Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy

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Foreword

Published in July 1946, republished in January 1947, May 1948 and December 1949, Georges Politzer's Principles of Philosophy were greeted with eagerness. They contained, in an accessible form, the main part of the courses given in 1935-1936 at the Université Ouvrière by one of those who, never separating action from thought, died as a hero so that France might live.

In the "Preface" to the Elementary Principles of Philosophy, Maurice Le Goas who, a pupil of Politzer, collected his courses and thus allowed their publication, wrote: Georges Politzer, who began his philosophy course each year by fixing the true meaning of the word materialism and while protesting against the calumnious distortions which some make him undergo, did not fail to point out that the materialist philosopher does not lack ideal and that he is ready to fight to make this ideal triumph. Since then he has been able to prove it by his sacrifice, and his heroic death illustrates this initial course in which he affirmed the union, in Marxism, of theory and practice.

A few months away from a ministerial decision which claimed to refuse Georges Politzer the posthumous title of Resident internee and the mention "Death for France", the tribute due to the memory of Georges Politzer could not, less than ever, separate the French patriot of the communist philosopher.

The Nazi bullets laid Politzer down in the clearing of Mont-Valérien in May 1942; but the Workers' University, which was largely his work, continues in the New University of Paris, which every year grows in scope. In fact, the Fundamental Principles of Philosophy that we publish are based, like the original work, on the experience of the philosophical education given to workers - workers, employees, housewives, scientific researchers, teachers, students, etc. - who attend the New University. It is therefore right that the book bears - before the names of those who wrote it and who, with a few others, teach the course in dialectical materialism - the name of Georges Politzer. Of course, these Fundamental Principles are much more developed than the Elementary Principles;they benefit from the contributions which Marxist science has enriched in recent years. Their inspiration nonetheless remains the one that animated Politzer.

The Fundamental Principles of Philosophy aim to help all those who want to learn about the central ideas of Marx and Engels and their most eminent disciples, Lenin and Stalin. The work therefore has the characteristics of a manual, divided into lessons, to be followed one by one; the Control questions will allow the reader to verify the acquired knowledge and to pursue an effort of personal research. The courses of the New University, to which this book owes its existence, are aimed at workers who ask theoretical reflection to shed light on their militant, political or union action in today's France. We will therefore not be surprised by the abundance of examples taken from the daily life of the French, who fight for bread and freedom, fornational independence and peace. [Some who, among the examples cited, were very topical when the course was given or the book written, may appear to have aged, in view of the political changes that have taken place since, in France and elsewhere. They nevertheless retain their teaching value; and this is the essential]

But contrary to a still widely held opinion, when Marxists speak of practice, they do not understand it in a narrow sense. Human practice is all activities - sciences, techniques, arts, etc. - of which man is capable and which define him; it is all the experience accumulated over the millennia. Only one can be revolutionary who has been able to assimilate the best of this experience, for the benefit of his present action for the transformation of societies and the improvement of individuals. This is precisely the task of Marxist philosophy: conception of the world, it expresses, in their most general form, the fundamental laws of nature and history; method of analysis, it gives every man the means to understand what he is, what he does,and what he can at a given moment to transform his own existence. Entirely devoted to Marxist philosophy, the book we are presenting must therefore, it seems to us, be of service to all workers, manual or intellectual. And although it is not written for "specialists", they - economists, engineers, historians, naturalists, doctors, artists, etc. - will undoubtedly find food for thought.etc. - will undoubtedly find food for thought.etc. - will undoubtedly find food for thought.

The authors have made an effort to write this work with the maximum of simplicity and clarity; they avoided multiplying technical terms. But in doing so, they have only come half of the way. The reader will have to patiently cross the other half, without forgetting for a moment - as Marx recalled about the French edition of Capital - that "there is no royal road for science". Reading the twenty-four lessons that make up this book will therefore require some work and some perseverance.

If you don't understand a particular page on first reading, don't be discouraged! However, the work will be made easier if the reader confronts what he reads with his personal experience. In this way he will derive the greatest benefit from a study carried out with patience.

The volume contains many quotes, many references to the classics of Marxism. It was running the risk of making the presentations heavy; the authors have accepted this risk because it is due to the very nature of the work: it is a manual. Its role is to facilitate access to sources, to encourage the reader, through frequent reminders, to frequent the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tsétoung, Maurice Thorez. The authors of these Fundamental Principles have, in particular, emphasized the dialectical materialism and historical materialism of Stalin, the greatest philosopher of our time along with Lenin. The order of the lessons of this manual purposely reproduces, for the most part, the order of the subjects of Stalin's work, a masterful synthesis of the philosophy of Marxism, published in 1938.Reading this writing, which will be found either in Chapter IV of the History of the Communist Party (b) of the USSR, or in a separate edition [Aux Editions Sociales, Paris.], Remains essential for all those who want to master the essential data of Marxism and understand its force of action.

Faithful to their principles, Marxists see in criticism a requirement of all fruitful action. This is why the authors of the Fundamental Principles of Philosophy seek critical input from those, whoever they may be, who will use this book. It cannot fail to improve, to always better fulfill its role in the service of the working class and the people of France.

Guy Besse and Maurice Caveing,
Agrégés de Philosophie.
August 1954

Introduction

"Philosophy ..." is a word which, at first glance, hardly inspires confidence in many workers. They say to themselves that a philosopher is a character who does not have his feet on the ground. Inviting good people to "do philosophy" is perhaps, they think, inviting them to an aerobatic session. After which our heads will turn ...

This is how philosophy often appears: a game of ideas unrelated to reality; obscure game, privilege of a few initiates; and probably dangerous game, not very profitable for people who live by the sweat of their brow. A great French philosopher, Descartes, long before us condemned the obscure and dangerous game to which some would like to reduce philosophy. He characterized the false philosophers thus:

... The obscurity of the distinctions and the principles which they make use of is cause that they can speak of all things as boldly as if they knew them, and support all that they say against the subtlest and the most clever, without any means of convincing them; in which they seem to me like a blind man who, in order to fight without disadvantage against one who sees, would have brought him to the bottom of some very dark cellar. (Descartes: Discourse on Method (1637), p. 101. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1950.)

Our intention is not to lead the reader into a "very dark cellar". We know that darkness is conducive to bad luck. There is an obscure and evil philosophy; but there is also, as Descartes already wanted, a clear and beneficent philosophy, the one of which Gorky spoke:

It would be a mistake to think that I am making fun of philosophy; no, I am for philosophy, but for a philosophy coming from below, from the earth, from the processes of work which, studying the phenomena of nature, subjugates the forces of the latter to the interests of man. I am convinced that thought is indissolubly linked to effort, and I am not a supporter of thought while one is in a state of stillness, sitting, lying. (Gorki: "The Philistine and the Anecdotes" (1931), in Les Petits-Bourgeois, p. 52, note. Editions de la Nouvelle Critique, Paris, 1949.)

The purpose of the introduction to these Principles of Philosophy is to define philosophy in general, then to show why we should study it and what philosophy we should study.

What is philosophy?

The ancient Greeks, who numbered some of the greatest thinkers that history has known, understood by philosophy the love of knowledge. This is the strict meaning of the word philosophia, where philosophy comes from.

"Knowledge" - that is, "knowledge of the world and of man". This knowledge made it possible to state certain rules of action, to determine a certain attitude towards life. The wise man was the man who acted in all respects in accordance with such rules, themselves based on knowledge of the world and of man.

The word philosophy has continued since that time because it met a need. It is often taken in very different senses which derive from the diversity of views on the world. But the most constant meaning is this: general conception of the world, from which one can deduce a certain way of behaving.

An example, taken from the history of our country, will illustrate this definition:

In the eighteenth century, bourgeois philosophers in France thought and taught, relying on science, that the world is knowable; they concluded that it is possible to transform it for the good of man. And many, for example Condorcet, the author of the Sketch of a historical table of the progress of the human spirit (1794), considered as a consequence that man is perfectible, that he can become better, than society can get better.

A century later, in France, the bourgeois philosophers in their great majority thought and taught, conversely, that the world is unknowable, that the “bottom of things” escapes us and will always escape us. Hence the conclusion that it is foolish to want to transform the world. Certainly, they agreed, we can act on nature, but it is a superficial action, since the "bottom of things" is out of reach. As for man ... he is what he always has been, what he always will be. There is a "human nature" the secret of which escapes us. “What is the use, therefore, of beating one's head to improve society? "

We see that the conception of the world (ie philosophy) is not a trivial matter. Since two opposing conceptions lead to opposite practical conclusions. Indeed, the philosophers of the XVIII E century want to transform the company, because they express the interests and the aspirations of the bourgeoisie, then revolutionary class, which fights against feudalism.

