|
Education
Bulletin, Nº 1, 1979
THE
MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY
General
Introduction
The
object of this course of 10 classes entitled “Aspects of Marxism”
is to explore the nature of the relations between the SPGB’s
thinking and Marxist theory on a number of well known topics.
The
course of classes on “Aspects of Marxism” forms the first year of
a two year programme of re-examination of Marx’s major writings.
The second year’s course of classes will be devoted to examining
Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism and extending our
understanding of contemporary economics and politics.
It
is hoped that this examination of the basis of Socialist theory will
help us in the political analyses that are to form the subject of
further education courses. These have not yet been planned in detail,
but could include for example a series on Revolution; History of the
Working Class Movement; Political Trends in Contemporary Capitalism.
Any suggestions or offers of help would be greatly appreciated!
It
must be emphasised that we see this educational programme as
constituting an integral part of the Party’s work for Socialism and
its on-going analysis of capitalism. It is hoped that in the
discussions and in these bulletins, an opportunity will be provided
for members to extend their understanding of the political situation
facing the SPGB and that our effectiveness as a revolutionary
organisation will be correspondingly increased.
Fraternally
P.
Lawrence, Education Organiser
V.
Brown, J. Carter, B. McNeeney, Education Committee
_____________________________________________________________________
Contents:
Introduction
Transcript
(edited) of talk by Comrade Hardy
Notes
and Questions
Bibliography
_____________________________________________________________________
Contribution
by Comrade Hardy on
the
Materialist Conception of History
The
first thing to ask is ‘What is the
Materialist Conception of History?’ and I
assume that all of you have read something about it, for example the
Party’s pamphlet on the subject and other
material. The Materialist Conception of History is an attempt to
explain great social changes that have taken place in history, for
example, why Feudalism gave place to Capitalism, and why such
upheavals as the French Revolution took place. What was behind these
events, and what is the part played in History by struggles between
different classes, that is, one class trying to bring about a change
and another class doing their utmost to resist the change?
The
MCH is not the only attempt to explain History. Opposed to it is the
view that what changes society are ideas, and that changes in society
are the result of the application of the ideas that people put
forward. For example, at a certain stage in British history, people
came to accept the idea that slavery should be abolished because, in
their language, it was morally wrong. The MCH will ask the question
“Why did something that was formerly regarded as being morally
right, come to be regarded as morally wrong, after a certain passage
of years?”
Engels
made an interesting statement about the MCH when he spoke at Marx’s
funeral. He said “History was for the first time placed on its real
basis. The palpable, but previously overlooked fact that men must
first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, and therefore
must work, before they can fight for domination, pursue politics,
religion, philosophy etc., this palpable fact at last comes into its
own right”.
Marx
summarised the MCH in his preface to the Critique of Political
Economy. It is worthwhile going through that brief statement, and
it is useful to break it up into its various sections and note how
the argument moves forward stage by stage. He starts off by saying
that in the social production of their life men enter into definite
relations with each other, corresponding to stages of development of
the material powers of production. The sum total of these relations
of production constitute the economic structure of society. That this
economic structure is the real foundation of society on which is
built up the corresponding legal and political superstructure, and
“definite forms of social consciousness, the social, political and
spiritual processes of life”. Marx then goes on to say that it is
not their consciousness that determines men’s existence but their
social existence that determines their consciousness.
Then
at a certain stage of development of the material forces of
production, these come into conflict with the existing relations of
production, particularly property relations. Then there is a phase of
social revolution. The economic foundations are then changed, and
with them the entire superstructure is more or less rapidly
transformed. No social order ever disappears before all the
productive forces for which there is room, have been developed. New,
higher relations of production never appear before the material
conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old
society.
This
should be read in conjunction with another statement Marx made, which
is in the pamphlet on page 62 and comes from Marx’s own Preface to Capital.
“Even when a society has got upon the right
track
for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement, it can neither
clear by bold leaps, nor remove by legal enactments, the obstacles
offered by the successive phases of its normal development.” This
point I shall return to later. Finally, of course, Marx envisaged
that the next phase of the evolution of society would be from
Capitalism to Socialism.
Another
point to look at is how Marx arrived at the MCH. In the speech that
Engels made at Marx’s funeral he described it as having been that
“Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history”, This
could suggest that Marx achieved this by himself, but Engels went on
to put the matter in some perspective when he said “Just as Darwin
discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered
the law of evolution in human history.” We should recognise that
Marx, like Darwin, carried on from the work of people before him, and
again, like Darwin, there were other people working more or less on
the same lines. It is not true that Marx and Engels formulated the
MCH in a vacuum. They had to work in the real world, and in the world
of ideas that was then being developed, not only by themselves, but
also by other people. It would in fact be a denial of the MCH if one
took the view that Marx formulated the MCH all on his own and out of
nowhere. Engels, for example, wrote of the German socialists “We
were proud that we trace our descent not only from St. Simon,
Fourier, and Owen, but also from Kant and Hegel.” Only one of these
started as a member of the working class, and that was Owen – a mill worker. But as well as this, Marx and
Engels
at least
partly developed and acquired their ideas from contacts with workers
in the Chartist Movement, and in London, with exiled German workers
in the London Communist Club. These were people such as Schapper,
Bauer, Moll, Pfaender, Lessner, J. F. Bray and others. Marx and
Engels had these direct contacts with workers who were engaged in the
political movement. Whilst Marx and Engels began by being chiefly
interested in Philosophy and Anti-Religious ideas, it was with their
contacts with people engaged in political movements, including a
number of workers who were themselves working out ideas, that they
developed the MCH and other Socialist ideas. It was on this real
material basis that the MCH was formulated.
