Throughout
the civilised 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, where 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 of 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
civilisation. 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 Marxian
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 defence of bourgeois oppression.
It is the legitimate successor of the best that was created by humanity
in the nineteenth century in the shape of German philosophy, English
political economy and French Socialism.
On these
three sources of Marxism, which are at the same time its component parts,
we shall dwell briefly.
I
The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout the modern history
of Europe, and especially at the end of the eighteenth 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 error of every
deviation from this basis. Their views are most clearly and fully expounded
in the works of Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti-Dühring, which
like the Communist Manifesto, are handbooks for every class-conscious
worker. But Marx did not stop at the materialism of the eighteenth 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 developments in its fullest and
deepest forms, free of one-sidedness - the 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 confirmed remarkably
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) reflects
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 matured philosophical materialism, which has provided
humanity, and especially the working class, with powerful instruments
of knowledge.
II
Having recognised 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 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 expense 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's 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. In 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 Lo 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 of all capitalist countries, old and new, is clearly demonstrating
the truth of this Marxian 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 rise as a reflection of and
protest against this oppression. But early socialism was utopian socialism.
It criticised capitalist society, it condemned and damned it, it dreamed
of its destruction, it indulged in fancies of a better order and endeavoured
to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation.
However, 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 apply consistently 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 realise 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
organise 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
organisations 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.