year.[106] Australia exports some 80% of its mineral production and mineral exports came to US$30.6 billion in 2000 or some 60% of total commodity exports.[107] Mineral and mineral-product trade between the United States and Canada and between the United States and Australia each exceeds that of any other two countries in the world. Exports of mineral commodities and mineral-related products, which included fuels, to the United States from Canada were US$38.1 billion in 1998.

U.S. imperialism’s entry into Central Asia is also meaningful in terms of its mineral resources. The region has been noted for its “extremely high extent of mineralisation” and having among the world’s largest deposits of gold, copper, uranium and other minerals.[108] The most significant from a military perspective are its deposits of uranium, the basic raw material for nuclear weapons and atomic power. Kazakhstan’s known recoverable uranium resources of 558,000 tons are the world’s second largest (after Australia) and Uzbekistan’s 125,000 tons the world’s ninth largest – between just the two of them they hold 21% of the world total.[109] Aside from these are major deposits of lead, zinc, iron ore, manganese, molybdenum, chrome, cobalt, silver, magnesium, titanium and other minerals.

Crude petroleum and minerals are natural endowments set by geographical circumstance. Thus, among the United States’ largest trade deficit items, it is these where its domestic capacity is most limited and in which the need to secure overseas supplies is the greatest. They then have a strategic significance belying the relatively small shares they take up in U.S. TNC investments overseas. But even this could change soon as the liberalization of the mining laws of some 80 countries in the past decade takes effect.

Still, the United States’ preference for consuming other countries’ natural resources may obscure its own significant resources. It ranks twelfth worldwide in reserves of oil (21.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves as of January 1, 2001, or 2.1% of world reserves), sixth in natural gas (167 trillion cubic feet, or 3.2% of world reserves), and first in coal (275.1 billion short tons in recoverable coal reserves).[110] It is already the world’s second biggest producer of copper and gold and recent geological surveys even estimate that 37% to 68% of the world’s presently mineable resources of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc may even be within its borders (Annex 8).

Capturing markets

U.S. monopoly capital needs to sell its products to be able to realize their surplus value and, therefore, its profits which is why it is so pressing for it to be able to open other countries to its trade and investment. Most important in this regard are the markets of Europe, Japan and China although the neocolonies too have their place in the United States’ world order.

To begin with, the U.S. domestic market remains the most important to U.S. imperialism despite much globalist hype.[111] Some 68.4% of total U.S. TNC sales – i.e. of U.S. parents and majority-owned foreign affiliates (MOFAs) – were sold domestically. Production, capital and labor are also still very concentrated in the United States. In 1999, U.S.-based parents accounted for 76% of US$2.4 trillion in total gross product of all U.S. TNCs, for 76% of US$471.2 billion in total capital expenditures, and for 74% of 28.9 million in total employment (Table 9). These are only slightly smaller than levels in 1982 and after nearly two decades of neoliberal globalization. U.S.-based parents sold 91% of their products in the United States.

Table 9: Gross Product, Capital Expenditures and Employment of
Nonbank U.S. TNCs, U.S. Parents and Foreign Affiliates, 1982, 1989, 1999

Source: R Mataloni and D Yorgason, “Operations of U.S. Multinational Corporations: Preliminary Results From the 1999 Benchmark Survey,” Survey of Current Business, Mar. 2002, pp. 24-54.

Nonetheless, the United States does have significant global market and investment interests. The imperialist European countries and Japan are particularly important insofar as they are the world’s richest countries. The EU15 has a population of only 379 million but accounts for 23% of world GDP and has a per capita income of US$20,800. Japan in turn has a population of 126 million, takes up 14% of world GDP and has a per capita income of US$26,484.[112]

Around 41% of the United States’ total trade (exports and imports) is correspondingly with the EU and Japan: out of US$2,010.4 billion in total U.S. trade in 2000, US$557 billion was with the EU and US$263.7 billion was with Japan.[113] The top U.S. goods exports included aircraft, computers and electronic products, transportation equipment, telecommunications equipment, precision measuring instruments, nonelectric machinery, and chemicals.

