In the framework of feudal society, in turn, the class of merchants grew into a revolutionary force which eventually overthrew feudal power and set up a new regime favorable to its own type of property-bourgeois or capitalistic society. And finally, capitalistic society is expected to nurture in its bosom its own gravediggers, the proletariat. The victorious revolution of the proletariat then would usher in the fifth phase— socialist society. Here the proletariat would be the ruling class, but, for reasons to be discussed later, there would be no more class struggles, no oppression, and no further revolutions. What this amounts to is a complete outline of the course which human history, propelled by class struggles, must take. This theory is the most important piece in the entire structure of Communist ideology. For on it depends the Communist idea of the meaning of history (and, consequently, of politics), the Communist confidence in ultimate victory, the Communist attitude towards people, classes and nations, the Communist ethic (insofar as one can speak of an ethic here), and the Communist insistence on ideological conformity. Significance of the "five phases" theory The five-phases theory goes far beyond Marx's analysis of revolutionary change through class struggle, because it pretends to give a complete and exhaustive list of the types of human society through which mankind must develop. It extends the theory of the class struggle to a comprehensive view of what past, present, and future of human society must be. Marx had left an analysis of capitalism, with positive assurance that capitalist society would engender the proletarian class which, in turn, would by its revolution abolish all classes and the class struggle. Now Communist ideology teaches that all roads of development in the world must eventually lead to capitalism and thus set up the proletarian revolution. That revolution is therefore seen as the destiny of all mankind. Not only is it bound to come about as the result of inevitable historical development, but it is also supposed to do away with the class struggle, the main source of evil, according to Communist thought. So the proletarian revolution is envisaged as something that is both necessary and good, both destiny and hope. To Communists, then, men are divided into those who ultimately help the revolution and those who oppose it. This is the basis of Communists' "ethics," and of the relation between the Communists and mankind. "Revolution" and "revolutionary" to the Communists are what Richard Weaver has called godwords. Those who oppose the proletarian revolution and its agents, the Communists, are not only oriented toward a past that is swept away by the powerful currents of history, but also opposed to the fulfillment of that destiny which holds the only hope for mankind. They stand condemned, in Communist eyes, on two counts: opposition to the march of history, and refusal to serve the good. Communists, on the other hand, draw from their view of history the double assurance that they are morally justified by their service to the redeeming cause of the proletarian revolution, and also are in accord with the movements of history toward a Communist future. Their struggle and the growth of their power is both good and necessary, because of the view which they have of history. One can therefore hardly exaggerate the importance of the Communist teaching of history, as the main foundation of Communist attitudes toward the world and toward people. Weaknesses of the "five phases" theory But the theory, powerful as it may seem, has weak foundations. We have already seen that it rests on the assumption that the struggle between classes is what drives people to act in history. This assumption, in turn, is based on what Engels termed ". .. the palpable but previously totally overlooked fact that men must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, therefore must work, before they can fight for domination, pursue politics, religion, philosophy, etc. ❞ 15 When it comes to the five phases, however, Communist ideology cannot even rely wholly on the authority of Marx and Engels. For they, when they distinguished between various phases of society, recognized “. . . Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production. . . " 16 What is this "Asiatic" mode of production? Marx referred here to a pattern of social and economic order that was found mostly in Asia. It had been intensively studied by scholars contemporary with Marx, who had described this type of society as being radically different from our own in the sense that instead of a ruling class of powerful property owners, an all-powerful class of state officials held sway. Now the "Asiatic" mode of production is a sixth phase. As Marx knew through detailed studies, it was not based on private property of the means of production, but on state property and the sway of a ruling class of state officials over a generally powerless populace." Asiatic society had been characterized by an absence of "class" revolutions. It had not given rise to feudalism. It thus did not fit into the stepladder scheme of history. This reference to Asiatic society was in effect eliminated from Communist ideology by Lenin. Under Stalin, since 1938, every reference to Asiatic society was authoritatively frowned upon. For if Asiatic society were recognized as a type of society, the chain of class-struggle 18 Ibid., 10 p. 164. Marx, preface to "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" (1859), Marx and Engels Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1955), vol. I, p. 363. 17 Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), pp. 374, 375, gives a more detailed and precise account of the role of "Asiatic society" in Marxist thinking than is possible here. progressions would be upset by a society which had not engendered the sequence feudalism-capitalism-socialism. Moreover, Engels in his already mentioned work had said that "The social classes of the ninth century had taken shape not in the bog of a declining civilization, but in the travail of a new".18 This meant, of course, that the "feudal society," which was then forming, had not "emerged” from the previous, or "slave-holding," society. From this one could only conclude that, if there are such universal patterns of society as Marx and Engels assume, it is not provable that there is a necessary progression from one to another. If a new "phase" can start by itself, apart from the debris of the previous society, then history is not predictable, and all kinds of societies may arise when an old order has run its course. Marx's acknowledgment of a sixth type of society, which was later ignored, and Engels' admission of self-starting forces in the succession of societies, remove the props from under the Communist theory of history. But these views of Marx and Engels are not taught in Sovietland. Communists are reared in the belief that history moves forward through five phases, with inexorable necessity, and that the future of mankind is inevitably Communist. 