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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
Whether Marx and Engels jointly or Engels alone originated dialectical materialism, there can be no doubt that only Engels should be credited with its codification. This was recognized implicitly by both Plekhanov and Lenin, for they based their accounts of what they regarded as the Marxian philosophy on the works of Engels, above all, Anti-Dühring and Ludwig Feuerbach. They adopted this course because they believed—and impressed this belief upon the world—that there was a complete identity of views between Marx and Engels on all philosophical matters. As far as the conception of materialism is concerned, this meant in fact the substitution of Engels’ views for those of Marx.
1 The term “materialism” may have different senses, and it has actually been understood in many different ways, of which two are important in the present context. It may mean (1) that matter is the ultimate constituent of the universe and that there is nothing else in the world or (2) that mind originates from matter. I call materialism in the first sense “absolute materialism” and in the second sense “genetic materialism.” Both kinds of materialism can be found in Engels, who does not seem to have been fully aware of the difference between them. It is clear that absolute materialism involves genetic materialism as its special thesis, but one can support genetic materialism without endorsing absolute materialism. Genetic materialism should be distinguished from epiphenomenalism (bodily events are the sole cause of mental events) and other forms of materialism which reduce mental processes to physical processes.
2 John, Plamenatz, German Marxism and Russian Communism (London, 1954), p. 249.Google Scholar
3 Lenin, , “How Plekhanov and Co. Defend Revisionism,” in Collected Works (Moscow, 1960), XV, 281.Google Scholar
4 Lenin, “Marxism and Revisionism,” ibid., pp. 32-33.
5 Lenin, “Our Program,” ibid., IV, 211; “Review of Karl Kautsky's Book Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Program: Eine Antikritik,” ibid., p. 196; “Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism,” ibid., XVII, 39-40, 42.
6 Kuusinen, O. V. et al., Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (2d rev. ed.; Moscow, 1963), p. 22.Google Scholar
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8 Bocheński, I. M., Der sowjetrussische dialektische Materialismus (2d ed.; Munich, 1956), P. 33 Google Scholar.
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10 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 32, 75.
11 Kuusinen et al., pp. 29-31.
12 Lenin, “Frederick Engels,” in Collected Works, II, 21; “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 46, 55, 90, 323, 326; “Karl Marx,” ibid., XXI, 55-57.
13 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 55, 90. 14Ibid., p. 173. 15 Ibid., pp. 83, 105.
16 Ibid., p. 26; Warnock, Geoffrey J., Berkeley (Melbourne, London, and Baltimore, 1953), pp. 92–97 Google Scholar (“Pelican Philosophy Series“).
17 That “matter is the same as existing externally” was also affirmed by Hegel, who traced this definition back to Leibniz. See Hegel, , Science of Logic (London, 1951), I, 203.Google Scholar
18 George Berkeley, “The Principles of Human Knowledge,” §24, §54; and “Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous,” in The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (London, 1949), II, 51, 64, 261.
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21 Ibid., p. 261.
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25 It is sometimes said that Lenin managed to undermine phenomenalism seriously by his criticism that it implied denial of the well attested fact that the world existed prior to the appearance of life ( Acton, H. B., The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed [London, 1955], pp. 31 ff.Google Scholar). This argument was used by Lenin, but it was not his own. He himself said that he found it in Feuerbach, , Petzold, Avenarius, J., and Willy, R. (“Materialism,” in Collected Works, XIV, 75, 84Google Scholar). Lenin was very careful not to commit himself to the view that the criticism in question applied to Mach's “doctrine of elements,“ since in fact it does not.
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28 See Philipp, Frank, Modern Science and Its Philosophy (New York, 1961), p. 76.Google Scholar
29 Lenin returned to this objection frequently as if he were aware of its strength and of the inadequacy of his own counterarguments. See “Materialism,” in Collected Works, XIV, 63, 106, 116, 128, 164. Lenin seems to have believed that it was inconsistent, on the one hand, to assert that there are trees, stones, tables, or stars in the universe and, on the other, to deny that there is such a thing as matter.
30 Ibid., pp. 83-84. Lenin asserted that to subscribe to this view is only to agree with Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels that nature exists prior to man. See Georgii V. Plekhanov, Foreword to the First Edition (from the Translator) and Plekhanov's Notes to Engels's Book Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,” in Selected Philosophical Works (Moscow, n.d.), I, 519.
31 Lenin, , “Materialism” in Collected Works, XIV, 130.Google Scholar
32 Ibid., p. 146.
33 Ibid., p. 267.
34 Holbach, , Système de la nature ou des lois du monde physique et du monde morale (Paris, 1821), II, 90, 95.Google Scholar
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37 Lenin, , “Materialism” in Collected Works, XIV, 55.Google Scholar
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39 Ibid., pp. 111-112.
