Historical DevelopmentS of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-(40): 17th September, 2013 PART II In Part II, we will take up separately the various component parts of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. This will help us to understand various aspects of MLM in greater depth. It will also help us to grasp MLM in the continuity and the process of development of its various parts. X. Philosophy: We have seen in the foregoing pages how the working class had emerged as a class-for-ifself by the mid 19th century – as a consolidated fighting force and a new motive force of history. The bourgeoisie, that had been until then a motive force for social development, began to be transformed into an obsolete force that is doomed to disappear from the centre stage of history. Marx and Engels recognised that the proletariat has to emerge as the most revolutionary social class and a motive force for social development. Besides, they also recognised that the proletariat in the course of liberating itself from wage slavery, will also liberate the entire society from all class exploitation and oppression and advance towards a classless society. The division of society into two great classes; the continuous deterioration of the living conditions of the working classes; the ever increasing impoverishment of the masses; the recurrent crises in capitalist production – all these shattered the illusion that capitalism and its product, liberal bourgeois ideology, are the summation of the human achievements. The gigantic task of overthrowing capitalism and advancing towards a classless society has been thrust upon the shoulders of the working class by history. Marx and Engels recognised the necessity for the working class to have its own world outlook if it has to become conscious of its historic task and fulfill it. The proletariat is a class that has no private property and that can break its chain of wage slavery only through the abolition of private property. However, other class ideology had a dominant influence over the working class and the working class movement at that time. Which ever class has control over the means of production in society will also be in a position to dictate the intellectual life. The ruling class ideology that arises on the basis of private property and serves the interests of the private property will only serve as intellectual chains of slavery and can never contribute to working class liberation. Marx and Engels recognised that the working class can overthrow capitalism only by developing its own new ideology that represents its class interests, i.e., which works for the abolition of private property. The development of a new, scientific world outlook that can represent the interests of the working class, come to the fore as the immediate historic necessity for the working class movement at that juncture. Marx and Engels carried out this historic task most ably and Marxist philosophy emerged in that course. Marxist philosophy is the world outlook of the proletariat; it is the world outlook of the advanced detachment of the working class, the communist party. The basis for the proletarian party’s theoritical understanding in any sphere is Marxist philosophy. Marxist philosophy is known as dialectical and historical materialism. Marxism is the revolutionary theory of the working class. Its basis is dialectical and historical materialism. Hence the aim of Marxist philosophy is to transform this world in a revolutionary way. As Marx had stated: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. We have seen that in the given concrete historical conditions of that time, German classical philosophy had reached the peak of its development. Dialectics became manifest in the most revolutionary manner in classical German philosophy, particularly in the Hegelian philosophy. The uninterrupted dialectical unity and dialectical motion and development in nature, society and human thought were reflected in Hegelian dialectics. But, being an objective idealist, Hegel thought that this dialectical unity and development are reflection of the dialectical unity and development of the absolute idea. Thus the dialectical laws that are a reflection in human consciousness of the objective processes that are taking place in the real world were turned "upside down" by Hegel. Marx and Engels made them stand "upright" on their feet. And in this process, they reconstructed dialectics totally on materialist basis. Feuerbach rejected both Hegelian idealism as well as his dialectics. Marx and Engels not only reconstructed dialectics with a materialistic outlook, but also made materialism scientific by making the scientific knowledge as the basis of it. Hence Marxist philosophical materialism and materialist dialecstic are different from all earlier philosophies. Marxist philosophical materialism had liberated materialism once for all from the speculations of philosophers. Rooted firmly in sciences, it has developed into the most consisting and scientific materialist outlook. Philosophical Materialism: "The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being ...spirit to nature..which is primary, spirit or nature..The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature, and therefore, in the last analysis, assumed world creation in some form or another.. comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism." — Engels. "Idealism considers spirit (consciousness, concepts, the subject ) as the source of all that exists on earth, and matter (nature and society, the object ) as secondary and subordinate. Materialism recognises the independent existence of matter as detached from spirit and considers spirit as secondary and subordinate." — Mao. Marx and Engels founded Marxist philosophy firmly in the camp of materialism. "Marx decidedly rejected not only idealism, which is always connected in one way or another with religion, but also the views,...of..agnosticism, criticism and positivism in their various forms, regarding such a philosophy as a ‘reactionary’ concession to idealism". While rejecting idealism, Marx and Engels also rejected the ‘old’ materialism of Feuerbach and others, because 1) it was ‘predominantly mechanical’; 2) it was non-historical, non-dialectical and did not apply the standpoint of development consistently and comprehensively; 3) it regarded the ‘human essence’ abstractly and not as the ensemble of all ‘social relations’ and it therefore did not understand the importance of ‘revolutionary, practical activity.’ Thus the ‘new’ materialism-Marxist materialism-was a materialism rid of all these defects; it was dialectical materialism. They defined matter as material reality existing objectively and that it gets reflected in human consciousness. The way in which matter was defined by Marxist philosophical materialism resolved fundamental question in philosophy with a consistent materialist outlook. Marx and Engels affirmed that matter is the most general category expressing the universal essence of all concrete forms and parts of matter. Hence with the growth of knowledge regarding matter, the concept of matter gets even broader but does not become obsolete. Marx and Engels also proved most scientifically the second aspect in the fundamental question in philosophy, viz, can human consciousness properly reflect objective reality? Marxist theory of knowledge totally rejects agnosticism and skepticism. Engels explain that the world will remain as a "thing-in-itself" as presumed by Kant but transform into "thing-for-us". He clarified that some things which are not known at a given time may be known after sometime but there can never be anything which remains forever as "thing-in-itself". Marxist theory of knowledge affirms that man is capable of knowing anything in this world. Marxist theory of knowledge asserts that social practice is the source of knowledge. It also states that social practice is the measure of truth. It completely rejects rationalist and empiricist trends.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 18:54:39 +0000
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