A Chapter on Dialectical Materialism (1936)

Book Review from the February 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Scientific Method of Thinking", by Edward Conze, Ph.D. 5/-. Chapman & Hall, Ltd., publishers.

What was that I just heard you mention? interrupted a fellow at a public meeting. “Dialectical Materialism," impressively replied the speaker. “Then I'll have a shilling each way on that for the Derby,” said the questioner. I confess to having a certain sympathy with the fellow who mistook a principle of philosophical thought for a racehorse. The phrases connected with science or philosophy are generally so unfamiliar to those to whom the Socialist message is directed, that little excuse may be allowed for their use without due qualification as to their meaning. Those who labour to produce little for themselves and very much for other people are somewhat prone to take unkindly to abstract terms of any kind outside their everyday workaday. The average worker’s lack of education and training in science and philosophy, together 'with the anxiety attendant upon the ever-pressing need of obtaining their means of subsistence often militates against their readily grasping complex names and theories.

We feel certain that many are those who, after having listened to a discourse on any aspect of social science, have retired like Omar of old— by quitting the same door as in they went. We mention this, whilst being fully alive to the fact that unusual phrases cannot always be avoided.

But the real educationists, those who wish to instruct, as distinct from the type who would have us “see what clever fellows we are,” seldom fail to endeavour to clarify their terms of reference.

In the work under review, the author has tried to meet the requirements of simple and concise statement, though one cannot readily say that he has been altogether successful.

He is most probably aware of this himself, since he says that whilst endeavouring to avoid the clumsy phrase “dialectical materialism” in outlining its meaning, “it would have been a miracle if I had not sometimes been too simple and sometimes too involved.” Anyhow, to have attempted a clear and precise presentation of a complex theory is admirable, and one may excuse Dr. Conze for any shortcomings in this direction —a materialist could hardly lay claim to the performance of miracles. The need of the working class to grapple with and master the essentials of any line of thought connected with either their subjugation or their emancipation is an imperative one, and should, therefore, be undertaken at all costs.

What, then, is this “dialectical materialism” about which we have heard so much in certain quarters, and about which Dr. Conze sets out to tell the story. He mentions that in order to comprehensively grasp its meaning “some background of knowledge of other philosophies is necessary.” This impels us to add that if all its ramifications are to be considered in the light of and distinct from other and older philosophies a much larger volume than the one we are reviewing will have to be composed.

It is with the name of Karl Marx that the theory of dialectical materialism is directly associated since it was he who, after taking up the materialist thought of his time, gave it that particular turn and direction which distinguishes Marx’s materialism from others, particularly that line of thought described by Engels as “metaphysical materialism.” Up to and including the time of Marx, materialism had claimed its champions from the times of ancient Greece and, despite the varied forms it assumed with different exponents, materialism generally stood for an attitude of mind opposed to the traditional supernaturalism of the ages. Not that this must be understood to imply that all materialist thought prior to Marx was free from the “God idea’’ in one form or another. A thin sort of theism had dominated the minds of even such profound thinkers as Bacon and Locke—a feature which caused Marx to satirically declare, “Theism is but an easy-going way of getting rid of religion.” Nevertheless the predominant characteristic of materialist thought was the insistence upon the method of observation and experimentation of known or presumably knowable natural forces. The data for study here, whether in astronomy, geology, biology or the various aspects of human existence, rested upon, the actual material at hand and what was known and verifiable rather than by the method of approach through preconceived pre-possessions concerning “supernatural causes,” or what is known in philosophy as the a priori method of thinking.

From the time that man emerged from his apelike condition of primitive times he has always had to live by and through some working and workable arrangements with the conditions of his environment. That arrangement has been made by man himself, first out of the material of mother earth and next by the uses of such material which he has had to discover by his own unaided efforts. Mankind may have had distorted conceptions; in fact, they have had them galore, about the whys and wherefores of existence, but in the mere fact of living and causing his species to persist, the severely practical side of all human life has ultimately shaped man’s philosophies rather 'than vice versa.

