conception of history, or method of investigation, which--in
contradistinction to the idealist conception of history of Hegel--was
named materialistic. As its nature is dialectic--as it seeks to
conceive in thought the evolving antagonisms of the social process--it
is, like Hegel's dialectic, a conception of history and a method of
investigation at the same time. Nowhere did Marx work out his method
of investigation in a special and comprehensive form; the elements of
it are scattered throughout his writings, particularly in the
Communist Manifesto and in the "Poverty of Philosophy," and serve the
purpose of polemics or demonstration. Only in the preface to his book,
"On the Critique of Political Economy" (1859) did he devote two pages
to a sketch of his conception of history, but in phraseology which is
not always clear, sequential, or free from objection. It was the
intention of Marx to write a work on Logic, where he would certainly
have formulated clearly his materialistic dialectic. As, however, his
fundamental ideas on this subject are available, we are able to
extract the essentials of his position.
A glance over human history suffices to teach us that from age to age
man has held to be true or false various opinions on rights, customs,
religion, the State, philosophy, land-holding, trade, industry, etc.,
that he has had various economic arrangements, and forms of the State
and of society, and that he has gone through an endless series of
struggles and wars and migrations. How has this complicated variety of
human thought and action come about? Marx raises that question, which,
so far as he is concerned, does not aim in the first place at the
discovery of the origin of thought, of rights, of religion, of
society, of trade, etc.; these he takes to be historically given. He
is rather concerned to find out the causes, the impulses, or the
springs which produce the changes and revolutions of the essentials
and forms of the mental and social phenomena, or which create the
tendencies thereto. In a sentence: What interested Marx here was not
the _origin_, but the development and change of things--he is
searching for the dynamic law of history.
Marx answered: The prime motive power of human society, which is
responsible for the changes of human consciousness and thought, or
which causes the various social institutions and conflicts to arise,
does not originate, in the first place, from thought, from the Idea,
from the world-reason or the world-spirit, but from the material
conditions of life. The basis of human history is therefore material.
The material conditions of life--that is, the manner in which men as
social beings, with the aid of environing nature, and of their own
in-dwelling physical and intellectual qualities, shape their material
life, provide for their sustenance, and produce, distribute and
exchange the necessary goods for the satisfaction of their needs.
Of all categories of material conditions of existence, the most
important is production of the necessary means of life. And this is
determined by the nature of the productive forces. These are of two
kinds: inanimate and personal. The inanimate productive forces are:
soil, water, climate, raw materials, tools and machines. The personal
productive forces are: the labourers, the inventors, discoverers,
engineers, and finally, the qualities of the race--the inherited
capacities of specific groups of men, which facilitate work.
The foremost place among the productive forces belongs to the manual
and mental labourers; they are the real creators of exchange-value in
capitalist society. The next place of importance is taken by modern
technology, which is an eminently revolutionising force in
society.--("Capital" (German), Vol. I., Chapters 1, 12, 13 and 14,
"Poverty of Philosophy" (German edition, 1885, pp. 100-101.))
So much for the conception "Productive Forces," which plays an
important part with Marx. We come now to the other equally important
notion, "Conditions of production." By this phrase Marx understands
the legal and State forms, ordinances and laws, as well as the
grouping of social classes and sections: thus, the social conditions
which regulate property and determine the reciprocal human relations
in which production is carried on. The conditions of production are
the work of men in society. Just as men produce various material goods
out of the materials and forces made available to them by Nature, so
they create out of the reactions of the productive forces upon the
mind definite social, political, and legal institutions, as well as
systems of religion, morals, and philosophy.
"Men make their own history, but do not so spontaneously in conditions
chosen by them, but on the contrary, in conditions which they have
found ready to hand transmitted and given."--(Marx, "The Eighteenth
Brumaire," I.)