Comrade
McClatchie, who drafted the party pamphlet on the MCH, was able to
find quotations from various journals published before the Communist
Manifesto, which showed that workers were putting forward ideas
representing at least in part, the idea of the MCH.
On
this subject, it is also important to acknowledge the debt that Marx
and Engels owed to Lewis Henry Morgan and other anthropologists,
particularly with regard to primitive communism. Marx and Engels had,
in fact, worked out the main structure of the MCH before they came
into contact with the writings of Morgan, or other people working in
similar fields. In the opening passage of the Communist Manifesto it
says “The history of all hitherto existing societies
is a
history of class struggles”. Now of course that will not fit a
conception which includes primitive communism, so in Engels’ later
Preface, he altered it to read “All written history has been a
history of class struggles”. This alteration allowed for the
contribution made by Morgan and others. In other words, it should be
remembered that Marx and Engels had formulated the main structure of
the MCH before they had to take into account the idea of primitive
communism.
The
summary of the Materialist Conception of History in the Preface to
the Critique of Political Economy, is a compressed
statement which should be read together with further explanations in
Marx and Engels’ writings. I would like to deal with what is meant
by “the relations of production”. The reference from the Preface
to the Critique is as follows: “In the social production of their
life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and
independent of their will, relations of production which correspond
to a definite stage of development of their material productive
forces”. Engels was asked a question in 1894 about the “relations
of production”, and he answered it on 25th January, 1894 by listing
what constituted “the relations of production”. First, the entire
technique of production and transport. Second, the geographical basis
in which they operate. Third, the survivals of earlier stages of
economic development. Fourth, the external environment which
surrounds this form of society.
In
other words, Engels was saying that economic relations must not be
interpreted narrowly, that they go into a whole field, that they take
in not merely the technique of production, but a number of other
things as well. In the same letter, Engels emphasised the point that
whilst it is the economic conditions which ultimately condition
historical development, it should not be overlooked that all the
derivative factors, political, juridical, philosophical, religious
and artistic, not only interact with each other but also “react
upon the economic basis”. Engels is saying that it should be
recognised that there is an economic basis and that it produces a
superstructure corresponding to it, but these various aspects of the
superstructure interact with each other, and all of them react on the
economic basis itself, so things are not simply in a watertight
compartment like economic basis and the rest, nor should it be
thought that the rest is simply the result of the economic basis.
Engels
gave some examples. “The State, for instance, exercised an
influence by protective tariffs, free trade, and a good or bad fiscal
system”. Engels also cited as a factor, and it is important to see
how far Engels is carrying this: “The sentimentality and cringing
servility to princes and nobles that existed in Germany, that arose
out of the miserable and chaotic conditions in Germany before 1830”.
Engels is saying this that “cringing servility” had an effect on
the economic basis because it hindered the further development of it.
Marx
never made the assumption that Capitalists and their Governments
always understand what policies are really in their best interests.
The situation facing the Capitalists is obviously confused. If we
take, for example, the time when the struggle was beginning in this
country, to take over power from the landed class, the argument does
not go all one way. Some sections of the capitalist class were saying
“Don't let's fight them – let’s come
to terms with them”. There was considerable doubt as to whether the
capitalist class should go over to Free Trade. This was a very big
and long campaign, yet it was very far-reaching in its effects on the
economic basis.
The
same doubts can exist at the present time. For example, Capitalists
may some day come to the conclusion that their decision 30 or 40
years ago, in this and some other countries to resort to a continuing
policy of inflation, was an error on their part. Inflation has
certainly reacted on the economic basis of Capitalism in this and
other countries. 30 years of inflation is bound to react on the
actual structure of Capitalism and on companies themselves. One of
the things that always happens with inflation, for example, is that
companies tend to have a very large additional amount of capital tied
up in stocks. If a company is afraid that prices are going on rising,
they tend to hold stocks which, if prices were stable, they would not
hold. In this way, Capitalism is, as it were distorted.