The United States’ investment interests to establish its global production base for penetrating these markets are substantial. In 2000, US$573.4 billion or 46.1% of total U.S. FDI abroad were in the EU compared to 10.2% in Canada and just 4.5% in Japan which retains very strict constraints on foreign equity presence (Annex 9). Conversely, the EU has US$802.7 billion in FDI in the U.S. or 64.8% of the total compared to Japan’s US$163.2 billion or 15.1%.[114]

Using a more detailed survey of U.S. transnationals, the United States had US$1,245 billion in direct investment positions abroad in 1999.[115] Most of this was located in Europe (52.1%) and then in its extended production bases in the Western Hemisphere (29.4%) covering North America and Latin America (Annex 10). U.S. corporations’ international markets were mainly supplied from production sites based abroad and overseas-based MOFAs sold 89.3% of their sales overseas (of which 66% is in the host country itself and 23% to other foreign countries).[116]

Manufacturing is the most important industry group and accounted for 55.6% of total gross product followed by information (11.0%) and finance/insurance (5.1%). The largest share of this went to the 30-member rich-country OECD by far which took up some 74.9% of total manufacturing product.[117]

The distribution of US$561.2 billion in 1999 of MOFA gross product worldwide also reflects the aim of investing to access markets. This was concentrated in high-income Europe (57.3% of total) followed by Asia-Pacific (17.9%) and Latin America (10.6%) (Annex 8). By country this was concentrated in: U.K. (18% of total), Germany (11%), France (7%), Italy (4%), Japan (6%) and Canada (11.4%). Although production has also grown in several other low- and middle-income countries since 1989 – e.g. China, Malaysia, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil –very large shares of this output was exported to rich-country markets or even back to the United States.

Another aspect of the United States’ global spread is some degree of industrial relocation abroad. One indicator of this is how US$526 billion or 47% of the total annual value of imports and US$223 billion or 31% of exports in 2001 was in related party trade.[118] While this includes foreign parent trade with their U.S. subsidiaries, the implications given U.S. corporate dominance remain. For instance, related party trade of 68% of total imports from Mexico and 74% of total imports from Singapore is sure to be dominated by U.S. firms and not by Mexican or Singaporean firms. It has already been estimated that perhaps 37% of total U.S. imports and 63% of total U.S. exports in 1999 were between U.S. parents and their foreign affiliates.[119]

Another indicator is how the share of U.S.-based manufacturing TNCs in total domestic manufacturing output fell from 67% in 1982 to 58% in 1999, most of which fall occurred in the sub-period 1982-89. In addition, the share of U.S.-based manufacturing TNCs in total U.S. TNC employment worldwide fell from 74% in 1982 to 68% in 1999.[120] For U.S. TNCs as a whole there has been a slight increase in overseas-based output, investment and employment since 1982 (Table 11).

Although the United States, EU and Japan are the world’s richest markets, China could become the world’s single largest national market for consumer goods and services and a major market for luxury goods if projections that it will have more than 230 million “middle-income consumers” whose combined retail spending will exceed US$900 billion are sound.[121] The United States is also keen on meeting infrastructureal needs for capital, experience and equipment – i.e. construction machinery, road works, water, energy and communications utilities – estimated by Chinese officials to be worth as much as US$1.5 trillion between 1999-2005.[122]

U.S. exports to China are growing but still relatively small and in 2000 totaled just US$19.2 billion or 2.8% of total U.S. exports to the world. China is the ninth largest market for U.S. exports although counting U.S. imports from China as well makes it the U.S.’s fourth largest trading partner. On the other hand, the U.S. is China’s second largest trading partner, largest export market, and largest source of foreign investment.[123]

China still maintains significant protection for its agricultural and industrial sectors as well as state control of social services. The United States’ long-term objectives are to remove these thereby undermining China’s economic base and creating the conditions for its thoroughgoing compradorization. The U.S. push for Chinese membership in the WTO especially since the late 1990s has been aimed at increasing its leverage against the still belligerent behemoth by augmenting the threat of unilateral U.S. sanctions with multilateral rules.

The impact will be significant. Considering the country’s land, water and capital goods scarcities, “market forces” may push China to switch from food grains (i.e. rice and grain) to cash crops (i.e. vegetables and fruits) and from capital-intensive goods (i.e. chemicals, machinery, high-end electronics, cars and trucks) to labor-intensive products (i.e. toys, garments and textiles, consumer electronics). Peasant and worker economic displacement is inevitable as “competitive pressures” force their earnings downwards. The U.S. meanwhile benefits from being a major exporter of cereals and high-tech/heavy manufactures.