That “in the beginning was action” is a sound principle or guide in philosophic thought, and one thoroughly well but broadly stated by Engels—“before there was argumentation there was action ” . . . “and human action had solved the difficulty long before human ingenuity invented it.” “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” It is on this note that the materialism of Marx is seen to be in striking contrast with that of his predecessors or his contemporaries. Although in the ultimate sense the Socialist view of life may and does turn to a definite scientific attitude to all phenomena, whether animate or inanimate, the Marxian is primarily concerned with the activities of human society. Its rise and growth, its own laws of development, and what are its component parts form the essentials of Marxian theories. Where previous materialist thought had ignored or failed to tackle the problem of the underlying causes of social development Marx, who had studied and learned much of the world’s leading philosophical and scientific thought, applied a method of interpreting history which has borne illuminating results. The name by which Marx’s (and also Engels’s) theory of historical development has been generally known is “the materialist conception of history,” or “ historical materialism.” We have endeavoured to outline the essentials of this theory in the Socialist Standard in the past, so will let it suffice at present to refer those further interested thereto, or better still, to the works of Marx and Engels themselves.

Where, then, does the phrase “ dialectical ” come from? And what does it mean in any case? To get to reasonably close grips with the question it is necessary, we think, to look back at the leading philosophy of Germany at the time that both Marx and Engels first saw the light of day. Dr. Conze reminds us that in the work of Hegel, the most noted of German philosophical thinkers, we are presented with “a most wonderful and precious instrument,” the “dialectical method.” Dr. Conze is, of course, entitled, if he so wishes, to describe it as “ wonderful and precious,” but for many reasons we would prefer to acclaim it more modestly as very useful.

“ Dialectics,” says Dr. Conze, “ is that way of thinking which works with the assumption of a unity of opposites and of the reality of contradictions.” We do not feel seriously disposed to quarrel with this definition, but we certainly think that dialectics embraces something more than the bare definition given by our author.

The entire Hegelian philosophy rested upon an evolutionary conception of the universe. To Hegel all things are of a transitory nature, they are in a process of constantly coming into being and passing away to other and higher forms which, in turn, are subject to the same process or processes. This was identical with the leading thought of ancient Greece, but with, of course, the accumulated knowledge of the intervening centuries.

Heraclitus like many others of his times, had formulated the same law of existence that “Everything is and is not, for everything is fluid, is constantly coming into being and passing away.”

But in the domain of human society the principle by which social institutions have their being and pass away was a problem not satisfactorily met by Hegel.

Though he emphasised the law of motion in nature and human history to proceed through contradictions inherent in the nature of all phenomena, his philosophy had to conclude and subside within its own contradiction, which reminds us of the comment written by Engels when dealing with Hegel; “As regards all philosophies, their system is doomed to perish, and for this reason, because it emanates from an imperishable desire of the human soul, the desire to abolish all contradictions. But if all contradictions are once and for all disposed of, we have arrived at the so-called absolute truth, history is at an end, and yet it will continue to go on, although there is nothing further left for it to do—thus a newer and more insoluble contradiction ” (Feurbach, page 48).

Nevertheless, the dialectical method of Hegel had, if not settled a problem, at least propounded one, and Marx took up the dialectic where Hegel left it, and transformed it anew as a weapon of understanding of what the contradictions in human society consist, and what are the actual factors upon which the process of social development proceeds.

From a method of interpreting the whole panorama of life as though it were governed by the working out of an “ idea” immanent in nature and history—as Hegel had conceived—Marx turned the method into one of viewing the make-up of human history in the light of the reciprocal actions of man and his environment at different stages of history. In this we see that humanity does not effect its history out of “ ideas ” operating of their own volition as though a “ mental world ” were an independent entity.

(To be continued.)

Robert Reynolds

Link to Part 2

The British Labour Movement (1936)

Pamphlet Review from the February 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British Labour Movement. By Frederick Engels. (Published by Martin Lawrence, Ltd. 1s.)

The above booklet contains eleven articles written by Engels and published in the Labour Standard during 1881. This journal was an attempt of the London Trades Council to provide a working-class organ in this country. The people in control of the paper were not, however, Socialists, but tended to support Gladstone, the Liberal. Hence it is not surprising that soon Engels’ contributions to the Labour Standard caused concern to these champions of the working class, and he was requested to tone down his writings. This Engels refused to do. As a result, he ceased to contribute articles to the Labour Standard.

The first four articles deal with the wages system and the trade unions. Engels shows how, under capitalism, there is a class struggle between the working class and capitalist class, between those “people deprived of all property in the means of production, owners of nothing but their own working power ” and “the monopolisers of the whole of the means of production, land, raw materials, machinery” (p. 12).