As for the philosophers of the XIX E century, they express (whether they know it or not) the interests of this bourgeoisie become conservative: henceforth dominant class, it fears the revolutionary rise of the proletariat. She believes that there is nothing to change in a world that gives pride of place to her. Philosophers justify such interests when they turn people away from any endeavor to transform society. Example: the positivists (their leader, Auguste Comte, passes in the eyes of many for a "social reformer"; in reality, he is deeply convinced that the reign of the bourgeoisie is eternal, and his "sociology" ignores productive forces and relations of production [On productive forces and relations of production, see lesson 15.], which condemns it to impotence);the eclectics (their leader, Victor Cousin, was the official philosopher of the bourgeoisie; he justified the oppression of the proletariat and in particular the massive shootings of June 1848, in the name of the "true", the "beautiful", the "good "," Justice ", etc ..); Bergsonism (Bergson, which the bourgeoisie wore on the shield in the 1900s, that is to say at the time of imperialism, puts all his mind to distract man from concrete reality, from action on the world, of the struggle to transform society; man must devote himself to his "deep self", to his "interior" life; the rest is not of great importance and therefore the profit-riders of the work of others can sleep soundly.)oppression of the proletariat and in particular the massive shootings of June 1848, in the name of the "true", the "beautiful", the "good", "justice", etc.); Bergsonism (Bergson, which the bourgeoisie wore on the shield in the 1900s, that is to say at the time of imperialism, puts all his mind to distract man from concrete reality, from action on the world, of the struggle to transform society; man must devote himself to his "deep self", to his "interior" life; the rest is not of great importance and therefore the profit-riders of the work of others can sleep soundly.)oppression of the proletariat and in particular the massive shootings of June 1848, in the name of the "true", the "beautiful", the "good", "justice", etc.); Bergsonism (Bergson, which the bourgeoisie wore on the shield in the 1900s, that is to say at the time of imperialism, puts all his mind to distract man from concrete reality, from action on the world, of the struggle to transform society; man must devote himself to his "deep self", to his "interior" life; the rest is not of great importance and therefore the profit-riders of the work of others can sleep soundly.)that the bourgeoisie wore on the shield in the 1900s, that is to say at the time of imperialism, puts all its mind to divert man from concrete reality, from action on the world, the struggle to transform society; man must devote himself to his "deep self", to his "interior" life; the rest is not very important and therefore profiteers of other people's work can sleep soundly.)that the bourgeoisie wore on the shield in the 1900s, that is to say at the time of imperialism, puts all its mind to divert man from concrete reality, from action on the world, the struggle to transform society; man must devote himself to his "deep self", to his "interior" life; the rest is not very important and therefore profiteers of other people's work can sleep soundly.)others can sleep soundly.)others can sleep soundly.)

The same social class, the French bourgeoisie, therefore had two very different philosophies, from one century to another, because, revolutionary in the 18th century, it had become conservative, and even reactionary in the 19th century. Nothing more striking than the confrontation of the two texts here. The first dates from 1789, the year of the bourgeois revolution. It is from a bourgeois revolutionary, Camille Desmoulins, who hails the new times in these terms:

Fiat! Fiat! Yes, this fortunate Revolution, this regeneration will be accomplished; no power on earth can prevent it. Sublime effect of philosophy, freedom and patriotism! We have become invincible. (Quoted by Albert Soboul: 1789 “L'An Un de la liberté”, 2 nd edition, p. 63. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1950.)

And here is the other text. It dates from 1848. It is by M. Thiers, a bourgeois statesman, who defends the interests of his class in power against the proletariat:

Ah! if it were as in the old days, if the school were to always be run by the parish priest or his sacristan, I would be far from opposing the development of schools for the children of the people ... I formally ask for something other than these teachers secular people, too many of whom are detestable; I want Brothers, although in the past I might have been distrustful of them, I still want to make the influence of the clergy all-powerful; I ask that the priest's action be strong, much stronger than it is, because I count a lot on him to propagate this good philosophy which teaches man that he is here to suffer, and not this other philosophy which says on the contrary to the man: enjoy, because ... you are here below to make your little happiness (underlined in the text);and if you do not find it in your current situation, strike without fear the rich person whose selfishness refuses you this share of happiness; it is by removing the superfluous from the rich that you will ensure your well-being and that of all those who are in the same position as you. (Quoted by Georges Cogniot; The School Question in 1848 and the Falloux Law, p. 189. Editions Hier et Today.)

Thiers, as we can see, is interested in philosophy. Why ? Because philosophy has a class character. That philosophers, in general, do not suspect it, that's for sure. But any view of the world has a practical meaning: it benefits certain classes, it harms others. We will see that Marxism is also a class philosophy.

While the revolutionary bourgeois Camille Desmoulins saw in philosophy a weapon in the service of the revolution, the conservative Thiers sees it as a weapon in the service of social reaction: "good philosophy" is that which invites workers to bow down. 'chiné. So thinks the future Communards gunner.

Why do we need to study philosophy?

Today, the successors of M. Thiers, in France as in the United States, are suing Marxists of opinion. They would like to annihilate not only the Marxists, but also their philosophy. Just as M. Thiers wanted to kill, with the Communards, their ideas of social progress. The duty of the workers and, in general, of the workers, is thus marked out; it is to oppose to the philosophy which serves the exploiters a philosophy capable of helping in the struggle against the exploiters. The study of philosophy is therefore very important to workers. This importance appears moreover when one places oneself on the ground of facts.

The facts are the increasingly harsh situation that the policies of the bourgeoisie, today the ruling class, impose on all workers in our country: unemployment and high cost of living, opportunities denied to young people, infringement of the laws social, the right to strike, democratic freedoms, repression, armed aggressions (in particular on July 14, 1953 in Paris), colonization of the country by American imperialism, bloody and ruinous war of VietNam, reconstitution of the Wehrmacht, etc., etc. .. The question that workers ask themselves is therefore this: how to get out? The need to know why things are so becomes more and more general, more and more acute. Where does the danger of war come from? Where does fascism come from? Ofwhere does misery come from? The workers of our country want to understand what is happening, want to understand so that it can change.

But then is it not clear that, if philosophy is a conception of the world, a conception which has practical consequences, it is very precious, for workers who want to change the world, to have a correct conception of the world? ? Just as you have to aim just to hit the target.

Suppose all workers think reality is unknowable. Then they will be defenseless in the face of war, unemployment, hunger. Everything that happens will be unintelligible to them; they will suffer it as a fatality. This is precisely where the bourgeoisie would like to lead the workers. So she will not neglect any means to spread a conception of the world in accordance with her interests. This explains the profusion of ideas like this: “There will always be rich and poor”. Or again: “Society is a jungle and it always will be; so each for himself! Eat others if you don't want others to eat you. Worker, try to win the good graces of the boss to the detriment of your fellow workers, rather than unite with them for the common defense of your wages. Employee,try to become the boss's mistress and you will have a good life. Too bad for the others ... "

These ideas can be found in abundance in Sélection (from the Reader's Digest), in the “press of the heart” ... It is the poison with which the bourgeoisie wants to corrupt the conscience of the workers, and with which they must consequently. to defend oneself. This poison is also found in the most diverse forms. Thus the workers who still read Franc-Tireur buy, without knowing it, fifteen francs of poison a day. Without knowing it, because Franc-Tireur is stamping his feet, shouting that it works badly and that we will see what we will see, but Franc-Tireur is careful not to say why it works badly, to show the causes, and especially he works to prevent or destroy the union of workers, this union which is precisely the only way to "get out".

All these ideas derive, in the final analysis, from a conception of the world, from a philosophy: society is intangible, it must be taken as it is, that is to say, undergo exploitation, or else be exploited. carve a small place there by elbowing.

Pardieu! Will we always have to find out the why and the how of things that happen to us? Injustice is committed every day and force takes precedence over law!

This is what we can read in Super-boy, one of the many newspapers that the bourgeoisie intended for the children of workers. Violence, contempt for man, this is indeed what suits the needs of the aggressive bourgeoisie, for whom the war of conquest is the normal activity.