As present, it is worth noting that even if MOFA gross product in China grew a stunning five hundred-fold between 1989 and 1999, this was from a very low base and the US$3,933 million in 1999 was a mere 0.7% of the worldwide total – indicating how China still remains very guarded when it comes to allowing foreign investment in.[124]

Legitimizing imperialist domination

It has already been mentioned how trade and investment agreements have been liberally used by the United States in the past decades to craft an international economic framework favorable to it. Countries are made to adopt policies that consign them to their subordinate or neocolonial role and that prevent their emergence as agricultural and industrial competitors.

The United States intensified its WTO efforts in 2001. Overcoming post-Seattle difficulties, it maneuvered the launching of a new round of global trade negotiations. The new WTO negotiating mandate laid the groundwork for intensified trade liberalization in agriculture, manufacturing and services with targeted completion by 2005. Against mounting opposition, the United States was able to place on the agenda: increased market access, reduced export subsidies and domestic support for agriculture; the reduction and elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers on all industrial products; and more open markets for telecommunications, financial services, audio-visual, express delivery and distribution services – all key sectors for the United States. Although packaged under a comprehensive mandate covering all members, the United States. in practice clearly reserves its hegemonic right to exclude itself.

Free Trade Areas (FTAs) are significant recent additions to the United States’ policy-imposing arsenal especially as more manageable mechanisms than multilateral measures like the WTO.[125] The United States has had an FTA with Israel since 1985 and one with Canada since 1989 that became the NAFTA when Mexico entered in 1994. NAFTA has been significant in integrating Canada and Mexico according to U.S. production needs. In 1999, 67% of U.S. parent TNCs’ total exports to Canada and 63% of those to Mexico were to their own foreign affiliates – in the case of Mexico this share was more than double that in 1989.

The United States has particularly been pushing in recent years for the FTAA covering 33 Western Hemispheric countries by 2005, as well as maintaining interest in APEC for free trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific by 2020. FTAs also serve the political objective of tightening relations with the United States.

There is a clear surge in interest by U.S. imperialism in FTAs since the onset of the crisis in 2000 and especially with Japan and the EU also forming FTAs with other countries. The U.S. completed an FTA with Jordan in 2000 and began negotiations with Singapore and Chile. In the last two years, legislation has been introduced for FTAs covering Chile, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and the U.K.

U.S. imperialism is also pushing greater finance sector liberalization to expand global outlets for recycling its surplus finance capital and, audaciously (considering what the U.S. financial bubble has wrought), to generate momentary sources of pseudo-growth in a manner mimicking the U.S. bubble-driven economy. Neocolonies in particular are the target of U.S. banking, insurance and other financial institutions under the rhetoric of promoting “well developed and competitive financial sectors [that] must be the engines of growth in this decade.”[126] Capturing financial systems in this way also further precludes the deliberate agricultural and industrial policies so critical for national economic development.

It can finally also be noted that part of U.S. imperialism’s global offensive is the attack on the dependent capitalism of the so-called East Asian NICs, particularly South Korea and Taiwan. U.S. imperialism subordinated the immediate interests of its monopoly corporations in the 1950s and 1960s and effectively allowed a restricted sort of capitalism to take root in these frontlines against Communism. Bourgeois-dominated land reforms were enforced, generous financial support extended, blatant piracy of technologies tolerated, and access to the vast United States and Japanese markets for their products granted.

But the end of the Cold War, altered geo-strategic conditions, and a growing global glut in manufactured goods has made U.S. imperialism intolerant of industrial upstarts. There has been a determined campaign to pry open the East Asian NICs’ trade and investment barriers since the last half of the 1980s. The effort advanced greatly with the so-called Asian financial crisis and the resurgent leverage of the IMF which the United States was quick to exploit. IMF conditionalities in its stabilization programs pushed through long-standing U.S. demands for more complete financial and capital market liberalization, dismantling of controls on trade in goods and services, and an end to state-directed industrial policies (not only in the NICs but across all of East Asia).

Inevitably deeper crisis

The sources of the U.S.’s apparent strengths are also the wellsprings of its greatest weaknesses. They are all critical flashpoints for U.S. imperialism.