4. The Laws of History If Communist ideology consisted of nothing but the teachings of Karl Marx, it would not have the view of history which has been here described. The main work of Marx, Capital, consisted of an analysis of modern society and its inner laws of development. It was based on the premise that the relations of men in the process of production contain the key to the structure of a society and the forces that make for change. This, as has already been mentioned, is a materialistic explanation of society, and the theory is called Historical Materialism. Historical materialism is as far as Marx himself went. Dialectical materialism Modern Communist ideology, however, goes much further. It has developed a theory called Dialectical Materialism.19 This theory goes back largely to the writings of Engels, whose chief characteristic was that he generalized every concept that Marx developed. Marx applied the concept of the class struggle to one society: the industrial society of 19th century Western Europe. Engels wrote a brief book in which he claimed that the same concept applied to all societies ever known. Marx, in his earlier writings, reflected somewhat the influence of Hegel and Hegel's dialectic. Engels took these elements and, again in a short book, "Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Marx and Engels Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1955), vol. II, p. 304. "To be more systematically explained in chapter V, below. expanded them into a principle that explained everything in nature as well as in history. Lenin, following Engels more than Marx, developed a complete philosophy underpinning the Communist view of history, which is now taught under the name of Dialectical Materialism. Dialectic First, what is dialectic? In its modern use, the meaning of the term goes back to Hegel. It is a philosophy saying that all things are related with each other, that everything is in continuous flux, and that the flux occurs according to certain laws. In these laws, the concept of "opposites" plays a great role. Change occurs because there are opposites opposing each other. But in the course of the change it turns out that the opposites are not really opposed, but are really united. The "unity of opposites" is the name of this principle. It actually says that whenever we see struggle, there is hidden in it the meaning of unity on a higher level. Or, to turn it the other way around: struggle is the necessary form of progress, and all existing things carry in themselves the seed of something opposing them. Finally, this philosophy claims that all changes ultimately occur by way of a sudden leap, after the tension between opposites has been growing for a certain while; and in the leap something new is born, a new quality or essence. follows: The principal features of the Marxist dialectical method are as ... (a) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard nature as a connected and integral whole, in which things, phenomena, are . . . determined by, each other. (b) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is . . . a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development. * (c) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development as a simple process of growth. . . but as . . . a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another. . . (d) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature . . . and that the struggle between these opposites . . . constitutes the internal content of the process of development. . . 20 This goes far beyond anything Marx had taught and even far beyond an extension of the principle of class struggle to all of history. For this is a philosophy claiming knowledge about the way everything moves and 20 History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course (New York: International Publishers, 1939), pp. 106, 107, 109. Also Stalin, Problems of Leninism (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1953), pp. 714 exists-not merely societies and classes, but all of life. Engels expressly extended the philosophy of dialectic to the realm of nature. It is thus a philosophy of being, as comprehensive as any philosophy that has ever existed. Communists now represent not merely a political aspiration, or even the revolution of a social class, but an entire view of life which has become indissolubly linked with their political power. Communist power is used now, not only to bring about certain social changes or attain certain political goals, but also to impose authoritatively a world view with all its implications in art, science, literature, philosophy, and education. Materialism The dialectic, i.e., a philosophy about the movement of all things in terms of opposites-in-unity, was combined with materialism, i.e., the explanation of all things in terms of matter. This combination does go back to Marx in the sense that Marx had been brought up in the dialectic of Hegel who said that the movement in terms of opposites-inunity was a movement of ideas, and that history was nothing but the unfolding of ideas rooting in something he called Absolute Mind. Marx went on from there to say that Hegel's view of the world and history was upside down, in that ideas were but a reflection of material conditions. Marx undertook to put it "rightside up," that is, he asserted that the dialectic movement of history was ultimately a movement of matter rather than ideas. We have already seen how he carried out this proposition in his concept of the class struggle. As far as society is concerned, he said "matter" is the process of economic production. Thus matter moves, and its movement is dialectic-i.e., each condition already contains in itself the forces that oppose it, but from the opposition flows change and unity on a higher level. Capitalist society supposedly engenders within itself the tendency toward socialization and the proletarian class which opposes it and struggles with it. At one time, violent change will occur (the Revolution), and then the progressive elements of capitalist society (technology) and the proletarian forces will unite on a higher level (Communist society). As we have already seen, Marx himself dwelt almost exclusively on the materialistic explanation of history. It was Lenin who, following Engels, strongly emphasized the dialectic element and thus founded what is now known as Diamat (dialectical materialism.) The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of the one into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation). In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made externalGod, subject, etc.). In the second conception it is to the knowledge of the source of "self"-movement that attention is chiefly directed. 44836-50-pt. 1- -3 |