Keynes,
as Galbraith said, believed in “the idea”, as the formative
factor in history. In this particular case – of
inflation – it would appear that Keynes gave the Capitalists the
wrong idea, but they accepted it, and some time or other they will
come to see that they have made a mistake. Marx covered this
possibility in Capital, saying that sometimes, although the
intentions of Governments are clear enough, they make mistakes about
financial policy, and then have to reverse it and put up with the
consequences.
Another
question which concerns the MCH is whether or not it is simply
economic determinism. The MCH has been treated by some people who
have failed to understand it, as a fatalistic doctrine which makes
men puppets in the hands of economic forces. This was never Marx’s
view. There is the famous statement he made, and repeated in various
ways, that man makes his own history. Man is not somebody who has
everything predetermined for him. This is not Marxism.
In
his book The Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy of Marx and
Engels by Lewis S. Feuer, published by Fontana Books, he refers
to the MCH as technological determinism and also as the economic
determination of ideas. In spite of his being sympathetic to the MCH,
Lewis Feuer has himself become confused. In some places he refers to
the MCH quite correctly and some of his descriptions are quite good,
but at the same time he can hold the idea that the MCH is a purely
deterministic theory, which it is not.
This
is dealt with in the Party pamphlet on page 63 in a letter written by
Engels to Joseph Bloch on 21st September 1890. The whole letter is
worth reading, but part of it reads as follows: “We make our
history ourselves, but in the first place under very definite
assumptions and conditions. Among these, the economic ones are
ultimately decisive, but the political etc., ones and even the
traditions that haunt men’s minds also play a part, though not the
decisive one”. And again, “In the second place, however, history
is made in such a way that the final result always arises from
conflict between many individual wills of which each in turn has been
made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life”. Here
Engels, far from being a determinist, is recognising that you have a
conflict of wills of individuals.
Engels
also explained that he and Marx were partly to blame for the
overemphasis of the economic factor. He wrote this: “Marx and I are
ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people
sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We
had to emphasise the main principle vis-à-vis our adversaries
who denied it, and we had not always the time or the opportunity to
give their due to the other elements involved in the interaction.”
Some
opponents of the MCH have interpreted it as assuming that each
individual acts out of his personal material interest, and making
this assumption, they have had no difficulty in showing that this was
not a tenable proposition. Some years ago, a writer in the Manchester
Guardian, giving his interpretation of the MCH, that the MCH
means that every individual acts out of material monetary motives,
set out to show that it was not true. He had no difficulty in this,
but what he was attacking was not the MCH. The MCH explains how basic
ideas develop, and that once the ideas have been developed, the
individual who has accepted them can take on family, group or class
ideas which may lead them to act against their own material interest.
One
example of this is that during the Spanish Civil War a call went out
for an International Brigade, and workers from all over the world set
out for Spain. To suggest that they were doing this out of monetary
interest is, or course, absurd. But it presents no problem for the
MCH. They had developed an idea, muddled, often as it may have been,
of working class solidarity against oppression, against Franco.
Marx
and Engels carried this a stage further. In the Communist
Manifesto they pointed out that in every revolutionary period,
some sections of the old ruling class come over to the side of the
revolution. They say, too, that individuals in the Capitalist Class
who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending
theoretically the historical movement as a whole, can go over to the
Socialist movement. These people can hardly be said to have been
acting out of their own personal individual interest. Again, this
presents no problem for the MCH. Some people in the French
Revolution, of the French nobility, quite early on turned themselves
over to the side of the Revolution. This whole question of the error
of taking the MCH to mean that individuals only act out of material
self interest is discussed in Boudin’s Theoretical System of
Karl Marx, in the two Appendices to that book. There was also
similar discussion in Kautsky's Ethics and the MCH. Boudin's
material includes a lot of quotations from Kautsky and probably it is
not necessary to read Kautsky in addition to Boudin.
One
sideline is the place of science in historical developments.
Starkenburg raised the question with Engels about the development of
science, and Engels replied in a letter dated 25th January 1894.
Starkenburg argued that technique largely depends on the state of
science. Engels replied that science itself largely depends on
economic technique and the needs of society. To quote Engels “If,
as you say, technique largely depends on the state of science,
science depends far more still on the state and requirements of
technique. If society has a technical need, that helps science
forward far more than ten universities.” Engels gives a number of
examples of how this has operated in history with regard to the
development of scientific ideas. He also said to Starkenburg
“Unfortunately it has become the custom in Germany to write the
history of the sciences as if they had fallen from the skies.”
Another
important question concerns the influence of ideas on history. The
MCH does not deny the influence of ideas and it sets out to explain
where ideas come from, as against the idealists who say that ideas
have an independent existence, and are the primary cause of social
change. This is dealt with in the Party pamphlet on page 10. Marx and
Engels left no doubt about their view on the influence of ideas.
There is, for example, the passage from the opening chapter of Marx’s Eighteenth
Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, where Marx
says “the
tradition of all past generations weighs like an incubus upon the
brain of the living”, meaning, of course, that the ideas of the
last social system persist into the new social system and still weigh
like an incubus on the minds of the living. (In the pamphlet, on page
62, the translation is different. It says “weighs like an alp”.