The United States’ global spread is far-reaching. But it stands to become over-extended in its concerted effort to simultaneously secure its grip over its neocolonies, expand its hold over new ones, and contain challenges from European and Japanese imperialism. Raging economic crises– and resurgent people’s struggles and social movements – are laying the basis for assertions of independence from U.S. imperialist control in the neocolonies and intensifying rivalry with imperialist rivals and potential so-called “peer competitors.”

U.S. economic hegemony is still very considerable but much diminished from its heights during the early post-war era. Despite its posturing there are limits to war-related and -justified spending and economic regulation not least being the lack of financial resources. Furthermore, the U.S. economy rests on a precarious financial house of cards whose stability increasingly depends on U.S. imperialism being able to convince the rest of the world that it is the safest haven for capital bar none. The escalation of state monopoly capitalism will even aggravate deep-seated problems of exploitation as the American working class is made to buoy monopolists’ profits through higher taxes and the pillage of their social security funds.

It is also by no means certain that the U.S. economy will be able to simultaneously support a wider global military presence at the same time as, for instance, a full-scale war of occupation in Iraq or against North Korea. This is compounded by the grave and far-reaching economic damage that might result from disruptions in energy supplies or greater world economic instability.

U.S. imperialism’s attempts to increase profitability in some domestic sectors, such as the arms industry, also backfires over the long-term as competitiveness and productive capacity elsewhere in the economy degrade and as it become more vulnerable to industrial competition with its imperialist rivals.

And no matter how massive the fiscal boost, bourgeois economics’ bag of economic tools is fundamentally limited by the overriding concern of protecting and supporting monopoly capital’s profits. More than anything else, it is monopoly capitalism’s imperative of amassing as much profit as soon as possible that makes it profoundly unable to surmount its basic contradictions. The inevitable outcome will be as it always has been with the crisis of overproduction: the widespread destruction of productive forces hitting the uncounted masses of poor, hungry, sick and maleducated the worst. The unremitting social and economic crises of the United States even at the heights of its economic dominance prove as much.

U.S. imperial­ism is unrelenting in its aim to dominate the people and countries of the world and in striving to ensure its superprofits by subordinating its imperialist rivals and putting down revolutionary peoples and nations. These have the worst effects on the world’s peoples and call urgently for a more liberating, democratic and humane alternative. #

Annex 1a: National Defense Budget Authority, 1945-2007 (current and 2003 US$ billion)

Sources: U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Defense Budget for FY2003: Data Summary, Mar. 29, 2002,Table 10-Real Growth/Decline in National Defense Funding, FY1940-2007, p. CRS-18.

Notes: Figures for FY1990 and beyond exclude costs and receipts of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Annex 1b: U.S. National Defense Budget Authority by Appropriations Title, FY2000-2007
(2003 US$ billion)

Sources: U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables: Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003, February 2002; except Title level figures for FY2004-2007 from Office of Management and Budget, Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003, February 2002.

Annex 2: World’s Top 100 Military Contractors by Total Arms Sales, 2000 (US$ million)*

* For five firms for which 2000 data was not available, their 1999 sales (totaling US$1.7 billion) were carried over as proxies for 2000.

Source: Facts on International Relations and Security Trends (FIRST)-International Relations and Security Network (ISN)-Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) website, http://first.sipri.org/, accessed Aug. 28, 2002.

Annex 3: Total U.S. Arms Transfers Overseas by Country, 1997-2001 (US$ billion)
Source: Facts on International Relations and Security Trends (FIRST)-International Relations and Security Network (ISN)-Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) website, http://first.sipri.org/, accessed Aug. 28, 2002.

Annex 4: Top 15 Recipients of Conventional Arms by Country, 1997-2001 (US$ billion)
Source: Facts on International Relations and Security Trends (FIRST)-International Relations and Security Network (ISN)-Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) website, http://first.sipri.org/, accessed Aug. 28, 2002.

Annex 5: U.S. Government Receipts, Outlays, Surplus/Deficit, 1940-2001 (% of GDP)

Source: Office of Management and Budget website, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003, accessed July 7 2002.

Annex 6: U.S. Federal Defense Research and Development Outlays, 1949-2001, est. 2002-03
(1996 US$)
Source: Office of Management and Budget website, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003, accessed July 7 2002.
Annex 7: Total U.S. Energy Consumption and Production Shortfall, 1949-2000 (billion Btu)
Source: Energy Information Administration website, Annual Energy Review 2000, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/overview.html, accessed Aug 25, 2002.