This is the place to recall what Lenin said in 1920 at the Third Congress of the Federation of Communist Youth of Russia. He described capitalist society thus:

The old society was founded on the following principle; either you will plunder your neighbor, or it is your neighbor who will plunder you; either you work for the benefit of another, or it is he who works for your profit; or you are the owner of slaves, or you are a slave yourself. It is understandable that the men brought up in this society suck, one might say, with their mother's milk, a psychology, habits and ideas either of slavery, or of slave, or of small owner, or of small employee. , a little civil servant, an intellectual, in short, a man who only thinks of having what he needs and loses interest in others.

If I farm my piece of land, I don't have to worry about others; if the others are hungry, so much the better; I will sell them my wheat more expensive. If I have my little place as a doctor, engineer, schoolmaster or employee, what do I care about others? Perhaps by flattering the holders of power, by seeking to please them, I will keep my place and I will even succeed in breaking through, in becoming a bourgeois myself? (Lenin: Selected Works, t. II, p. 815. Ed. In foreign languages, Moscow, 1947; L. II, Part 2, p. 497, Moscow, 1953.)

This old philosophy, dear to the reigning bourgeoisie, must be waged a merciless battle, outside of us and within us: for it has on its side, in addition to tradition and prejudices, the mass press, radio, cinema ... We must comply with the invitation of Barbusse who said, evoking this fight step by step against the old ideas-poison:

Do you start over, if necessary, with magnificent honesty? (Henri Barbusse: Words of a fighter, p. 10. Flammarion.)

We must work to form new ideas that bring in them confidence and no longer despair, struggle and no longer resignation. For workers, this is not a secondary issue. It is a question of life and death, because they will be able to free themselves from class oppression only if they have such a conception of the world that they can effectively transform it.

Thus Gorky, in The Mother, tells how in the Russia of the tsars an old woman, until then resigned to everything, without hope, became an indomitable revolutionary because she understood, thanks to her son, heroic fighter of socialism, the source of the suffering of her people, because she understood that it was possible to end it.

For those who are already struggling, who refuse resignation, the study of philosophy will not be useless: only, in fact, an objective conception of the world can give them the reasons for their struggle.

Without a correct theory, there can be no victorious struggle. Some believe that in order to be successful, the conditions for success are sufficient. Error, because it is still necessary to know that these conditions are realized. And the more complicated things are, the more important it is to know how to identify with them.

These remarks are valid when it comes to the revolutionary struggle, the struggle for socialism and communism. "Without revolutionary theory, no revolutionary movement", said Lenin.

But they also apply in the struggle for other objectives: struggle for democratic freedoms, for bread or for peace.

It is therefore out of practical necessity that we must study philosophy, that we must be interested in the general conception of the world.

Let us now see more closely what is this philosophy which will allow us to understand the world, and therefore to strive for its transformation.

What philosophy should we study?

A scientific philosophy: dialectical materialism

If we want to transform reality (nature and society), we must know it. It is through the various sciences that man knows the world. So only a scientific view of the world can suit workers in their struggle for a better life. This scientific conception is Marxist philosophy, it is dialectical materialism.

A question then comes to mind: "what difference do you make between" science "and" philosophy "? Don't you identify the second with the first? Marxist philosophy is in fact inseparable from the sciences, but it is distinguished from them. Each of the sciences (physics, biology, psychology, etc.) proposes the study of the laws specific to a well-determined sector of reality. As for dialectical materialism, it has a double purpose:

- as a dialectic, it studies the most general laws of the universe, laws common to all aspects of reality, from physical nature to thought, including living nature and society. The next few lessons will deal with the study of these laws. But Marx and Engels, founders of dialectical materialism, did not draw dialectics from their fantasy. It is the progress of the sciences which has enabled them to discover and formulate the most general laws, common to all sciences and which philosophy exposes. [On the formation of Marxist theory, see lessons 1 and 14.]

- as materialism, Marxist philosophy is a scientific conception of the world, the only scientific one, that is to say the only one consistent with what the sciences teach us. But what do the sciences teach? That the universe is a material reality, that man is no stranger to this reality and that he can know it, and thereby transform it (as shown by the practical results obtained by the various sciences). We will approach the study of philosophical materialism in lessons 8 to 11. Marxist materialism is not identified with the sciences, because its object is not a certain limited aspect of reality (this is the object of the sciences), but the conception of the world as a whole, a conception that all the sciences implicitly admit, even if the scholars are not Marxists.

The materialistic view of the world, says Engels, simply means the view of nature as it is, without extraneous addition. (F, Engels; L. Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy, quoted by Stalin: Materialisme dialectique et materialisme historique, p. 10. Editions Sociales, Parie, 1950.)

Each of the sciences studies an aspect of "nature as it is". As for Marxist philosophy, it is the "general conception of nature as it is". It is therefore, although not identifying itself with the sciences, a scientific philosophy.

Dialectical materialism is not identified with the sciences, we have said. But we have also just seen that the sciences are necessarily dialectical (since they cannot be constituted if they ignore the most general laws of the universe) and materialist (since their object is the material universe). So dialectical materialism is inseparable from the sciences. He can only progress by relying on them; he synthesizes it. But in return, it powerfully helps the sciences, as we shall see. On the other hand, he sets himself the task of criticizing unscientific conceptions of the world, anti-dialectical and anti-materialist philosophies.

Historical materialism extends the principles of dialectical materialism to society (we will study it in lessons 15-21). Dialectical materialism and historical materialism constitute the theoretical foundation of scientific socialism, and therefore of communism.

Summarizing all these characters, Stalin writes:

Marxism is the science of the laws of the development of nature and of society, the science of the revolution of the oppressed and exploited masses, the science of the victory of socialism in all countries, the science of the building of communist society . (Stalin: “On Marxism in Linguistics”, in Last Writings, p. 59. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1953.)

A revolutionary philosophy: the philosophy of the proletariat

It is precisely because Marxist philosophy is scientific and, as such, required to prove itself in practice - practice verifying theory - that it is at the same time the philosophy of the proletariat, the theory of the party of the proletariat, revolutionary class, whose historic role is to defeat the bourgeoisie, to suppress capitalism, to build socialism.

We will come back, in the 14th lesson, to the importance of the link which unites the proletariat to Marxism. But it should be highlighted now.

If, in fact, the proletariat has adhered to Marxist philosophy, if it has assimilated it and if it has enriched it, it is because the struggle to transform society - the society of which it is a victim - set the task of understanding this society, of studying it scientifically. The bourgeoisie, defending its privileged class interests, seeks to make people forget that its domination is based on the exploitation of labor power. It therefore denies the very reality of capitalist exploitation because to recognize the reality would be contrary to its exploiting class interests. In the interests of class, the bourgeoisie is increasingly turning its back on the truth.

The position of the proletariat is quite different. Its exploited class interest which wants to shake off the yoke is to see the world in the face. The exploiting class needs lies to perpetuate exploitation; the revolutionary class needs the truth to put an end to exploitation. It needs a just conception of the world to carry out its revolutionary task.

To see the world in the face is materialism.

Seeing the world in its real development is dialectical materialism (the dialectic studying the laws that explain the development of society).

We can therefore say that, as a scientific philosophy, dialectical materialism has thereby become the philosophy of the revolutionary class, of the class whose interest is to understand society in order to free itself from exploitation. Marxism is the scientific philosophy of the proletariat. A. Zhdanov could say:

The emergence of Marxism as the scientific philosophy of the proletariat puts an end to the old period in the history of philosophy, when philosophy was an occupation of solitaries, the prerogative of schools composed of a small number of philosophers and disciples. , without communication with the outside, detached from life and the people, strangers to the people.

Marxism is not such a philosophical school. On the contrary, it appears as a going beyond the old philosophy, when the latter was the prerogative of a few chosen ones, of an aristocracy of the spirit, and as the beginning of an entirely new period in which philosophy becomes a scientific weapon in the hands of the proletarian masses struggling for their emancipation. (Jdanov: On literature, philosophy and music, p. 44, 45. Editions de la Nouvelle Critique, Paris, 1950. (Expressions underlined by us. GB-MC))

It is this philosophy that we will study because, as a scientific philosophy, it brings to the workers the light which illuminates their struggle. To workers, and not just to proletarians, since manual and intellectual workers are allies of the revolutionary proletariat, and have the same interests, against the capitalist bourgeoisie. The study of Marxism, the scientific philosophy of the proletariat, is therefore the business of all those who, proletarians or not, want to dispel the lies favorable to the rule of the bourgeoisie. Like any science, Marxist theory is accessible to any man, whatever his class: a bourgeois can therefore be a Marxist, if he puts himself at the side of the proletariat, if he takes the point of view of the proletariat.