Engels shows how the trade unions have helped their members to maintain their standard of life in this struggle, but it is pointed out that, despite their fight of sixty years against capital, the trade unions have been unable to raise the working class above the situation of wage slaves (p. 12), and that any advantage gained by the workers through their unions is brought to nothing by the crises which occur periodically. Then, the fight has to be undertaken again. In this never-ending struggle with the capitalist class, the workers are at a disadvantage. First, the army of unemployed help to keep down wages: workers compete for jobs, and this enables the capitalist class to enforce lower wages. Again, if the employer and his workpeople do not agree over wages, and there is a strike, the former have the advantage, for they “can afford to wait, and live on their capital. The workman cannot. He has but wages to live upon, and must therefore take work when, where, and at what terms he can get it.. . . He is fearfully handicapped by hunger ” (p. 10).

In face of this, Engels’ advice to the working class is clear. It cannot hope for an end to its misery and striving under capitalism. It must abolish capitalism and establish Socialism; it must “become the owner of all the means of work—land, raw material, machinery, etc.—and, thereby, owner of the whole of the produce of its own labour.” To do this, the workers must organise politically, because “a struggle between two great classes of society necessarily becomes a political struggle," and they must win political power “to become enabled to change existing laws in conformity with their own interests and requirements."

Of the other articles, “Social Classes—Necessary and Superfluous" calls for special mention. This article contains the reply to those who do not study Socialism, because, as they say, we cannot do without capitalists. Here Engels shows what has been the historical mission of the capitalist class, to develop the means of production to the point they have reached to-day, i.e., so that they are capable of producing goods in abundance. But as the means of production are developed, the capitalist becomes unnecessary—a parasite, drawing profits without doing any kind of work. In the early days of capitalism, he worked with his employees, he supervised their work. Now, the formation of large companies has put an end to this state of affairs. Paid employees run industry from top to bottom. “The capitalist owners of these immense establishments have no other function left with regard to them, but to cash the half-yearly dividend warrants" (p. 44).

Opponents of Fascism would do well to read Engels’ article, “Bismarck and the German Working-men's Party.” Here they will learn that Hitler’s methods were used as far back as 1880. Bismarck outlawed the Working-men’s Party, suppressed its fifty newspapers, seized its funds, broke up its societies and clubs and dissolved its meetings. Workers suspected of carrying on propaganda were kept in prison without trial. In one year (October 6th, 1879, to October, 1880) there were more than eleven thousand political prisoners. Still, these methods did not stamp out the ideas of the movement. We may add that Bismarck failed to keep the workers quiet because he did not abolish capitalism—a system of society which, thanks to its very nature, forces the workers to turn to Socialism as the way out of their poverty. Incidentally, Socialism alone will save the workers’ from the ever-recurring brutalities of capitalism, then called Bismarckism, now Hitlerism

Clifford Allen

Quins, Quads and Poverty (1936)

Editorial from the February 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been stated that the interest taken in the Quins and Quads by “poor working-class mothers is astonishing." The interest certainly does not stop there. Dr. Josiah Oldfield, speaking at the London School of Dietetics, on January 14th, attributed “the present outburst of multiple births” to birth control. It is, he says, “a throw-back towards the primitive. All primitive creatures were full of fecundity so that by good chance some of their early offspring would survive the perils and mortalities of early life.” What support there may be for his view does not, however, concern us here. What is of greater interest is that this led other commentators to link up the population question with working-class poverty in a novel way.

We have long been familiar with the argument that poverty is due to over-population, and that if the workers would only decrease the size of their families they would all be better off. Now we are introduced to the opposite argument, from a Catholic, Father Woodlock. In a statement to the Evening Standard (January 15th) he pointed out that a falling population means fewer soldiers to defend the Empire, and that in addition it means greater poverty for the workers.

   Only short-sighted economists fail to notice that a fall in the birth-rate will not help the condition of the working classes, but accompanied by the noticeable increased longevity of our people, will put a much heavier burden on the workers.
   They will be fewer, but in the future they will have to support a much increased number of aged and unemployable dependants. Propagandists of the spread of the birth-control movement never seem to aver this.

We can agree with Father Woodlock that those who preach birth control as a cure for poverty and unemployment are completely in the wrong, but in rejecting that fallacy Father Woodlock embraces another. It is true that a population containing a large proportion of people unable to work may be at a disadvantage compared with one containing a higher proportion of able-bodied men and women in the prime of life, but we are not living in a system of society in which the problem of wealth production is as simple as that. Under capitalism large numbers of people—the propertied class—are not engaged in wealth production and have no desire or necessity to be so engaged. Consequently the burden resting on the shoulders of the workers is not that of keeping only themselves and their own dependents, but, in addition, of keeping the propertied class in luxury and idleness or non-productive activity, and of keeping all the military and civil hangers-on of the capitalist system. The wealth producers are not engaged in producing for themselves, but of producing wealth for the capitalist class alone to own and control. What the workers get is wages, based on their cost of living. If the cost of maintaining a working-class household is reduced by smaller families or increased by larger ones, wages will sooner or later adjust themselves, leaving the workers no better and no worse off than before. As for unemployment, it is the over-production of commodities in relation to the demand of the market, and the encroachment of the machine, which the worker has to consider, not the size of the population. Experience has shown that these forces work just as powerfully in the countries with a stable or declining population as in those which are expanding.