Annex 8: U.S. and World Resources of Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, and Zinc

*   Estimates of discovered resources based on Singer, D A (1995),’ World class base and precious metal deposits – A quantitative analysis: Economic Geology’, v.90, p.88-104.

** Same as the estimates of the Total, Reserve base, World total (excluding U.S.) based on U.S. Geological Survey (1996), Mineral Commodity Summaries1996, p. 195.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior “National Mineral-Resource Assessment: The 1996 Estimate of Undiscovered Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, and Zinc Remaining in the United States” (Nov. 1997, revised Aug. 1999).

Annex 9: Distribution of U.S. Direct Investment Position Abroad on a Historical-Cost Basis, 2000
(% of total)

Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Annex 10: Gross Product of Majority-Owned Nonbank Foreign Affiliates,
by Major Area of Affiliate, 1989, 1994, and 1999

*   Less than 0.05 percent.

** Consists of affiliates that have operations spanning more than one country and that are engaged in petroleum shipping, other water transportation, or offshore oil and gas drilling.

Source: R Mataloni and D Yorgason, “Operations of U.S. Multinational Corporations: Preliminary Results From the 1999 Benchmark Survey,” Survey of Current Business, Mar. 2002, pp. 24-54.

[2] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 22, 1968 ed., s.v. “United States (of America),” p. 578-743.

[3] “Through the course of the 19^th century, America expanded from its original thirteen states on the eastern side of the mainland and the Atlantic towards the west coast and the Pacific.  U.S. monopoly capitalism grew out of this territorial expansion and the tremendous growth of U.S. industry, commerce and finance in the last half of the 19^th century….  The early first wave of outward expansion claimed Alaska and various small Pacific islands.  The second and more expansive wave starting in the closing decade of the 19^th century would secure Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Marianas – the territorial spoils of the Spanish-American War – and Samoa, Hawaii and Panama…. [Crossing the Pacific,] the foundling Philippine Republic was strategically important to the U.S. in itself and as a staging post from which to expand into China and the rest of Asia.” S Andres, “The Revolutionary Legacy of the Filipino-American War,” Liberation, Jan.-Mar. 1999, NDFP, p.22.

[4] The data are based on purchasing power standards (PPS) and refer to 1990 frontiers, with the exception of Germany and Russia- Soviet Union. The data on Germany refer to West Germany for the years 1950-73, to unified Germany with 1990 frontier for the other years. The data on Russia-USSR refer to Russia until 1913, to USSR until 1973 and to Russian federation for 2000. The data with * refer to GGDC data for 1999 updated to 2000 using the rate of change of real GDP of the World Bank.

[5] Encyclopaedia Britannica, op. cit.

[6] Annual average rates of change on PPS data.

[7] Charts 1 and 2 data from A Maddison, The World Economy. A Millennial Perspective (OECD, 2001).

[8] In constant 1996 US$. Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce website, http://www.bea.gov.doc/, accessed July 2002.

[9] The U.S. dollar was (and is) the world’s key currency for a complex of reasons: the U.S. is the world’s single largest trading nation and among the world’s biggest savers and sources of investment funds; the bulk of countries’ foreign exchange reserves are in U.S. dollars; oil is mainly priced in dollars; the U.S. is seen as the world’s strongest economy and the safest haven for capital. These have enabled the U.S. to run balance of payments (BoP) deficits for far longer than would be the case for “lesser” currencies, including the yen or mark.

[10] The US$17 billion in “Marshall Aid” was administered by the U.S. Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) through the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). Alan Palmer, The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century History 1900-1991, (London: Penguin Books, 4^th ed. 1992), p.273.

[11] Sonny Africa, “Capitalist Profiteering in the U.S. Economy: 1870-1970” (MSc essay, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1993).

[12] This growth performance – though not the reasons behind them – is noted in International Monetary Fund, IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2002, Chapter V.

[13] U.S. Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Defense Budget for FY2003: Data Summary, March 29, 2002, Table 11, p. 20.

[14] Africa, “Capitalist Profiteering…”

[15] M Bruno and J Sachs, Economics of Worldwide Stagflation (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1985), Table 8.10, p. 163.

[16] Federal Ministry of Economics, Leisting in Zahlen (Statistics of Performance, 1983).