But the indissoluble bond which links Marxism to the proletariat allows us to understand that Marxist philosophy, the philosophy of the proletariat, is necessarily a party philosophy. The proletariat cannot in fact defeat the bourgeoisie without a revolutionary party, which possesses the science of societies. This idea is already expressed by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party and Lenin said:

Marx and Engels were in philosophy, from beginning to end, party men. (Lenin: Materialisme et empiriocriticisme, p. 312. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1948.)

So it was with their best disciples, notably Lenin and Stalin.

Conclusion: unity of theory and practice

For workers, and in particular proletarians, the study of Marxist philosophy is not a luxury: it is a class duty. Failure to fulfill this duty is to leave the field open to anti-scientific and reactionary conceptions which serve bourgeois oppression and it is to deprive the workers' movement of the compass which shows the way.

The bourgeoisie dreads the philosophy of the proletariat and makes war against it by all means. For decades, she kept the extinguisher on Marxist theory, keeping it away from universities. Then as dialectical materialism increased its influence (at the same time as the authority of the working class increased), it was necessary to be cunning: the bourgeois ideologues then changed air. They said: "It is understood, Marxism was good in the old days. But today Marxism is outdated ”. Hence the countless attempts to "go beyond" Marxism. Now it is significant that all these attempts go through a preliminary operation: the liquidation or the falsification of the philosophical foundations of Marxism, the liquidation or the falsification of dialectical materialism.

The bourgeoisie has found the eager help of the leaders of the international social democracy for this work. Particularly, in our country, the help of Leon Blum. In On the Human Scale (1946), he denies the need for socialism for a materialist philosophy, in defiance of the constant teachings of Marx. And the leaders of the Socialist International openly place themselves under the wing of religion:

Marxism, dialectical and historical materialism, is by no means necessary for socialism, religious inspiration is just as valid. (Statutes of the new “Socialist International”. (COMISCO transformed.))

We will see that such operations have the consequence of launching the ban on the class struggle, that is to say on the revolution.

But silences and falsifications cannot change the truth of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. The facts are the facts. And, for example, we see at the present time the contradictions between the various capitalist states yet united in a single coalition against the country of socialism. The capitalists themselves see this situation. However, it had been foreseen and described by Stalin in his last work: The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, which develops and enriches Marxist theory.

The facts are there. And the victory of socialism, then the construction of communism in the USSR, the rise of popular democracies, the progress of the Marxist-Leninist workers' parties, are all proofs of the sovereign power of Marxist theory. As for bourgeois philosophies, they can only record (and try to justify without explaining it) the accentuation of the general crisis of capitalism.

However, there is one point that should never be forgotten by those who undertake the study of Marxist philosophy. A scientific philosophy of the revolutionary proletariat, Marxism never separates theory (i.e. knowledge) from practice (i.e. action). Marx, Engels and their followers were both thinkers and men of action. It is, moreover, this organic link between theory and practice that has enabled Marxism to grow richer: each stage of the revolutionary movement has prepared a new rise in theory. We cannot assimilate the principles of Marxism if we do not participate in revolutionary action, which reveals its fruitfulness.

Marxist-Leninist theory is not a dogma, but a guide for action. (History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR, conclusion § 2, p. 394. Editions in foreign languages, Moscow, 1949.)

Study of the marxist dialectical method

The dialectical method

What is a method?

Dialectical materialism is so named because its way of considering the phenomena of nature, its method of investigation and knowledge, is dialectical, and its interpretation, its conception of the phenomena of nature, its theory is materialist. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, p. 3. Social Editions, 1950.)

By "method" is meant the path by which a goal is achieved. The greatest philosophers, like Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel, carefully studied questions of method because they were anxious to discover the most rational way to reach the truth. Marxists want to see reality in the face, beyond immediate appearances and beyond mystifications: the method is therefore also very important for them. Only a scientific method will allow them to develop this scientific conception of the world which is necessary for transformative, revolutionary action.

The dialectic is precisely this method, and it is the only one which is rigorously appropriate to a materialist conception of the world.

We will devote the following six lessons of this treatise to the dialectical method. But we should prepare for it with a first glimpse. Overview that will be facilitated by a comparison between the dialectical method (which is scientific) and the metaphysical method (which is anti-scientific).

The metaphysical method

Its characters

We bought a pair of yellow shoes. After a while, after multiple repairs, refurbishment of soles and heels, gluing of parts, etc., we still say: “I'm going to put on my yellow shoes”, without realizing that they are no longer. the same. But we neglect the change that has occurred to our shoes, we regard them as unchanged, as identical.

This example will help us understand what a metaphysical method is. Such a method, to use Engels' expression, considers things "as done once and for all" as immutable. [Engels; Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of German Classical Philosophy, p. 35. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1946; in Marx-Engels; Philosophical Studies, p. 46. ​​Editions Sociales, 1951.] The movement, and therefore also the causes of change, escape him.

A historical study of metaphysics would leave behind the modest pair of shoes that would not suffice. Let us simply point out that the word “metaphysics” comes from the Greek meta, which can be interpreted as meaning beyond, and from physics, the science of nature. The object of metaphysics (especially in Aristotle) ​​is the study of the being which is found beyond nature. While nature is movement, the being beyond nature (supernatural being) is immutable, eternal. Some call it God, others the Absolute, etc. Materialists, who rely exclusively on science, consider this being to be imaginary (see lesson 9). But as the ancient Greeks could not explain the movement, it seemed necessary to some of their philosophers to pose,beyond nature in motion, an eternal principle.

If therefore we speak of the metaphysical method, we mean a method which ignores or ignores the reality of movement and change. It is a metaphysical attitude not to see that my shoes are no longer the same. Metaphysics ignores movement in favor of rest, change in favor of the identical. “There is nothing new under the sun,” she said. It is thus to reason as a metaphysician to believe that capitalism is eternal, that the evils and vices (corruption, egoism, cruelty, etc.) generated or maintained in men by capitalism will always exist. The metaphysician imagines an eternal man, therefore immutable.

Why ? Because it separates man from his environment, society. He said: “On the one hand, man, on the other, society. You destroy capitalist society, you will have a socialist society. And after ? Man will remain man ”. Here we grasp a second feature of metaphysics: it arbitrarily separates what in reality is inseparable. Man is in fact a product of the history of societies: what he is, he is not outside society, but through it. The metaphysical method isolates that which in reality is united. She classifies things once and for all. She says for example: here politics, there the union. Of course, politics and union are two. But life experience shows us that politics and trade unions are no less inseparable.What happens in the union reacts to politics; and conversely political activity (State, parties, elections, etc.) has an impact on the union.

Partitioning leads the metaphysician in all circumstances to reason as follows: “A thing is either this or that. It cannot be both this and that ”. Example: democracy is not dictatorship; dictatorship is not democracy. So a state is either democracy or dictatorship. But what does life teach? Life teaches that the same state can be both a dictatorship and a democracy. The bourgeois state (for example in the United States) is democracy for a minority of big financiers who have all the rights, all the power; it is dictatorship over the majority, over the little people who have only illusory rights. The popular state (for example, in China) is a dictatorship vis-à-vis the enemies of the people, the exploiting minority driven from power by revolutionary violence;it is democracy for the vast majority, for workers freed from oppression.

In short, the metaphysician, because he defines things once and for all (they will remain what they are!) And because he jealously isolates them, is led to oppose them as absolutely irreconcilable. He thinks that two opposites cannot exist at the same time. A being, he says, is either alive or dead. It seemed inconceivable to him that a being could be both alive and dead: yet in the human body, for example, at every moment new cells replace dying cells: the life of the body is precisely this incessant struggle between opposing forces.

Refusal of change, separation from what is inseparable, systematic exclusion of opposites, such are the features of the metaphysical method. We will have the opportunity to study them more closely in the following lessons, contrasting them with the features that characterize the dialectical method. But now we can sense the dangers of a metaphysical method for seeking truth and acting on the world. Metaphysics inevitably lets slip the essence of reality which is constant change, transformation. She wants to see each time only one aspect of this infinitely rich reality and to bring the whole to one of its parts, the entire forest to one of its trees. It does not mold itself to reality, as dialectics does,but it wants to force living reality to settle in its dead frames. A task doomed to failure.