This is an interesting question of translation. The word “alp” in
German can be translated into English in two ways. It can mean alp,
that is, a mountain, or it can mean incubus, that is a nightmare or a
demon that attends a person during sleep. Daniel De Leon, who
translated the 18th Brumaire for the Kerr publishers, made
a mistake and put “alp”. McClatchie was well aware of this when
he put it into the pamphlet but argued that as the mistranslation had
been going round for 30 years, and that the word “alp” did convey
the meaning, as an alp is very heavy, and that moreover the word
incubus was less well understood, then it should be left as “alp”.)
Marx
gave examples of the way in which old ideas carry on into the minds
of new generations, and he dealt particularly with the way
revolutionaries themselves do it. When a revolutionary comes forward,
aiming to revolutionise society, the first thing he has to do is win
the support of the masses of the population, peasants, workers or
others. Revolutionaries, whether they think this out clearly or not,
invariably, as Marx says, hark back to some previous revolutionary
situation. Marx’s words were “Revolutionaries conjure into their
service the spirits of the past, assume their names, their battle
cries, their costumes, to enact a new historic scene in such time
honoured disguise”. Marx mentions Luther, who presented himself as
the Apostle Paul. Marx gives the example of the French
Revolutionaries who invoked the Roman Republic, and who later on saw
themselves in the image of the Roman Empire. The revolutionaries of
1848 harked back to 1789. Cromwell drew “his language, passions and
illusions from the Old Testament”, because he was talking to people
for whom the Old Testament was practically the only literature they
knew, and which they understood very well.
The
point of these examples is that ideas, once they have been developed,
attain a semi-independent existence of their own, and persist in
their influence for quite a long time.
In
connection with this, Engels repeated in a letter to Conrad Schmidt
(5th August 1890) a statement that Marx was once alleged to have
made. He wrote “All I know is that I am not a Marxist”. This
arose out of a controversy which involved this question of the
influence of ideas. Engels criticised a German writer, who, said
Engels “has not discovered yet that though the material form of
existence is the primary agent, this does not exclude spheres of
ideas from reacting upon it in their turn, though with secondary
effect.” Engels wrote that it showed that this particular writer,
though he said he was a Marxist, did not understand the MCH, and he
called him a “fatal friend of Marxism” and added “The
Materialist Conception of History also has a lot of friends nowadays,
to whom it serves as an excuse for not studying history.” This was
another point that Marx made. The MCH is not just a formula which can
be simply applied in all circumstances. Circumstances differ; and to
interpret historical change it is necessary to look at the actual
circumstances of the time, at the actual conditions, before it is
possible to see how the MCH can explain them.
An
example of this is the way in which Engels in Socialism, Utopian
and Scientific, looked at the development of capitalism in this
country. Engels looked at what was going on and attempted to say
where it would lead. He laid down a general proposition that the
development of great combines, trusts, and monopolies would force the
state to take them over. Engels argued that no capitalist nation
would put up with production being conducted with bare faced
exploitation of the community, by a small band of dividend mongers,
organised in Trusts. This looked a quite reasonable proposition, but
it has not worked out in the way Engels thought.
Because
of certain developments of English history, and because English
political parties were different from the American, the reaction of
American Capitalism has been different from British Capitalism.
Engels wrote “this necessity for conversion into State property is
felt first in the great institutions for intercourse and
communications, the post office, the telegraphs, and the railways”,
and he also noted, in another field, that United Alkali had become a
very powerful concern in the chemical industry, and was ripe to be
taken over by the Government. In fact, this has not happened
uniformly. In this and other countries it happened more or less as
Engels foresaw it, except that United Alkali, which is now vastly
larger and more powerful as Imperial Chemical Industries has not yet
been taken over, even a century later. But in America, the Bell
Telephone System which, by far, the biggest telephone system in the
world is still a private company, operating under Government
regulation. What happened is that whilst in this and some other
countries the Capitalists have dealt with too powerful monopolies by
nationalising them, the Americans have gone on a rather different
line. They have chosen to leave a lot of monopolies in private hands,
but to have them operate under Federal Government regulations.
Even
in this country, Gladstone, as a Conservative, got through an Act
permitting the Government to Nationalise the railways in 1844, but it
took just over a century before the Act, or a similar Act, was put
into operation. Gladstone’s Act was a permissive Act. The
Capitalists were saying that the railways were too strong, and were
therefore giving themselves power to take them over, if this became
necessary. In fact this never happened until the Labour Government
nationalised them in 1946.
Another
interesting difference is that in America the Capitalists control
trusts by anti-trust laws, and under American law a monopoly is, by
definition, illegal. It is only required to prove that a monopoly
exists, and this is against the law, although they have made one or
two exceptions where international companies are concerned. Under
English monopoly law it is different. It is possible, under English
law, to argue that although a monopoly exists, that monopoly is in
the public interest.