[17] Chart 3 data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis.

[18] R Brenner, The Boom and the Bubble: The U.S. in the World Economy (Verso Books, 2002), p. 17.

[19] R H Wade, “The American Empire and its Limits,” International Herald Tribune, Jan. 3, 2002.

[20] Bruno and Sachs, Worldwide Stagflation…, Table 8.10, p. 163.

[21] In an upsurge of Arab nationalism, Middle Eastern members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) used oil price hikes as a political weapon against Western imperialism which supported Israel in its war with its Arab neighbors during the Yom Kippur War (Oct. 1973). Nominal oil prices soared ten-fold between 1973 and 1980.

[22] Ibid., Table 1.1, p. 2 and Table 8.1, p. 155.

[23] Brenner, The Boom…, Table 1.7, p. 30.

[24] Ibid., Table 1.2, p. 21.

[25] Ibid., Table 8.3, p. 157.

[26] Chart 4 data from IMF, World Economic Outlook.

[27] Total deposits in the international banking system grew from only about US$50 billion in 1968 to over US$1.6 trillion in 1985. Africa, “Capitalist Profiteering…”

[28] U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis website, BEA’s Economic Accounts, http://www.bea.doc.gov, accessed Aug. 14, 2002.

[29] U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2002).

[30] Today, two decades later, the neocolonial debt overhang remains and has grown to over US$2.4 trillion.

[31] All figures in constant FY2003 dollars. CRS, Defense Budget for FY2003….

[32] Brenner, The Boom…, Fig. 1.1, p.19.

[33] Ibid., Ch. 2: The American Economic Revival

[34] Chart 5 data from K Thomas, Compensation database: 1913-1999 (1999), Center for Economic Policy and Research website, http://www.cepr.net, accessed Sept. 13, 2002.

[35] The Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America 2002-03 (2002), The Economic Policy Institute, http://www.epinet.org/index.html, accessed Sept. 13, 2002.

[36] Ibid.

[37] H Shutt, The Trouble with Capitalism: An Inquiry into the Causes of Global Economic Failure (Zed Books, 2001), p. 124.

[38] R Pollin, “Borrowing More but Investing Less: Economic Stagnation and the Rise of Corporate Takeovers in the U.S.,” unpublished manuscript, December 1994, cited in Brenner, The Boom…, p. 4.

[39] N Beams, “The World Economic Crisis: 1991-2001,” Mar. 14, 2002.

[40] International Labour Resource and Information Group, “An Alternative View of Globalization” (Cape Town, South Africa: ILRIG, 1998).

[41] Brenner, The Boom…, p. 68.

[42] Office of the President (2001), Economic Report of the President to Congress (January 2001), p. 250.

[43] Ibid., p. 76.

[44] D Baker, “The New Economy Goes Bust: What the Record Shows” (Center for Economic Policy and Research, Oct. 29, 2001).

[45] Chart 6 data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis website, accessed August 2002.

[46] J Plender, “The bankers’ black hole,” Financial Times, July 22, 1999.

[47] Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances.

[48] The Economic Policy Institute website, http://www.epinet.org/, accessed Dec. 2000.

[49] Ibid.

[50] Charts 7-9 data from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States, June 6, 2002.

[51] D Dowd, “Bankers and Globalization, Past and Present: From Pinstriped Conservatism to 7/24 Speculation,” talk delivered to the conference ‘Reflections on the Social Impact of American Multinational Corporations’ in Grenoble, France, January 2002.

[52] Productivity here is calculated by subtracting the gap between average GDP and net domestic product (NDP) growth from the reported rate of productivity growth. Baker, “The New Economy…”

[53] Pam Woodall, “The Unfinished Recession,” The Economist, Sept. 26, 2002.

[54] , Office of the President , Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government FY2003 (2002)

[55] “Bankruptcy in America: The firms that can’t stop falling,” The Economist, Sept. 7, 2002. p.61.

[56] Monthly Review Editors, “The New Face of Capitalism: Slow Growth, Excess Capital and a Mountain of Debt” (2002), http://www.monthlyreview.org.

[57] The Economist, May 18, 2002.

[58] It’s worth noting that the U.S. economy nonetheless has a high level of self-reliance belying it is huge trade deficits: it has full capacity to domestically produce virtually all the manufactured items it has a trade deficit in. The deficits are a real vulnerability but perhaps shouldn’t be over-interpreted as indicative of an economy that’s been hollowed out.