40 Ibid., pp. 42, 84, 130, 323.
41 Ibid., pp. 69-70, 235.
42 Ibid., pp. 175, 269.
43 Immanuel, Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (London, 1958), p. 286.Google Scholar
44 Jordan, Z. A., Philosophy and Ideology: The Development of Philosophy and Marxism- Leninism in Poland since the Second World War (Dordrecht, 1963), p. 322–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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49 Berkeley, , “Principles of Human Knowledge” §37, in The Works of George Berkeley, II. 56.Google Scholar
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58 Lenin, “Critical Remarks on the National Question,” ibid., XX, 24-26.
59 Lenin, “What Is to Be Done?” ibid., V, 384; “The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx,” ibid., XVIII, 583.
60 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 339, 344; “Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Death of Joseph Dietzgen,” ibid., XIX, 80; “Karl Marx,” ibid., XXI, 52.
61 Lenin, “An Estimate of Marx by International Liberalism,” ibid., XIII, 493.
62 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 338.
63 Ibid„ p. 339; “Karl Marx,” ibid., XXI, 52.
64 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 336, 339, 341-42. In Konstantinov, F. V. et al., Materializm historyczny (Istoricheskii materializm) (Warsaw, 1955), p. 38 Google Scholar, there is an amusing slip of the pen in the attempt to establish the complete identity of views on the principle of partisanship between Marx and Engels, on the one hand, and Lenin and Stalin, on the other. In the course of the exposition of this assertion we are assured that “Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin never concealed the partisan character of Marxism-Leninism.“
65 Lenin, , “What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are” in Collected Works, I, 164, 183.Google Scholar
66 Ibid., pp. 163-64.
67 Lenin, “Philosophical Notebooks,” ibid., XXXVIII, 222, 363.
68 Ibid., pp. 221-23, 359-63.
69 Ibid., p. 223.
70 Ibid., p. 359.
71 Ibid„ pp. 253-54.
72 Ibid., pp. 97, 109, 221-22, 260.
73 Lenin, “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party Towards Religion,” ibid., XV, 406.
74 Lenin, “Philosophical Notebooks,” ibid., XXXVIII, 284.
75 Ibid., p. 280.
76 Ibid., pp. 359-60.
77 Ibid., pp. 141, 143.
78 Ibid., p. 141.
79 Ibid., p. 360.
80 Lenin, “Differences in the European Labour Movement,” ibid., XVI, 348.
81 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 261-62; “Philosophical Notebooks,” ibid., XXXVIII, 97, 109, 221, 283, 360.
82 Lenin, “Karl Marx,” ibid., XXI, 54.
83 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 129-30.
84 Ibid., p. no. Recently Lenin's claim has been questioned and rejected by some Marxist- Leninist scholars in Poland. See Z., Cackowski, Treść poznawcza wrażeń zmystowych (Warsaw, 1962), Part II, Chap. 1.Google Scholar
85 Jordan, Philosophy and Ideology, pp. 326-40.
86 Engels, Anti-DiXhring: Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science (Moscow, 1959), p. 12.
87 Ibid., p. 17.
88 When Engels spoke of Dühring's “lame attempt to make the Hegelian categories usable in the philosophy of reality” (Ibid., p. 85), he did not object to the attempt itself but to its inadequacy.
89 Engels, , “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,” in Marx, and Engels, , Selected Works in Two Volumes (Moscow, 1951), II, 328 Google Scholar. A similar statement by Marx, formulated in even stronger terms, is to be found in Capital (Moscow, 1957), I, 20.
90 Lenin, , “Materialism” in Collected Works, XIV, 131–37.Google Scholar
91 Popper, Karl R., Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London, 1963), p. 101.Google Scholar
92 Leon, Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution (New York, 1932), III, 125–26 Google Scholar; Max, Eastman, Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution (New York, 1927), pp. 149, 256.Google Scholar
93 Trotsky, , Lenin (New York, 1962), p. 1962 Google Scholar. A striking and very similar portrait of Lenin is to be found in Nicolas Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism (Ann Arbor, 1962), pp. 114-29. That writers as different as Trotsky and Berdiaev should see Lenin in very much the same way is persuasive evidence of the accuracy of their portraits from memory.
94 Lenin, , “Materialism” in Collected Works, XIV, 358.Google Scholar
95 Lenin, , “The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism” ibid., XIX, 23.Google Scholar
96 Lenin, “What Is to Be Done?” ibid., V, 384.
97 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 344; “On the Significance of Militant Materialism,” in Marx-Engels-Marxism (4th ed.; Moscow, 1951), pp. 554, 558
98 Lenin, , “The Economic Content of Narodism” in Collected Works, I, 401.Google Scholar
99 Lenin, “What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are,” ibid., I, 327-28; “Our Program,” ibid., IV, 211; “Preface to the Russian Translation of Karl Marx's Letters to Dr. Kugelmann,“ ibid., XII, 107-8.