That is to say, under the influence of productive work and its needs,
men build their form of society, their State, their religion, their
philosophy and science. The material production is the substructure or
the groundwork, while the corresponding political, religious, and
philosophical systems are the superstructure. And in such a manner
that the superstructure corresponds to the foundation, lends it
strength, and promotes its development.
The foundation is material, and the superstructure is the psychical
reflex and effect.
In broad outlines this conception may be illustrated somewhat as
follows:
Primitive human groups lived under Communism and were organised
according to blood relationship. Their deities have the
characteristics of their natural environment, and reflect the physical
effects of this environment upon the primitive mental life of the
"savage"; their religion, their morality, and their laws promote the
communal life and the tribal discipline. Feudal society is based on
the possession of land by the nobles and on the industrial labour of
the corporations of the towns. The inherited religious ideas are soon
transformed in accordance with the dominant interests of these
historical periods (primitive Christianity became a State religion);
all religious, ethical, and philosophical ideas antagonistic to these
interests were fought and persecuted. The middle-class society, which
is based on personal property, is endeavouring to sweep away all
vestiges of communal and corporation rights, to set free the
individual, to mobilise labour and property, to abolish Feudalism and
the old Church and monasterial institutions, and to put in their place
the individual relation between man and God, or the personal
conscience (the Reformation), introducing individual rights as well;
it struggles against the independent sovereignty of the feudal
domains, and labours for a united national territory, which will
afford greater scope to trade and commerce; it supports Absolutism, so
long as the latter is in conflict with the feudal lords; and when,
afterwards, Absolutism is a hindrance to the development of
middle-class society, this also is fought and a constitutional
monarchy or a republic demanded. And all this takes place not because
certain human intelligences, by reason of more intense thought, or
enlightenment, or the call of a supernatural power, are primarily at
work, but as a consequence of the influence of the material basis, of
the economic foundation of society, upon the mind, which translates
and transforms these external realities into religious, juridical, and
philosophic conceptions:
"It is not the consciousness of men which determines their existence,
but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their
consciousness."--(Marx, Preface to "Critique of Political Economy.")
Man, even the most heroic, is not the sovereign maker and law-giver of
social life, but its executive; he only follows out the tendencies and
currents set up by the material foundation of society. Nevertheless, a
great deal depends upon the executive officials. If they possess
comprehensive knowledge, energetic natures, and outstanding
capacities, they are able, within the boundaries drawn for them, to
accomplish great things, and to accelerate the development.
"Up to the present the philosophers have but interpreted the world; it
is, however, necessary to change it."--(Marx, "Theses to Feuerbach.")
We have referred in various places to interests. We are not to
understand by this personal, but general social or class interests.
Marx is not of the opinion that everybody acts in accordance with his
personal welfare. This is not Marxian doctrine, but that of the
middle-class moral philosophers, like Helvetius (1715-1771) and Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832), who regarded pleasure and pain of the individual
as the measure and motive of his actions and conduct. Marx is rather
of the opinion that men often, in the most important events of their
lives, act contrary to their personal interests, as in their feelings
and thoughts they identify themselves with that which they hold to be
the interests of the community or of their class. According to Marx,
individual interest generally plays a slight part in history. He is
preoccupied with the collective interest of social production. Only
the latter does he hold to be determining in the formation of the
intellectual superstructure.
Up till now we have only spoken of various forms of production and
society, and their corresponding mental systems. But we do not yet
know why and how one form of production and society becomes obsolete
and gives place to another, that is, how and why revolutionary changes
are brought about. Or in other words: we have hitherto considered the
statics of society; we will now look at its dynamics.
The revolutionary changes in society depend on two groups of
phenomena, which, although casually connected with each other, yet
work differently. One of these groups of phenomena is technical, and
consists in changes in the productive forces. The other group, which
is the effect of the first, is of a personal nature, and consists in
struggles between the social classes. Let us consider the first group
of causes.