[59] The Economist, June 14, 2002.

[60] That can be expected to be the case as well with the rest of the world’s big powers who, in any case, only “globalized” as was expedient for them.

[61] Buttonwood International, Global Custody Yearbook 2002.

[62] The Economist, May 18, 2002.

[63] IMF, World Economic Outlook, April 2002, p. 107-108, Ch. 3.

[64] M Weisbrot, R Naiman, and J Kim, “The Emperor Has No Growth: Declining Economic Growth Rates in the Era of Globalization,” September 2000.

[65] United Nations Development Program (2000), Human Development Report 2000.

[66] If multiplier effects were the overriding motivation – instead of supporting the monopoly bourgeoisie by allowing it to capture ever greater shares of the U.S. social surplus, demolish competition and increase its profits – nondefense spending has a significantly greater impact than defense spending.

[67] Globalist hype obscured how the U.S. government increasingly dominates national economic life: for instance public expenditure as a percentage of GDP has grown from 7.5% in 1913 to 27.0% in 1960 to 32.8% in 1998. IMF, World Economic Outlook, April 2002, Table 5.4, Ch. V.

[68] Chart 10 data from Office of Management and Budget website.

[69] Out of a total 32 recorded, as determined by the official arbiter of U.S. recessions the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). The NBER defines recessions as periods of significant decline in total output, income, employment and trade, usually lasting from six months to a year.

[70] Chart 11 data from Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce website.

[71] Charts 12a and 12b national defense budget data from CRS, Defense Budget for FY2003… and GDP data from U.S. Bureau of Economic analysis website.

[72] Chart 13 data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis website, Economic Data-FRED II, http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/, accessed Aug. 6, 2002.

[73] All figures in constant FY2003 dollars. CRS, Defense Budget for FY2003…, Mar. 29, 2002.

[74] “The Cost of Fighting Terrorism,” BusinessWeek, Sept. 16, 2002, p. 41.

[75] Ibid.

[76] US$396.1 billion (FY2003, including US$16.1 billion in the Department of Energy budget for the production of nuclear warheads) versus global spending of US$812 billion (2000) and Russia’s US$60 billion (2000). Center for Defense Information website, http://www.cdi.org, accessed June 16, 2002.

[77] Chart 14 data from Office of Management and Budget website.

[78] Chart 15 data from Board of Governors.

[79] In part these may explain the emphasis on deterrence through a high-visibility global military presence, pre-emptive military strikes, over-publicized demonstrations of military might and cultivating reliable client states and proxy armies.

[80] Chart 16 data from Office of Management and Budget website.

[81] Citizens for Tax Justice, “Corporate Tax Payments Near Record Low This Year,” Mar. 15, 2002.

[82] Citizens for Tax Justice, “Surge in Corporate Tax Welfare Drives Corporate Tax Payments Down to Near Record Low,” Apr. 17, 2002.

[83] Citizens for Tax Justice, “Year-by-Year Analysis of the Bush Tax Cuts Shows Growing Tilt to the Very Rich,” June 12, 2002.

[84] Discretionary outlays are net of social security payments and interest payments, both of which are automatically appropriated by law. Charts 17-18 data from Office of Management and Budget website.

[85] D Henwood, “Boom for whom?,” Left Business Observer website, htttp://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html, accessed July 1999.

[86] Chart 19 data from World Bank website, International Macro-history Indicators, http://www.worldbank.org, accessed Feb. 7, 2002.

[87] In current prices. Office of Management and Budget website.

[88] Ibid.

[89] G Becker and J Womach, “The 2002 Farm Bill: Overview and Status,” CRS, June 3, 2002.

[90] In current prices. Office of Management and Budget website.

[91] Ibid.

[92] Large mergers in the steel industry took place in the 1980s despite being in blatant violation of formal antitrust laws. The U.S. Department of Justice allowed these to go unhindered on the grounds of “improving international competitiveness” and “protecting consumer interests.”

[93] For instance, regional stability and the security of vital sea lanes so vital to international commerce and military movements in the Southeast Asian region go far in explaining the persistent U.S. presence in the Philippines even if the U.S.’s direct economic interests there are relatively small compared to other countries in the region. Specific activities like gold and copper ore mining, electronics assembly, and regional express delivery hubs may be important but alternative locations are possible for these. On the other hand, there is no other country in the region that is as geopolitically and militarily strategic.