An old Greek legend tells of the misdeeds of a robber, Procrustes, who laid his victims on a small bed. If the victim was too tall to fit in the bed, he would cut off his legs to size; if the victim was too small for the bed, he would pull her apart ... This is how metaphysics tyrannizes over facts. But facts are stubborn.

Its historical significance

Before knowing how to draw moving objects, you must learn to draw them still. It's a bit of the history of humanity. At a time when she was not yet in a position to work out a dialectical method, the metaphysical method rendered her great services.

The old method of research and thought, which Hegel calls the "metaphysical" method which was concerned preferably with the study of things considered as given fixed objects and whose survivals continue to haunt minds, had, in its time, its great historical justification. You had to study things first before you could study processes [that is, movements and transformations]. You first had to know what such and such a thing was before you could observe the changes in it. And so it was in the natural sciences. The old metaphysics, which saw things as done once and for all, was the product of the science of nature which studied dead and living things as things done once and for all.(Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 35; Philosophical Studies, p. 46.)

At its beginnings the science of nature could not proceed otherwise. It was first necessary to recognize the living species, to distinguish them carefully from one another, to classify them: a plant is not an animal, an animal is not a plant, etc. In physics the same: it was necessary to d 'first separate heat, light, mass, etc., on pain of confusion, and devote oneself to begin with the study of the simplest phenomena. Thus, for a very long time, science could not analyze movement. She therefore gave the essential importance to rest. Then when came the scientific study of movement (with Galileo and Descartes), we first stuck to the simplest form of movement, the most accessible (the change of place).

But the progress of the sciences should lead them to break down the metaphysical frameworks.

When [the study of nature] was advanced to the point where the decisive progress was possible, namely the shift to the systematic study of the modifications undergone by these things within nature itself, then also struck in the field. philosophical the death knell of the old metaphysics. (Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 35; and Philosophical Studies, p. 46.)

The dialectical method

Its characters

The dialectic ... considers things and concepts in their sequence, their mutual relation, their interaction and the resulting modification, their birth, their development and their decline. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 392. Editions Sociales, 1950.)

This is how dialectic is opposed in every way to metaphysics. Not that the dialectic admits neither rest nor separation between the various aspects of reality. But she sees in rest a relative aspect of reality, while movement is absolute; it also considers that all separation is relative, because in reality everything is held together in one way or another, everything is in interaction. We will study the laws of dialectics in the next six lessons.

Attentive to movement in all its forms (not simply the change of place, but also the changes of states, thus: liquid water changing into water vapor), the dialectic explains movement by the struggle of opposites. It is the most important law of dialectics; we will devote lessons 5, 6 and 7 to it. The metaphysician isolates the opposites, considers them systematically as incompatible. The dialectician discovers that they cannot exist one without the other and that all movement, all change, all transformation is explained by their struggle. We indicated in point II of this lesson that the life of the body is the product of an incessant struggle between the forces of life and the forces of death, a victory that life constantly wins over death,but a victory which death constantly contests for life.

... Every organic being is, at every moment, the same and not the same; every moment, he assimilates foreign matter and eliminates others, every moment his body cells are wasting away and others are being formed; at the end of a more or less long time, the substance of this body is totally renewed, it has been replaced by other atoms of matter, so that every organized being is constantly the same and yet another. Considering things a little more closely, we still find that the two poles of a contradiction, as positive and negative, are just as inseparable as they are opposed and that, despite all their antithetical value, they overlap. mutually; similarly, that cause and effect are representations which are only valid as suchapplied to a particular case, but that, as soon as we consider that particular case in its general connection with the whole world, they merge, they resolve in the view of the universal reciprocal action, where causes and effects are continually permuting , where what was effect now or here, becomes cause elsewhere or later, and vice versa. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 54. Two very simple examples of this interaction, where the cause becomes effect and the effect causes: the water of seas and rivers generates, by evaporation, clouds; which in turn condense into rain which returns to the ground. The blood set in motion by the heart needs the lungs to give it oxygen; the lungs cannot function without blood circulation.)as soon as we consider this particular case in its general connection with the whole world, they merge, they resolve in the view of the universal reciprocal action, where causes and effects are continually permuting, where what was effect now or here , becomes the cause elsewhere or later, and vice versa. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 54. Two very simple examples of this interaction, where the cause becomes effect and the effect causes: the water of seas and rivers generates, by evaporation, clouds; which in turn condense into rain which returns to the ground. The blood set in motion by the heart needs the lungs to give it oxygen; the lungs cannot function without blood circulation.)as soon as we consider this particular case in its general connection with the whole world, they merge, they resolve in the view of the universal reciprocal action, where causes and effects are continually permuting, where what was effect now or here , becomes the cause elsewhere or later, and vice versa. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 54. Two very simple examples of this interaction, where the cause becomes effect and the effect causes: the water of seas and rivers generates, by evaporation, clouds; which in turn condense into rain which returns to the ground. The blood set in motion by the heart needs the lungs to give it oxygen; the lungs cannot function without blood circulation.)universal reciprocal action, where causes and effects continually permute, where what was effect now or here, becomes cause elsewhere or then, and vice versa. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 54. Two very simple examples of this interaction, where the cause becomes effect and the effect causes: the water of seas and rivers generates, by evaporation, clouds; which in turn condense into rain which returns to the ground. The blood set in motion by the heart needs the lungs to give it oxygen; the lungs cannot function without blood circulation.)universal reciprocal action, where causes and effects continually permute, where what was effect now or here, becomes cause elsewhere or then, and vice versa. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 54. Two very simple examples of this interaction, where the cause becomes effect and the effect causes: the water of seas and rivers generates, by evaporation, clouds; which in turn condense into rain which returns to the ground. The blood set in motion by the heart needs the lungs to give it oxygen; the lungs cannot function without blood circulation.)the water of seas and rivers creates clouds by evaporation; which in turn condense into rain which returns to the ground. The blood set in motion by the heart needs the lungs which give it oxygen; the lungs cannot function without the blood flow.)the water of seas and rivers creates clouds by evaporation; which in turn condense into rain which returns to the ground. The blood set in motion by the heart needs the lungs which give it oxygen; the lungs cannot function without the blood flow.)

So it is also with society: we will see that the struggle of opposites is found there in the form of class struggle. It is again the struggle of opposites which is the motor of thought (see in particular the 6th lesson, point III).

Its historical background

The credit for having sketched out the dialectic is due to the Greek philosophers. They saw nature as a whole. Heraclitus taught that this whole is transformed: we never enter the same river, he said. The struggle of opposites holds a great place among them, notably in Plato, who emphasizes the fruitfulness of this struggle; opposites engender each other. [A very good example of Platonic dialectic is provided by one of his most famous dialogues, relatively easy to access: The Phaedo.] The word dialectic comes directly from the Greek: dialegein, to discuss. It expresses the struggle of opposing ideas.

Among the most powerful thinkers of the modern period, in particular Descartes and Spinoza, we find remarkable examples of dialectical reasoning.

But it is the great German philosopher Hegel (1770-1831), whose work unfolds in the period immediately following the French Revolution, who was to formulate for the first time, in a brilliant way, the dialectical method. Admirer of the bourgeois revolution which, triumphing in France, threw down feudal society which believed itself to be eternal, Hegel operated a similar revolution on the level of ideas: he dethroned metaphysics and its eternal truths. The truth is not a collection of ready-made principles. It is a historical process, the passage from lower degrees to higher degrees of knowledge. Its movement is that of science itself, which progresses only on condition of constantly criticizing its own results, of going beyond them.And so we see that for Hegel the motor of all transformation is the struggle of opposites.

However, Hegel was an idealist. That is to say that for him nature and human history were only a manifestation, a revelation of the uncreated Idea. The Hegelian dialectic therefore remained purely spiritual.

Marx (who was first a disciple of Hegel) knew how to recognize in dialectics the only scientific method. But he also knew, as a materialist, put it right: repudiating the idealist conception of the world, according to which the material universe is a product of the Idea, he understood that the laws of dialectics are those of the material world, and that, if thought is dialectical, it is because men are not strangers in this world, but are part of it.