Father Woodlock and those he criticises are alike in error through ignoring the economic laws or even the very existence of capitalism.

Before things could work out in the way Father Woodlock assumes, we have got to get rid of capitalism, lock, stock, and barrel. When that is done, and not before, we shall be able to consider the problem raised by him.

Incidentally, when we have cleared the ground by removing capitalism, we shall not have to consider the problem of population from the standpoint of the necessity of producing more cannon-fodder.

Bolshevism and the Third International (1936)

From the February 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

By no means unanimous will be the interpretations placed on the programmes formed at the recent seventh World Congress of the Communist International. The official Communist Parties, of course, hail these programmes as the highest expression of revolutionary political wisdom, calculated to promote the best interests of the world proletariat, at the same time aiding the "Socialist Fatherland" in its unparalleled task of building up Socialism within its borders. The Communist opposition parties, with Trotsky as their moving spirit, see in these programmes full justification for their claim that as a force making for world world revolution the Communist International is utterly dead. Groups like the Proletarian Party of America will no doubt continue in their role of reluctant apologists for the rank opportunism of the Communist International. Socialists, however, will content themselves with pointing out the non-Socialist character of these programmes. To Socialists it would indeed be strange of the Third International, whose fountain head is in Moscow, would devote its energies in the struggle to achieve Socialism. Russia is now busily engaged in administering capitalism, to which end it naturally uses its influence over the Third International. This fact is no secret to the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. For years the Socialist Party of Great Britain, in face of bitter attacks from those who read Socialism into the Russian conditions, have consistently and uncompromisingly exposed the capitalist nature of Bolshevist economy.

Socialism means the common ownership of the instruments of production by the whole society. It is inconceivable without the fullest democracy. Bolshevism means the State ownership of the instruments of production administered by a dictatorial minority. Lenin regarded as chimerical the notion that the working class could democratically effect a Socialist revolution. From the very first he held the view that the working class was so politically immature that it had to be led by a small, resolute group of professional revolutionists. This party of professional revolutionists was in no way to be democratically responsible to the working class, but was to demand the utmost obedience from this class. As Rosenberg points out in his "History of Bolshevism," the split in the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903 was caused by Lenin's insistence that the Party must be exclusive and guide with an iron discipline the infantile working class. Contrary to the belief of so many Communists, the Soviets played no part in Lenin's theories for many years. It was not until the March Revolution in 1917, when the Soviets arose spontaneously, that he accepted them as an accomplished fact and proceeded to make use of them. Even as he worked with them he had every reason to believe that his party could gain control over them, which is precisely what happened.

The creation of the Red Army marked the end of the Soviets as democratic organs of administration. The Soviets were then reduced to the position of a shadow government, a position that they occupy to this day. A dictatorship of the Communist Party arose, governing Russia from one end of the land to the other. Centralised governmental organisations took over the function of managing production. One branch of State machinery after another was created, until a bureaucratic State apparatus arose more powerful than the Tzar's. The passage in Lenin's "State and Revolution" which demands that every workers' revolution must begin by smashing the bureaucratic State machine was conveniently forgotten. A huge bureaucracy developed. The leading positions became increasingly filled by men adept at the game of what in America is called "boss-politics." Freedom of expression within the party becomes ever more curtailed. So far did these developments proceed in Russia that already in 1921 an Opposition raised its head, sounding the warning that one form of tyranny was being supplanted by another.