[94] The U.S. has conducted hundreds of military operations in over 70 countries since 1946, none of which were in wars formally declared by the U.S. Congress and still not considering countless covert operations. Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Uses of Force, 1870-1999” (2000).

[95] And also the world’s largest single source of (human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. accounted for 1,519 million metric tons of energy-related carbon emissions in 1999 – mainly from burning fossil fuels oil, coal and natural gas – which was 24.7% of world total carbon emissions. This is projected to increase to 353 million metric tons in 2005. Energy Information Administration website, Country Analysis Briefs: United States of America (October 2001), http://eia.doe.gov/, accessed April 21, 2002.

[96] Energy Information Administration website, Annual Energy Review 2000, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/overview.html, EIA, accessed Aug. 25, 2002.

[97] Chart 20-22 data from Ibid.

[98] Or 35,431,676 BBtu out of total 9,155,085 BBtu consumed. Ibid.

[99] World petroleum consumption in 1999: U.S. (19.52 million barrels), Germany (2.82), France (2.03), Japan (5.57), World (74.91). Ibid.

[100] 90.3% in 1990 down to 83.4% in 2000. Ibid.

[101] Chart 23 data from Energy Information Administration website, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/table81.html, accessed Aug. 27, 2002.

[102] U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Caspian Sea Region Country Analysis Brief,” February 2002.

[103] U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Yearbook 2000 (2001).

[104] 1995 estimates. G Matos and L Wagner, “Consumption of Materials in the United States, 1900–1995” (USGS, 1996).

[105] A Gurmendi, P Szczesniak, I Torres, P Velasco and D Wilburn, “The Mineral Industries of Latin America and Canada,” U.S. Geological Survey Country Analysis Briefs (2001).

[106] D B Doan, “The Mineral Industry of Canada,” U.S. Geological Survey Country Analysis Briefs (2001).

[107] T Q Lyday, “The Mineral Industry of Australia,” U.S. Geological Survey Country Analysis Briefs (2001).

[108] V Badov, “Central Asian Mineral Resource Industry as a Locomotive of Industrial Development in the CIS,” The Metals of Eurasia (Moscow, Nov. 10, 2000).

[109] World Nuclear Association website, “Uranium Mining in Australia and Canada,” http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/mining.htm, accessed Sept. 13, 2002.

[110] Energy Information Administration website, accessed December 2001.

[111] R Mataloni and D Yorgason (2002), “Operations of U.S. Multinational Corporations: Preliminary Results From the 1999 Benchmark Survey,” Survey of Current Business, Mar. 2002, pp. 24-54.

[112] Data from OECD and Eurostat cited in I Haikonen, “The European Union and World Trade” (European Union, Speakers Bureau, March 2002).

[113] Ibid.

[114] Ibid.

[115] Mataloni and Yorgason, “Operations of U.S. Multinational Corporations…”

[116] Ibid.

[117] Ibid.

[118] ‘Related party trade’ includes trade by U.S. companies with overseas subsidiaries as well as by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies with their parent companies. Bureau of the Census, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce News press release CB-02-60, May 7, 2002.

[119] Mataloni and Yorgason, “Operations of U.S. Multinational Corporations…”

[120] R Mataloni, “U.S. Multinational Companies: Operations in 1998,” Survey of Current Business, Jul. 1998; Mataloni and Yorgason, “Operations of U.S. Multinational Corporations…”

[121] W Morrisson, “U.S.-China Trade Relations,” CRS, May 29, 2002.

[122] T Lum, “China’s Trade with the U.S. and the World,” CRS, May 3, 2002.

[123] Ibid.

[124] Mataloni and Yorgason, “Operations of U.S. Multinational Corporations…”

[125] FTAs are arrangements of the U.S. with two or more countries where tariffs and non-tariff barriers on trade in goods are eliminated. The U.S. also commonly pushes for rules on foreign investment, intellectual property rights protection, treatment of labor and environment, and trade in services. W H Cooper, “Free Trade Agreements: Impact on U.S. Trade and Implications for U.S. Trade Policy,” Apr. 29, 2002.

[126] U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Kenneth W. Dam to reporters at a press conference held at the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 7, 2002.