In Hegel, writes Engels, the friend and collaborator of Marx, the dialectical development which manifests itself in nature and in history, that is to say the causal chain of progress imposing itself on the lower at the top through all the zig-zag movements and all the momentary setbacks, is ... only the reflection of the personal self-movement of the idea continuing from all eternity, we do not know where, but in any case , independent of any human thinking brain. It was this ideological inversion that had to be avoided. We regarded ... the ideas of our brain from a materialist point of view, as being reflections of objects, instead of seeing real objects as reflections of this or that degree of the absolute idea. Over there,dialectics was reduced to the science of the general laws of motion, both of the outside world and of human thought - to two sets of laws which are basically identical, but different in their expression in the sense that the human brain can apply them consciously, while that in nature, and so far for the most part also in human history, they make their way only unconsciously, in the form of external necessity, within a series infinite number of apparent chances. But in this way, the dialectic of the idea itself only became the simple conscious reflection of the dialectical movement of the real world, and in so doing Hegel's dialectic was put upside down, or, more accurately, head up. which she was standing, she was raised to her feet again. (Engels:Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 33-34; Philosophical Studies, p. 44.)

Marx, in short, rejected the idealistic shell of the Hegelian system in order to keep its "rational core", that is to say the dialectic. He himself says it very clearly in the second preface to Capital (January 1873):

My dialectical method not only differs in basis from the Hegelian method, but it is the exact opposite. For Hegel, the movement of thought which he personifies under the name of the idea is the demiurge of reality, which is only the phenomenal form of the idea. For me, on the contrary, the movement of thought is only the reflection of the real movement, transported and transposed in the human brain. (Marx; Le Capital, Livre 1, t. I, p. 29. Editions Sociales. Paris, 1948. The word demiurge here has the meaning of "creator"; the phenomenal form of the idea means "the outer appearance covered. by the idea ”(the idea is, for Hegel, the essence of things).)

How were Marx and Engels led to this decisive reversal? The answer is in their writings. It was the rise of the natural sciences at the end of the 18th century and in the first decades of the 19th century that led them to think that dialectics had an objective basis.

Three major discoveries played a decisive role in this regard:

1. The discovery of the living cell from which the most complex organisms develop.

2. The discovery of the transformation of energy: heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical energy, etc., are qualitatively different forms of the same material reality.

3. Transformism, due to Darwin. Relying on data from paleontology and breeding, transformism showed that all living things (including man) are the products of natural evolution (Darwin: The Origin of Species, 1859).

These discoveries, like all the time sciences (for example: the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace which explained the solar system from a nebula; or again: the birth of geology which reconstructs history of the terrestrial globe), brought to light the dialectical character of nature, as the unity of an immense whole in the process of becoming which develops according to necessary laws, constantly generating new aspects; the human species and human societies are a moment of this universal becoming.

The conclusion of Marx and Engels was that, in order to understand this deeply dialectical reality, it was necessary to renounce the metaphysical method, which breaks the unity of the world and freezes its movement; a dialectical method was needed, this method which Hegel had revived, but without detecting its objective foundations.

The dialectical method was therefore not brought in by Marx and Engels from outside, arbitrarily. They drew it from the sciences themselves, in so far as these have objective nature as their object, which is dialectical. [The French materialists of the eighteenth century (Diderot, d'Holbach, Helvétius), in whom Marx recognizes his direct ancestors, since he endorsed their materialist conception of the world, had not been able to discover the dialectical method. Why ? Because the science of the 18th century did not allow them to do so. The sciences of living matter were then in their infancy; we have just seen the capital role they were to play in the formation of dialectical materialism, by bringing the idea of ​​evolution, a dialectical idea par excellence (a species changing in another).The dominant science in the 18th century was rational mechanics (Newton) which only knew the simplest form of movement, the change of place, the displacement; the universe is then comparable to an endlessly repeating clock. This is why the materialism of the 18th century is said to be mechanistic. In this it is metaphysical, since it does not understand change; it ignores in particular the struggle of opposites. We will come back to mechanistic (metaphysical) materialism, especially in lesson 9.]In this it is metaphysical, since it does not understand change; it ignores in particular the struggle of opposites. We will come back to mechanistic (metaphysical) materialism, especially in lesson 9.]In this it is metaphysical, since it does not understand change; it ignores in particular the struggle of opposites. We will come back to mechanistic (metaphysical) materialism, especially in lesson 9.]

This is why Marx and Engels have, all their lives, followed the progress of the sciences very closely; the dialectical method was thus specified as knowledge of the universe deepened. In agreement with Marx (who for his part, pushing political economy to the fore, wrote Capital), Engels devoted many years to the careful study of philosophy and the natural sciences. He thus wrote, in 1877-78, the Anti-Dühring. [F. Engels: Anti-Dühring (ME Dühring upsets science). Editions Sociales.] He had started writing a vast summary work, Dialectique de la nature [F. Engels: Dialectic of nature. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1952. The study of this work will be made easier by reading the lecture by Georges Cogniot: La Dialectique de la nature,a brilliant work by Friedrich Engels. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1953.], of which he left several chapters, a work which takes stock of the sciences of time, remarkably enlightened by the dialectical method.

This fecundity of the dialectical method was to gain in Marxism, by a movement which is going to amplify, very many scientists of all disciplines. In France, the classic type is the great physicist Paul Langevin, who was also a great citizen, an admirable patriot.

This fruitfulness of the dialectical method had to prove itself with Marx and Engels themselves. Revolutionary fighters no less than men of thought, they solved, because dialecticians, the problem that their most brilliant predecessors had not been able to pose correctly: applying the materialist dialectic to human history, they in fact founded the science of societies. (whose general theory is historical materialism). We will see how this fundamental discovery was made (lesson 14). In this way they gave a scientific basis to socialism.

It is understandable then that the bourgeoisie, out of class interests, declared war on dialectics. The dialectic

... is a scandal and an abomination for the ruling classes and their doctrinal ideologues, because in the positive conception of existing things, it includes at the same time the intelligence of their fatal negation, of their necessary destruction, because it seizes the very movement, of which any made form is only a transitory configuration, nothing can impose on it; because it is essentially critical and revolutionary. (Marx: Le Capital, Livre 1, t. I, p. 29. Editions Sociales, Paris)

This is why the bourgeoisie seeks refuge in metaphysics; we will have the opportunity to show it.

Formal logic and dialectical method

It is useful to follow this first lesson with a few remarks on logic.

We have seen (point II, 6) that the sciences at their beginning could only use a metaphysical method.

Generalizing this method, the Greek philosophers (in particular Aristotle) ​​had enunciated a certain number of universal rules, that thought had to follow in all circumstances to beware of error. The set of these rules took the name of logic. The object of logic is the study of the principles and rules that thought must follow in search of truth. Principles and rules which are not fanciful, but have emerged from the repeated contact of man with nature: it is nature which made man "logical", which taught him that one cannot not do anything!

Here are the three main rules of traditional logic, known as formal logic:

1. The principle of identity: a thing is identical to itself. A plant is a plant; an animal is an animal. Life is life; death is death. Logicians, putting this principle into a formula, say: a is a.

2. The principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot be itself and its opposite at the same time. A plant is not an animal; an animal is not a plant. Life is not death; death is not life. Logicians say: a is not no-a.

3. The principle of the excluded third (or exclusion of the third case). Between two contradictory possibilities, there is no room for a third. A being is animal or plant: no third possibility. You have to choose between life and death; no third case. If a and non-a are contradictory, the same object is either a or non-a.

Is this logic valid? Yes, because it reflects the experience accumulated over centuries. But it is insufficient as soon as we want to deepen the research. It then appears, in fact, to use the examples cited above, that there are living beings that cannot be rigorously classified in the category of animals or in the category of plants because they are both . Likewise, there is neither absolute life nor absolute death: every living being is renewed in a constant struggle against death; every death carries within it the elements of a new life (death is not the abolition of life, but the decomposition of an organism). Valid within certain limits, classical logic is therefore powerless to penetrate to the depths of reality. Wanting to make him give more thanit cannot give, it is precisely to fall into metaphysics. Traditional logic is not wrong in itself; but if one pretends to apply it beyond its limits, it generates error.

It is true that an animal is not a plant; it is true and it remains true that it is necessary, in accordance with the principle of non-contradiction, to beware of confusion. The dialectic is not confusion. But the dialectic says that it is also true that animal and plant are two inseparable aspects of reality, to the point that certain beings are both (unity of opposites). Formal logic, established at the dawn of science, is sufficient for current use: it allows classification and distinction. But when we want to push the analysis, it can no longer be enough. Why ? Because the real is movement, and the logic of identity (a is a) does not allow ideas to reflect the real in its movement. Because, on the other hand,this movement is the product of internal contradictions, as we will see in lesson 5; but the logic of identity does not allow us to conceive of the unity of opposites and the passage from one to another.

Formal logic, in short, affects only the most immediate aspect of reality. The dialectical method goes further; it aims to achieve all aspects of a process.