In an industrially backward country like Russia, Socialism was unthinkable. When the Bolsheviks made so much to-do about building up Socialism they are simply cloaking material conditions with fine-sounding phraseology. State capitalism formed an integral part of Lenin's theoretical system. It was not Socialism he contemplated for Russia, nor for that matter for Europe when he thought he saw a revolution impending there. What he called Socialism was nothing more or less than nationalisation. He could only envisage what we call Socialism as a later development still. Rosenberg quotes Lenin's definition of Socialism: "Socialism is nothing else than the next step from the stage of monopoly State Capitalism. Or—alternatively: Socialism is nothing else than a capitalistic State monopoly worked in the interests of the whole nation and therefore no longer a capitalist monopoly." ("History of Bolshevism," p. 103.) This is not Socialism; it is purely nationalisation. It is capitalism. It is what exists in Russia to-day. There the fundamental relations of capitalism exist. The workers in Russia, like those of any other capitalist country, are divorced from the means of production. To live, they must sell their labour power for a wage, which on the average is merely sufficient for their maintenance. Production of commodities for exchange on the market, money, with its multiple functions in a commodity-producing society, interest payments on bond flotations, income tax laws—most of the usual social processes of a capitalist economy are in operation in Russia.

Neither are class distinctions wanting. On this point we may quote Rosenberg:

Official Soviet statistics published in 1930 show that deposits amounting to 722 millions of roubles were credited in the books of the Russian Savings Bank. Of this only 91 millions belongs to workmen, 205 millions to employees and Government officials, 134 millions to "special" workers, i.e., members of professions, manual workers, etc., and only 46 millions to peasants as individuals. To these figures must be added 246 millions belonging to "legal" persons, behind which designation were concealed chiefly Collectives and other co-operative societies. This statistical panorama serves admirably to reveal the multiplicity of classes in modern Russia no less than the fact that in standard of living and opportunity for saving, the workers are by no means favoured above the rest. (p. 237.)

As industrialisation proceeds and the social wealth increases, these class divisions will become sharper. Capitalism may differ in form as between different countries, but its basic relations and consequences are the same everywhere. By erecting a string central government, keeping Russia unified, and establishing an embracive State capitalism which hastens industrial development, the Bolsheviks may have helped on social development in Russia. But this is quite another thing from saying that Russia is building up Socialism.

The American millionaire, Hearts, and others of his class who see their privileged position menaced by the Communist International, ought to be reassured upon reading the reports coming from the Seventh Congress in Moscow. For America, the Congress has in view such startlingly revolutionary measures as the creation of a Farmer-Labor Party, which is to ". . . win a majority of elective posts in the local, state and Federal Governments, levy a special tax on capital to obtain funds for social insurance and relief, cancel the Supreme Court's right to make laws, and democratise the Senate." Apparently some delegates to the Congress have the sagacity to see in these measures little difference from the reforms advocated by the Democratic Party. In a speech at the Congress on August 15th, Dmitroff called upon the American Communists to support Roosevelt in order to "prevent reactionary, anti-new deal finance capital from setting up a Fascist Government." (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, August 17th, 1935.)

The Communist International has always been used to serve the needs of Russia's domestic policy. The sudden somersaults that mark the history of the Communist International reflect changes that occurred in the economic policies inside Russia. From 1918 to 1921, when Lenin felt that the Russian Revolution would fail unless the revolution occurred in Europe, the tactics of the Communist International were shaped accordingly. The European Communist parties were ordered to preserve their independence and to expel all irresolute members. Proclamations were couched in flaming revolutionary language. By 1921 War Communism, so-called, brought things to such a pass that Lenin was forced to retreat by way of the New Economic Policy. Moreover, it became clear that the European Revolution was not imminent after all. With compromise at home went compromise abroad. The Third International ordered a United Front with the Social Democratic Parties of Western Europe. Finally, in 1928, when Stalin entered upon his course of so-called "building up Socialism in one country," all attempts seriously to influence the European Labour Movement were abandoned.

The Communist International to-day serves chiefly to keep alive the fiction that the Soviet Union is ruled by the working class, who are engaged in building up Socialism. It is largely by means of this fiction that the ruling power in Russia secures the support of the working masses. These masses are told that they are building up Socialism and that on some fine day not too far in the future theirs will be a paradise on earth. This fable must be maintained if the Government's standing with the workers is not to be damaged. The Third International aids in perpetuating this fable by propagating it among sections of workers in other countries. Because they believe Russia is leading the way to Socialism for the international working class, these sections lend their sympathy and support to the Soviet Union. In France the workers are even told that in the event of a war with Fascist Germany the French workers should fight in the trenches and abstain from subversive propaganda behind the lines.

Socialist refuse to be carried away by the Bolshevist myth. They will continue to point out the capitalist nature of Russian conditions. They well explain to the workers everywhere that they have nothing but death and untold suffering to gain by engaging in the next capitalist shambles—even of one of the belligerents happens to be Russia.

F. M.,

Workers' Socialist Party, U.S.A.