These
comparisons show the importance of what Marx said. The MCH cannot be
applied as a simple formula. It is important to look at all the
factors involved in each historical situation.
Another
development which Engels could not have foreseen is the growth of
multi-national companies, which will present the Capitalist Class
with further problems of control
It
is interesting to look at further examples of the persistence of
ideas. We have already referred to the capitalist’s need to get rid
of the Corn Laws and go over to Free Trade. There is an interesting
sidelight on the independent development of ideas in the Anti-Corn
Law Movement. Capitalists put forward an idea which they thought was
in their interests. They said they wanted Free Trade. They then began
to surround this idea with all the trappings of freedom, democracy
and patriotism. Dr. Bowring a Free Trade advocate once made the
statement that Free Trade is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is Free
Trade. By the time the campaign was under way, the arguments seemed a
long way away from its economic basis, which was that they wanted
free trade for cheap food so that they could pay lower wages. As Marx
always emphasised, you cannot judge a movement by its slogans and
banners. In the course of economic development, ideas are brought
forward and when these have developed, people can hold them quite
passionately apart from their economic basis.
Other
examples are in the religious sects. I once had to attend a little
tin Bethel Church, and although the people of this church lived in
the real world, they were still talking in the language of the 17th
and 18th centuries. Their mental world was of the 18th
century. In our own time, there are the instances of religious sects
who challenge the authority of the State. There are the Watch Tower
people, all over the world, who will not serve in armies. it is very
difficult now to relate these attitudes to economic bases though,
presumably at one time or another, they had one.
There
is another example which shows how group ideas can grow in the Trade
Union movement. I had occasion years ago to read the original
correspondence which passed between an official of the Seaman’s
Union and his opposite numbers on the Continent. This official became
known later as a ferocious anti-German, and later still as an extreme
reactionary in the TU movement. In this correspondence, which was
going on from August 1914 well into 1915, he continued to address his
fellow seamen in the usual way and carry on as if the war had not
taken place. His attitude was that in the work of seamen, there had
grown up what he called the law of the sea, and what he also called
the brotherhood of seamen. He carried on this correspondence just as
if there was no war, until the time when the Germans started sinking
ships and not picking up the seamen. He then called upon the German
seamen to denounce this, and as they would not, he then turned
against them. He, so to speak, began his was sometime in the summer
of 1915, whereas his own Government had been at war since 1914. Here
it can be seen how TU ideas can develop out of the actual conditions
of work, and out of working class organisation, reinforcing what Marx
said about how the broader ideas of society can persist, even in
situations where they seem inappropriate.
Another
important question is how the MCH relates to “great men”.
Different views are held about the historical role of great men,
ranging from the belief that history is made by great men, right to
the other extreme, that great men have no existence at all, that they
are pure figureheads, and that they are largely fictitious
personalities created, like the great film stars, by the publicity
departments of Hollywood. One view says that great men make history,
the other view says that they only personify movements and events,
which develop quite independently of them. We would say that the
valid explanation is that “great men” do not fit into either of
the categories.
I
refer again to what Engels said about Marx at Marx’s funeral. We
cannot take literally and without qualification the view that Marx
discovered the MCH. He owed it partly of course to what other people
had been doing, the forerunners of it, and to his active contacts
with people engaged in the working class movement. On the other hand,
it is equally obvious that some individual may play an exceptional
role in influencing certain historical developments, even if this
only means that the individual understands the direction in which the
events are moving in advance of other people. Even if we said that
Marx only saw what was arising out of feudalism before other people
saw it, he nevertheless played an exceptional role in bringing this
to people’s notice. Marx’s education, and his interest in the
question, and his ability to carry further what had been more or less
seen by his predecessors, and his contacts with workers, enabled Marx
to play this kind of part in historical development.
On
page 57 of the pamphlet, reference is made to Napoleon, where
Napoleon is quoted as having said “Mahommed’s case was like mine.
I found all the elements to hand to found an empire. Europe was weary
of anarchy, they wanted to make an end of it. If I had not come,
probably somebody else would have done like me. I repeat, man is only
a man, his power is nothing if circumstances and public sentiment do
not favour him”. I do not know the date of this quotation, but I
suspect that Napoleon did not write this when he was in the prime of
his career, he probably said this later on in life, when he was
reminiscing about the past. Nevertheless, it is a true statement
about the role and position of great men.
Engels
also mentioned Napoleon in his letter to Starkenburg of 25th February
1894. What Engels said was this: “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 Napoleon had been lacking, another would
have filled the place.”
The
same could have been said of Cromwell and Abraham Lincoln. America,
as it emerged from the Civil War, would not have been essentially
different had Abraham Lincoln never existed. At some stage slavery
would have been ended in America and modern industrial Capitalism
would have taken over. The abolition of slavery might have taken
longer, but the victory of northern industrial capitalism would have
happened some time. What we can concede, however, is that Lincoln’s
assassination at that particular point made possible a policy of the
Federal Government towards the defeated Southern States which, had
Lincoln lived, would probably not have happened. His assassination
involved a certain setback which had to be recovered later on in
American development.