The application of the dialectical method to the laws of knowing thought is called dialectical logic.

Traits of dialectics

I. Everything is connected (law of reciprocal action and universal connection)

An example

This brave man takes part in the fight for peace: he solicits signatures at the bottom of the Stockholm appeal, places cards for the Peoples' Congress, engages with his workmate or with a stranger a discussion on the peaceful solution of the German problem, on the need to stop the war in Vietnam; or again, he sets up a meeting of tenants in his house for a national rally for peace.

Some will say: "What does he think he is doing, the poor fellow? He's wasting his time and his trouble ”. Indeed, at first glance, the action taken by this man is absurd; he is neither minister, nor deputy, nor general, nor banker; he is not a diplomat. So ?

Yet he is right. Why ? Because he is not alone. However modest his person may be, his initiatives count because they are not isolated. Its action is part of a grandiose whole: the world struggle of the peoples for Peace. At the same time, millions of men are acting like him, in the same direction, against the same forces. There is a universal connection between all these initiatives, which are like links in the same chain. And there is reciprocal action between all these initiatives, since each one helps the other (reciprocity) by his example, by his experience, by his failures and his successes. When they confront their initiatives, they will discover that they were not isolated, even though they thought they were: everything fits together.

This is a very simple example taken from practice. We see that only the first law of the dialectical method allows it to be interpreted correctly. In this, dialectic is radically opposed to metaphysics: it is reasoning as a metaphysician to say: "What is the use of going to so much trouble, assaulting floors, discussing with people?" Peace does not depend on ordinary people ... ”The metaphysician separates what, in reality, is inseparable. In October 1952, at the Asia-Pacific Peace Conference intervened a scholar, Joan Hinton, who had participated in Los Alamos in the manufacture of the first atomic bomb.

I touched the first bomb thrown at Nagasaki with my hands. I feel a deep sense of guilt, and I am ashamed to have played a role in the preparation of this crime against humanity. How is it that ... I accepted to accomplish this mission? It was because I believed in the false philosophy of "science for science". This philosophy is the poison of modern science. It was because of this error of separating science from social life and human beings that I was led to work with the atomic bomb during the war. We thought that as scientists we should devote ourselves to "pure science" and that the rest was the business of engineers and statesmen. I'm ashamed to say it took the horror of the bombingHiroshima and Nagasaki to get me out of my ivory tower and make me understand that there is no such thing as "pure science", and that science has meaning only insofar as it serves interests. of humanity. I speak to the scientists who, in the United States and in Japan, are currently working on the manufacture of atomic and bacteriological weapons, and I say to them: “Think about what you are doing! "

The metaphysician does not think that what he does is in connection with what others are doing; this was the case with this atomist scientist who, while believing to conform to the "scientific spirit", had in reality an anti-scientific attitude since he refused to question himself on the objective conditions of his professional activity and on the use of his work.

Such an attitude is very widespread. It is, to take another example, that of the sportsman who says about everything: “Sport is sport; politics is politics. Me, I never do politics ”. It is true that sport and politics are two distinct activities. But it is wrong that there is no connection between them. How will the athlete be able to equip himself if his purchasing power decreases, if he is doomed to unemployment? And how will we be able to build stadiums and swimming pools if war budgets devour the funds necessary for sport? We can see that sport is subordinated to certain conditions which the metaphysician ignores, but which the dialectician discovers; no sport without credits; but no credits without a policy of peace. Sport is therefore not separate from politics.The athlete who ignores this link, not only does not serve the cause of sport, but deprives himself of the means to defend it. Why ? Because, not understanding that everything fits together, he will not fight against the policy of war; The moment will come when, having wanted sport without realizing the conditions for it, he will no longer have any sport at all, either because the ruin of the country will have liquidated the sports equipment, or because the war will have come.or because the war will have come.or because the war will have come.

The first trait of dialectics

Unlike metaphysics, dialectic regards nature not as an accidental accumulation of objects, of phenomena [By phenomenon is understood any manifestation of the laws of nature (a falling stone, boiling water) or the laws of society (an economic crisis).] detached from one another, isolated and independent from one another, but as a united, coherent whole, where objects, phenomena are organically linked to each other, depend on each other and are reciprocally condition.

This is why the dialectical method considers that no phenomenon of nature can be understood if it is considered in isolation, apart from the surrounding phenomena; for any phenomenon in any domain of nature can be converted into nonsense if we consider it outside the surrounding conditions, if we detach it from these conditions; on the contrary, any phenomenon can be understood and explained, if we consider it from the angle of its indissoluble connection with the surrounding phenomena, if we consider it as it is conditioned by the phenomena which surround it. (Stalin: Dialectical materialism and historical materialism. P. 4, point I a.)

The statement of the first feature of the dialectic shows its very general character: it is verified universally, in nature and in society.

In nature

Metaphysics separates raw matter, living matter, thought; for metaphysics these are three absolutely isolated principles, independent of one another.

But does thought exist without the brain? What about the brain without the body? Psychology (the science that studies thinking activity) is impossible if we ignore physiology (the science of the functions of living beings), and this is closely linked to biology (the science of life in general). But life itself is unintelligible if we ignore chemical processes [We are not saying that life is reduced to chemical processes; this would be an anti-dialectic statement: we will come back to this later. Neither do we say that thinking activity is reduced to physiology. We say: no thought that is not that of a living being; no living being, no organism without a physico-chemical universe.]; chemistry in turn, when it comes to molecules,discover their atomic structure; the study of the atom is a matter of physics. If now we want to discover the origin of these elements studied by physics, should we not come to the earth sciences, which show us their formation? and from there to the very study of the solar system (astronomy) of which the Earth is a small part?

So while metaphysics hinders scientific progress, dialectics is scientifically grounded. Without doubt, there are specific differences between the sciences: chemistry, biology, physiology, psychology study different, specific fields; we will come back to that. But all the sciences nonetheless constitute a fundamental unit which reflects the unity of the universe. Reality is a whole. This is what the first feature of the dialectic expresses.

No doubt it will not be useless to clearly specify, by examples, what interaction, reciprocal conditioning is.

Consider a metal spring. Can we consider it apart from the surrounding universe? Obviously not since it was made by men (society) with a metal, extracted from the earth (nature). But let's take a closer look. At rest, our spring is not independent of ambient conditions: gravity, heat, oxidation, etc. These conditions can change it not only in its position, but in its nature (rust). Hang up a piece of lead: a force is exerted on the spring which is stretched; the shape of the spring changes to a certain point of resistance; the weight acts on the spring, the spring acts on the weight; spring and weight form a whole; there is interaction, reciprocal connection. Even more: the spring is composed of molecules, linked together by a force of attraction such thatbeyond a certain weight, the spring can no longer be stretched, and breaks: the bond between certain molecules is broken. Unstretched spring, stretched spring, broken spring - each time it's a different type of bond between molecules. If the spring is heated, the bonds between the molecules are changed in another way (expansion). We will say that, in its nature and its various deformations, the spring is constituted by the interaction between the millions of molecules of which it is composed. But this interaction is itself conditioned by the relationships between the spring (as a whole) and the surrounding environment: the spring and the surrounding environment form a whole; between them there is a reciprocal action. If this action is ignored, then the oxidation of the spring (rust),the breaking of the spring become absurd facts. Stalin writes, commenting on the first feature of the dialectic:

This is why the dialectical method considers that no phenomenon of nature can be understood if it is considered in isolation, apart from the surrounding phenomena; for any phenomenon in any domain of nature can be converted into nonsense if we consider it outside the surrounding conditions, if we detach it from these conditions; on the contrary, any phenomenon can be understood and justified, if we consider it from the angle of its indissoluble connection with the surrounding phenomena, if we consider it as it is conditioned by the phenomena which surround it. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism. P. 4.)

One of the most significant examples of interaction is the link that unites living beings to their conditions of existence, to their “environment”. The plant, for example, fixes the oxygen in the air, but also gives it carbon dioxide, and water vapor: an interaction that modifies both the plant and the air. But this is only one of the simplest aspects of the interaction between the plant and the environment. Using the energy provided by sunlight, the plant operates, with the help of chemical elements drawn from the soil, a synthesis of organic matter allowing its own development. At the same time as it develops, it therefore also transforms the soil and therefore the conditions for the further development of its species. In short, the plant only existsin unity with the surrounding environment. This interaction is the starting point of any scientific theory of living beings, because it is the universal condition of their existence: the development of living beings reflects the transformations of their environment. Therein lies the principle of Michurinian science, the source of its success. Michurin, understanding that the living species and the environment are an inseparable whole, has been able to transform the species by modifying the environment.understanding that the living species and the environment are an inseparable whole, has been able to transform species through modification of the environment.understanding that the living species and the environment are an inseparable whole, has been able to transform species through modification of the environment.