As the productive forces expand, through greater skill on the part of
the worker, through discoveries of new raw material and markets,
through the invention of new labour processes, tools and machines, and
through the better organisation of trade and exchange, so that the
material basis or the economic foundation of society is altered, then
the old conditions of production cease to promote the interests of
production. For the conditions of production: the former social
classes, the former laws, State institutions, and intellectual systems
were adapted to a state of the productive forces which is either in
process of disappearing, or no longer exists. The social and
intellectual superstructure no longer corresponds to the economic
foundation. The productive forces and the conditions of production
come into conflict with each other.
This conflict between the new realty and the old form, this conflict
between new causes and the obsolete effects of bygone causes, begins
gradually to influence the thoughts of men. Men commence to feel that
they are confronted with a new external world, and that a new era has
been opened.
Social divisions acquire a new significance: classes and sections
which were formerly despised gain in social and economic power;
classes which were formerly honoured decline. While this
transformation of the social foundation is proceeding, the old
religious, legal, philosophical, and political systems cling to their
inherited positions, and insist on remaining, although they are
obsolete and can no longer satisfy mental needs. For human thought is
conservative: it follows external events slowly, just as our eye
perceives the sun at a point which the sun has in reality already
passed, as the rays require several minutes of time in order to strike
our optic nerves. We may recall Hegel's fine metaphor: "The Owl of
Minerva begins its flight only when twilight gathers." However late,
it does begin. Great thinkers gradually arise, who explain the new
situation, and create new ideas and trains of thought which correspond
to the new situation. The human consciousness gives birth to anxious
doubts and questionings, and then new truths; leading to differences
of opinion, disputes, strifes, schisms, class struggles, and
revolutions.
In the next chapter we will consider more closely the class struggle
between Labour and Capital. Meanwhile, we will look at the class
struggle generally.
In primitive societies, where private property is yet unknown, or
still undeveloped, there are no class distinctions, no class
domination, and no class antagonisms. The chief, the medicine man, and
the judge regulate or supervise the observance of the customary
usages, religious ceremonies, and social arrangements. But as soon as
the old order is dissolved, and private property develops, in
consequence of trade with other peoples or through wars, there arise
classes of those who possess and those who do not. The possessing
class carries on the Government, makes laws, and creates
institutions, which chiefly serve the end of protecting the interests
of the possessing and ruling classes. The intellectual structure of
the class society likewise corresponds to the interests of those who
possess and rule. So long as these interests promote the common good
in some measure, so long as the old forms of production and the old
conditions of production are largely in harmony with each other, a
certain truce prevails between the classes. But should there set in
the above-mentioned opposition between the productive forces and the
conditions of production, the latter will cease to satisfy the
oppressed classes, and class conflicts will arise, which will either
result in legal compromises (reforms) or will end in the overthrow of
the society concerned, or will lead to a new set of conditions.
Ancient history (Hebrew, Greek, Roman) is full of these social
struggles; all the great reform laws of these peoples were attempts to
establish social peace, but the rich and the poor, the Patricians and
the Plebeians, the Slaves and Freemen, continued their struggles until
the downfall of the old world, which has bequeathed to us great
intellectual treasures as the fruit of these struggles. In the Middle
Ages social struggles between the feudal lords and the traders,
between nobles and peasants, were kindled. In more recent times the
middle classes fought Autocracy and Squirearchy, and at length the
proletariat was pitted against the bourgeoisie--class struggles which
led to rebellions and revolutions, and powerfully influenced the
intellectual life.