There
is also the example of Lenin. It can be said that Lenin and his
Party, by seizing the opportunity offered by the breakdown of Tzarism
and the defeat of the Russian army and the chaos in Russia, was able
to influence the course of Russian history. Lenin was able to defeat
Kerensky and was also able to get Russia to adopt a political
structure that they might otherwise not have adopted, the
dictatorship. Now, if we ask the larger question, was Lenin able, as
he believed, to change the course of development by jumping from
semi-feudalism to Socialism in Russia, then the answer is an emphatic
No. The situation of Russia in 1917 provided Lenin and his party with
certain possibilities, but it also included certain limitations,
beyond which Lenin could not advance. The example of Russia is a
vindication of the MCH, not a vindication of the idea that great men
make history.
A
further question is concerned with what will happen in Socialist
society. The question has been asked what place will the MCH have
after the abolition of Capitalism? That is, in Socialist society. In
Marx’s reading of past history, an essential element is the
struggle of classes for power, one class with an interest in changing
society and another class with an interest in resisting change. The
question has been put “what happens when there is no class
struggle?” Does this mean that society will stagnate?
Marx's
answers would be of course not. Man is always bound by the terms of
his existence to engage in production activity. Man will still have
to work to secure his livelihood and to solve the problems that will
arise out of this, the problems of production and distribution, the
struggle to control natural forces will still be there, and therefore
there will still be a need for technical and scientific developments,
which will go on. Marx's simple answer was this, he pointed out that
social evolution will not cease, but it will cease to be political
and we quote “It is only in an order of things in which there will
no longer be classes or class antagonisms that social evolution will
cease to be political revolutions.” This quotation is from the end
of Marx's Poverty of Philosophy.
SOME
NOTES AND QUESTIONS ON THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY
Why
should Socialists be interested in a theory of history first put
forward over 100 years ago? Why should Socialists be interested in
history anyway? Surely, as Socialists, we are concerned with the
present and the future, not the past?
In
response to these questions, we would argue firstly that the MCH is
not only a theory of history in the sense of past history, but a
theory of social change in its broadest sense. It includes changes
taking place now just as much as it covers past social change. It is,
therefore, a way of looking at all social change that enables us to
understand the pattern of social development.
Secondly,
we would argue that as Socialists, our interests and activities are
inextricably linked up with the issue of social change. As
Socialists, we are working for a particular type of social change,
the revolution from Capitalism to Socialism. Therefore, as Socialists
trying to intervene in the course of history, it is necessary that we
understand the factors underlying historical change –
indeed, our activity as Socialists presupposes an
understanding of social change, in the light of which Socialism is
both practical and necessary.
The
interpretation of social change that is presupposed in Socialist
activity is what is known as the MCH. The MCH is a theory of social
change that locates the ultimate causes of change within the material
and economic conditions of life. This means that whether we want to
understand say, the nature of the industrial revolution, or the
outcome of the next general election in the UK, we have to examine
the underlying economic factors.
As
Comrade Hardy explains in his talk, this does not commit us to a form
of economic determinism which falsely argues that only the economics
is of significance, nor does it mean that we deny the
importance of ideas in social change, but it does mean that if
we want to understand the complexity of any society, if we want to
understand the complex pattern of development of that society, then
an understanding of its economic development is crucial to an
understanding of its politics, its culture and its social
development.
Given
this understanding of historical development as essentially one of
economic development, Socialists see in contemporary society a form
of social organisation which they characterise as Capitalism, a form
of class society that is different from previous class societies in
that its mode of exploitation takes a different form (i.e. the
payment of wages in return for labour-power). The Socialists’
proposal for Socialist revolution therefore follows on directly from
the materialist analysis of society.
The
History of the MCH
As
with many other subjects, the MCH has its own history which can only
be very briefly touched on here. However, we can say that it was
first put forward by Marx and Engels in the 1840’s in opposition to
the prevailil1g idealist notions of German philosophy. It was
extended during Marx’s lifetime and applied in the analysis of
particular political events, e.g. l8th Brumaire, and was then further
clarified by Engels after Marx’s death.
Marx
and Engels first outlined the MCH in The German Ideology
(1845) in which Marx and Engels make their decisive break from
idealist German philosophy. Consequently, many of Marx and Engels’
forms of expression reflect their attempt to break away from this
tradition, e.g. their inclusions of idealist propositions, and have
to be interpreted in this light.
For
Marx and Engels, the starting point of analysis is not some abstract
idea or religious impulse, but the real activity of the people who
together constitute the society.