From these historical antagonisms and struggles arose the intellectual
and political antagonisms, personified by the leaders of the social
groups and classes, of which world-history relates: opposing
religious and philosophical systems: Brahma and Buddha, Baal and
Jahveh, National God and Universal God, Heathendom and Christendom,
Catholicism and Protestantism, Materialism and Idealism, Realism and
Nominalism. However abstract or metaphysical, however remote from
actual life and material production they may appear to be,
nevertheless, in the last resort they are to be traced back through
many intermediate stages to changes in the economic foundation of the
society in question, to the contradiction between this foundation and
the conditions of production, as well as to the great struggles
between conflicting interests which spring therefrom. The ethical,
political, and politico-economic systems which strive with each other
for mastery, as well as national and world wars, are separated from
the real basis of society by a progressively smaller number of
intermediate stages: the questions of idealist or utilitarian ethics,
monarchy or republic, oligarchy or democracy, protection or free
trade, State regulation or free scope for the economic forces,
Socialism or private enterprise, etc., however lofty and humanitarian
may be the arguments and ideal motives which their champions may
adduce, are connected with the material foundation and the conditions
of production which have come into conflict with it.
Marx and Engels have set forth this conception in the Communist
Manifesto, in popular form, as follows:
"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 in 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 revolutionise 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 eighteenth 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."
Now one step farther. When the conditions of production, the social
divisions into classes, and the laws of property become fetters to the
productive forces, when the conflict of interests condense themselves
into class struggles, then comes a 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 we are not able to 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 conditions of
production."--(Preface to "Critique of Political Economy.")
The revolutionary period only closes when the social order that had
become full of contradictions liberates the productive forces and
strikes off their fetters, and creates new conditions of production
which correspond to them. The old society, which is doomed to
disappear, evolves the new conditions of existence before it sinks
into oblivion. The men who assist the progress of the new society
accordingly occupy themselves with problems which they are able to
solve, as the means thereto are given in the material development.
Such problems are set before them because, regarded from the
theoretical standpoint, they are the mental reflex of the
contradictions and revolutionary tendencies within society.
Accordingly, the essence of the historical development of human
society has been so far the progressive dialectical unfolding and
perfection of the productive forces.
"In broad outlines," says Marx, "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."
Prehistoric stage of human society! What significant words! The
capitalist economic order is the last phase of this stage, which is
written in streams of blood and tears of the dispossessed and
exploited, and to which is given the task of developing the productive
forces and liberating men from the material fetters, so that they may
enter into a life of mental culture. The materialist conception of
history, unethical and unidealist like all natural science, opens up
wide and elevating prospects. During thousands of years man struggled
on the physical plane to obtain release from the animal kingdom, and
was subjected to the discipline of unfeeling nature. After he had
emerged from the animal kingdom, man laboured for thousands of years
to lay the foundation of human society, a process which was performed
under the hunger whip of stern taskmasters, and which powerfully
stimulated the intellectual capacities of men, but only disclosed the
ideal of justice and humanity as a remote and inaccessible star.
The materialist conception of history has shown itself to be a
fruitful method of historical investigation. Some aspects of this idea
were uttered both before and during Marx's lifetime. The revolution in
the positions of classes and the struggles which followed hard on the
English industrial revolution (1760-1825), and everywhere attended the
transition from an agrarian to an industrial State, were too palpable
to be overlooked. It was Marx who fused these ideas, with the aid of
the Hegelian dialectics made of them a method of investigation, and
pressed them into the service of Socialism and historical research.
II. CLASSES, CLASS STRUGGLES, AND CLASS-CONSCIOUSNESS.
One of the most important contributions of Marx to the understanding
of historical processes is his conception of social classes and of
class struggles. Although, prior to Marx, there were historians and
politicians who pointed out the part played by social classes in
politics and in social convulsions, it was Marx who first grasped this
conception in its entire scope and significance, giving it precise
form, and making it an essential part of political and social thought.
He refers to the subject in the Communist Manifesto in the following
terms:
"The Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those
of St. Simon, Fourier, Owen, and others, spring into existence
in the early undeveloped period of the struggle between
proletariat and bourgeoisie. The founders of these systems see,
indeed, the class antagonisms, as well as the action of the
decomposing elements in the prevailing form of society. But the
proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle
of a class without any historical initiative or any independent
political movement."