“The
premises from which we begin are . . . the real individuals, their
activity and the material conditions under which they live, both
those which they find already existing and those produced by their
activity.” (Ch. I, p. 42)
Marx
and Engels do not start with an abstract or ethical notion of what
constitutes humanity, but argue that as people reproduce their
conditions of life, so in that process they are also producing
themselves, their ideas, their behaviour, their culture and the forms
of social relations of that society.
“As
individuals express their life, so they are. What they are,
therefore, coincides with their production, both with what
they produce and with how they produce.” (Ch I, p. 42)
Thus,
not only is it the social relations that people enter into that are
the product of their material activity, but even the ideas they have
about themselves are the product of the general way of life.
“Life
is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.” (Ch
I p. 47)
The
job of historical analysis, therefore, is to examine in each
particular case the actual interrelations between the material
activities of society and its political and social relations.
“Empirical
observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and
without mystification and speculation, the connection of the
social and political structure with production.” (Ch I. P. 46)
Here
Marx and Engels warned that the MCH is not a simple formula to be
used as a substitute for historical analysis, a point later repeated
by Engels in a letter to Schmidt (5th August 1890):
“But
our conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever
for construction after the Hegelian manner.” (Engels to Schmidt,
5.8.1890)
However,
in spite of this warming, a later passage written by Marx has come to
be widely interpreted as a general model for explaining society. This
passage occurs in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy (1859). In this Preface, Marx presented the MCH
in an extremely condensed form in terms of the base-superstructure
model that has influenced much of the later thinking on the subject.
Here Marx characterises the relations of production as the economic
base of society to which correspond the superstructural forms of
politics and ideology.
“In
the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into
definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely
relations of production appropriate to a given state in the
development of their material forces of production. The totality of
these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of
society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political
superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social
consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions
the general process of social, political and intellectual life.”
(Preface pp 20-21)
Using
this base and superstructure model, Marx then goes on to characterise
the nature of social revolutions in terms of a conflict within the
economic relations, i.e. between the relations of production and the
forces of production, which eventually permeates through and
transforms the superstructural forms of political and legal relations
and social consciousness. This conflict is seen as taking the form of
class conflict, where a progressive class is associated with the
development of the forces of production and a reactionary class is
associated with the outmoded relations of production. Class conflict
then takes the form of the political and economic battle between
these classes as the progressive class tries to seize political
control from the reactionary class, thus transforming the
superstructural form to correspond with the changed relations of
production. If we were to apply this model to Capitalism today, we
could say that there is a conflict between the forces of production
(i.e. the productive powers of society) and the relations of
production (i.e. the ownership and control of wealth and production
by the capitalist class). Hence, production is artificially
restricted as a result of the form of ownership, e.g. lay-offs and
depressions reduce output, crops are destroyed and poverty is
guaranteed amidst potential plenty. In class terms, the reactionary
class is the capitalist class clinging to outmoded relations of
production, and the revolutionary class is (i.e. would be) the
working class which aims to sweep away the restrictive nature of
bourgeois social relations in order to allow productive activity to
take place freely.
In
spite of Marx’s detailed works of political analysis, e.g. 18th
Brumaire, which revealed that the MCH was far more subtle than crude
determinism, the kind of exposition of the MCH given in the Preface
to the Critique of Political Economy, can give rise to a
deterministic view of social development, where at any given time,
the economic base is seen as directly determining all aspects of
society. Another view of the MCH resulted in a technological
determinist view of history, which sees technical development as the
sole determining factor in history.
Part
of Engels’ later writings were concerned to correct these
interpretations of his and Marx’s earlier works. Engels accepted
that he and Marx were partly at fault here in that in trying to make
absolutely clear the difference between their materialist position
and the idealist position, they had over-emphasised the economic
factor and so had unwittingly distorted their analysis in a
determinist direction.
“Marx
and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger
people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to
it – we had to emphasise the main
principle vis-à-vis our adversaries, who denied it, and we had
not always the time, the place or the opportunity to give their due
to the other factors involved in the interaction.” (Engels to J.
Bloch 21/22-9-1890)
In
these letters (see also Engels to Borgius 25.1.1894) Engels took
great pains to emphasise that the economic factor was not the only
determining factor, but that it was the ultimately determining
factor.
“… According
to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately
determining factor in history is the production and reproduction of
real life. Neither Marx nor I have ever asserted more than this.
Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic factor is
the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into
a meaningless, abstract, absurd phrase. The economic situation is the
basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political
forms of the class struggle and its results such as constitutions
established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc.,
judicial forms, and especially the reflections of all these real
struggles in the brains of the participants, political, legal,
philosophical theories, religious views and their further development
into systems of dogma – also exercise their influence upon the
course of the historical struggles and in many cases determine their form
in particular.” (Engels to J. Bloch
22/27-9-1890)
Engels
also stresses here that non-economic factors such as politics,
ideology and the state, in reacting upon each other and the economic
basis, also have a part to play, although not the decisive part. He
also stressed that the economic basis itself should not be
interpreted too narrowly, but should be taken to include the mode of
exchange of products as well as their mode of production, together
with the geographical factors, remnants of earlier stages of economic
development, and the external environment. Finally, Engels stressed
that actual outcomes were the complex result of many individuals
wills and actions.
The
result of Engels’ later writings is to make it clear that the MCH
as he and Marx understood it was neither technicist nor determinist,
and that the model that Marx put forward in the 1859 Preface is not
to be interpreted inflexibly as a simple formula to be applied
rigidly in all cases, but as a general “guide to study” which
emphasises that the economic factors must be the ultimately decisive
ones.
But
although these later writings of Engels clear up one set of
misconceptions, they do not eliminate all theoretical problems. In
particular, it leaves the actual relation between the economic and
the non-economic in a state of some confusion. How is it that the
economic factors are ultimately decisive? What is the mechanism of
causality at work here? If the non-economic factors also affect the
economic factors, then in what sense can it be said to be ultimately
decisive? One answer might be that these problems have to be solved
by empirical research into specific situations – but does this
constitute an excuse for weak theory?
We
will leave this question as an item of discussion, together with
other problems associated with theories of history and the MCH, e.g.
(1)
How useful is Marx’s metaphor of base and superstructure, e.g.
where should the state and TUs be located?
(2)
How important is the role of class and class struggle to the MCH?
(3)
If Socialism is not inevitable, and moreover, dependent upon the
growth of Socialist ideas, how does this fit in with the MCH?
And could Socialism have been possible prior to Capitalism?
(4)
If ideas are the product (in some sense) of material conditions, then –
(a)
can there be such a thing as Socialist ethics, and
(b)
how can we account for ideological forms of consciousness? e.g. if we
say that at any point in history the material basis of society shapes
the ideas that people have, how is it that workers have developed
ideas which are against their material interests?
Members
will notice some duplication of material in this bulletin; this has
been retained for the purpose of continuity of text.
References
The
page references in the text are to the pamphlet The Socialist
Party of Great Britain and Historical Materialism.
Most
of the quotations from Marx and Engels can be found in Marx-Engels
Selected Works in One Volume, Lawrence & Wishart. These
include (in the order they appear in the text) –
“Speech
at the graveside of Karl Marx” by F. Engels.
“Preface
to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy”.
“Preface
to Vol. I of Capital“.
“Socialism
Utopian and Scientific” and “On the History of the Communist
League”. (These give the history of the evolution of socialist
theory and an account of the political environment in which Marx and
Engels were active and which influenced their thinking.)
Origin
of the Family, Private Property and the State (See
preface to first edition for Engels’ assessment of Morgan’s
contribution.)
Communist
Manifesto
Letter
from Engels to Starkenburg (in recent editions this letter is stated
to be to Borgius)
Letters
from Engels to Bloch
“18th
Brumaire“
Letter
from Engels to Conrad Schmidt
The
page references to the German Ideology refer to the Lawrence
&
Wishart edition.
Readings
on the Materialist Conception of History and its Applications
Marx-Engels
Selected Works in One Volume, Lawrence
& Wishart (see above references for list of relevant material)
Marx
& Engels, The German Ideology, Lawrence & Wishart.
Marx, Capital, Vol. I
(from Chapter X)
Marx, Capital, Vol. III
(Chapters XX, XXXVI, XLVII)
Marx, Grundrisse (pages
471 to 514) Pelican. This section
is also
published in Pre-Capitalist Economic Foundations, Lawrence
&
Wishart .
Extracts
from the works of Marx: & Engels can be found in Karl Marx –
Selected Writings on Sociology and Social Philosophy, Pelican,
and The Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy of Marx: and
Engels, Fontana.
L.
Boudin, Theoretical System of Karl Marx (chapter 3 and
appendices)
K.
Kautsky, Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History.
E.H.
Carr, What is History? (a sympathetic view from a historian),
Pelican.
SPGB
Publications
SPGB
& Historical Materialism
“Communist
Manifesto and the Last 100 Years“ (read Introduction “The Last
100 years”)
“Russia
1917 -1967”
“The
Socialist Party & War”
“The
Socialist party and the Race Question”
“World
Socialism 69” – “Marx and the
American Civil War”
Socialist
Standard
June
1947 - “Another Critic of Marx”
January
1948 - “A Feeble Criticism of Marx”
Jan
-Feb 1956 - “The Illusion of an Epoch”
March
1956 - “Marxism and Inevitability”
April
1956 - “Aspects of Marxism”
August
1957 - “The Holy Family”
May
to October 1959 - Series on “Ethics and the MCH”
November
1959 - “Darwinism and Marxism”
September
1964 - Articles on Hitler and Lenin
September
1973 - Special Issue “The Importance of Marxism Today”
October
-November 1973 - “Marx the Man and his Work”
February
1977 - “L.H. Morgan and the Past 100 Years”
October
1977 - “18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”
Forum
1952 November - “Historical Materialism” - F. Evans
|