Likewise the great physiologist Pavlov could not have founded the science of higher nervous activity if he had failed to recognize the inseparable unity of the organism and the environment: the cerebral cortes (cortes) is precisely the organ where s 'perform the processes, their interaction. The whole organism is dependent on the cortex, but the latter is itself at all times dependent on past and present excitations which come from the external environment (and from the organism). All the phenomena which occur in the body - for example a disease - are subordinated to the higher nervous activity which regulates the various functions, and which is inseparable from the conditions prevailing in the natural environment and - for man - social.

This great principle of the unity and interaction of phenomena has always been necessary for the progress of all sciences. We could multiply the examples. Let us retain this one: the discovery of atmospheric pressure by Torricelli (1644):

If a tube full of mercury is overturned on a tank also filled with mercury, the mercury does not descend into the tube below a certain height and remains well above the level of the tank.

As long as we isolated this phenomenon from its conditions, we could not understand it. If, on the contrary, we notice that the surface of the mercury (in the tank) where the tube is immersed is not isolated, but in "contact with the atmosphere, and that there is an interaction between what happens in the tube. and the surrounding conditions, then the explanation appears: the mercury remains suspended in the trap because the air exerts a pressure (atmospheric pressure) on the surface of the mercury contained in the tank. The vat, Torricelli said, must be regarded as being at the bottom of an ocean of air.

One cannot make discoveries in science if one violates the first law of dialectics, if one detaches the phenomenon studied from the surrounding conditions.

In society

Metaphysics isolates social phenomena from one another; economic reality, social life, political life are all separate areas. And within each of these domains, metaphysics introduces a thousand partitions. Which leads to the following words: "the US government electrocutes innocent Rosenbergs ... this is nonsense, nonsense". To which the dialectician answers: this execution has a meaning; in it is reflected the whole policy of the American leaders, a policy of war which needs lies and terror.

For the metaphysician, the history of societies is incomprehensible: it is a chaos of contingencies (that is to say of phenomena without causes), of absurd chances. There are philosophers (like Albert Camus) to affirm that the essence of the world is precisely the absurd. Philosophy very profitable to the instigators of catastrophes. The dialectician knows that in society as in nature everything is held together. If schools collapse, it is not through the ineptitude of those in power; it is because their war policy necessarily sacrifices school buildings. As Aragon observes, it is because rulers lengthen our death rate that they restrict our way of life. “Everything depends on the conditions of the place and the time”. The dialectic comes to understanding,to the explanation of social phenomena because it links them to the historical conditions which gave them birth, on which they depend, with which they interact. The metaphysician slices in the abstract, without taking into account the conditions of place and time.

Thus some believe in good faith that in 1944 the French proletariat, led by the Communist Party, was in a position to seize power and that, not having done so, it "missed the boat". Appraisal attractive at first glance, but mistaken. Why ? Because it arbitrarily separates from the whole an aspect which has meaning only through its relation to the whole. Let's take a closer look.

The error relates first to the character and purpose of the Resistance. Certainly the major force was the working class, led by the revolutionary party, the Communist Party. But the objective of the Resistance was not the proletarian revolution, it was the liberation of the territory and the destruction of fascism. Such an objective brought together French people of all conditions (to the point of dividing the bourgeoisie, a whole fraction breaking away from the Vichy government). The Resistance therefore took the most diverse forms: armed struggle, workers' strikes, demonstrations by women in the markets, refusal by the peasants to deliver the crops, sabotage (by officials) of the Vichy apparatus of oppression, youth struggle. against the STO, teachers, scholars against Hitler's obscurantism, etc., etc.The Resistance was a great national act. This is its dominant trait. The merit of the French Communists was to understand the situation as a whole: they therefore worked for the constitution of a broad national front to fight against Hitler and his accomplices, and did not allow the Resistance to degenerate into a sect cut off from the deep masses of our people. Thus was made possible, against the increasingly isolated enemy, the national uprising of 1944.Thus was made possible, against the increasingly isolated enemy, the national uprising of 1944.Thus was made possible, against the increasingly isolated enemy, the national uprising of 1944.

What if, at that moment, the working class had tried to "make the revolution", to "found socialism"? If, in 1944, while the war against Hitler continued, the Communists had said: "It is no longer a question of liberating France and the world from the Nazis, but of carrying out the proletarian revolution immediately", they would have seen to detach from the working class millions of French people of all classes determined to fight for the liberation of the country, but not at all ready to support a revolutionary movement. Beautiful celebration for the Hitlerites and their accomplice, the reactionary bourgeoisie, Vichy. Isolated, the working class lost the leadership of the Resistance, a leadership assumed at the cost of the harshest sacrifices. The road to dictatorship was thus largely open to de Gaulle, with the help of the American army.

This, in fact - and this is the second point to highlight - had only landed because the Soviet victories made the second front inevitable in Europe. The ulterior motive of the American leaders was to prevent Hitler's defeat from benefiting communism in the countries until then occupied by the Wehrmacht. If, ignoring these objective conditions, the working class had launched an assault on power, our people would have been doomed to massacre: the American army would have assumed from that moment the character of the occupying army that it has today. hui; and the repression would have been carried out with the complicity of the Nazis, returned for new Oradours. The hope of Hitler's Germany, of the German upper middle class (the Krupps, for example,released since thanks to the Americans) was it not a rupture of the Three Big Agreement? Thus the Munich alliance would have been united, thus the Holy Alliance of reactionary bourgeoisies against the country of socialism, against the Soviet Union, which had played the decisive role in the liberation of the peoples, would have been realized in 1944. All the benefit of the efforts and the sufferings of four years were drowned in the blood of the people of France.the suffering of four years was drowned in the blood of the people of France.the suffering of four years was drowned in the blood of the people of France.

On the other hand, it was in accordance with all the "surrounding conditions" to demand then, as the Communists did, the liquidation of fascism, the establishment of a bourgeois democratic republic. A claim accessible to the broad masses of the French people, achievable, and progressive since it allowed a big step forward. The working class, in fact, found in the bourgeois democratic republic the most favorable conditions for its class struggle: which explains the rise of the French workers' movement in the months following liberation, a rise which brought the Communists to the government and brought our people the rebirth of its economy, the rise in living standards, social security, nationalizations, works councils, a democratic constitution,ballot and eligibility for women, status of civil servants, etc., etc. This is how the working class could find itself, in 1947, in the best conditions of struggle to face the counter-offensive of the reaction forces.

Internationally, the maintenance of the Big Three understanding against Hitler's Germany made it possible to crush the Wehrmacht. But that was not all: he made possible the constitution of the UN, the Potsdam agreements, etc. - which subsequently were to be so many obstacles to the activities of American imperialism. It facilitated the task of the young people's democracies of Europe, and this is a point of primary importance. These great victories, an adventurist policy of the French Communists in 1944 would have compromised them: yet they considerably weakened international capitalism. We must always consider the workers' movement of a country not in itself, but in relation to the whole.

We could analyze many other examples which show the need to consider events in their interaction and their totality, and never to separate a fact from its "surrounding conditions". Let us limit ourselves to the following example: Claiming the bourgeois democratic republic against the fascist bourgeoisie is a claim perfectly appropriate to the situation of the French workers' movement today. It is the most suitable demand for ensuring a large rally of the people around the working class against the main enemy, the reactionary bourgeoisie which has no other recourse, to survive, than to stifle its own legality. But to make the same demand to the Soviet Union is nonsense.Why ? Because if the bourgeois democratic republic is a step forward over fascism, the Soviet socialist republic (which assures workers ownership of the means of production) is itself a decisive step forward over the bourgeois republic. What for our people is a step forward would be a step back for the Soviet Union. The metaphysician superbly ignores the conditions of time and place. It therefore separates democracy from its conditions; he does not distinguish between bourgeois democracy and Soviet democracy. And since he knows no other democracy than bourgeois democracy, he identifies it with democracy; he criticizes the Soviet Union for not being "a democracy". And it is true that it is not a bourgeois democracy since, liquidating thecapitalist exploitation, it created a new democracy, which gives all the power to the workers.

In short, the metaphysician separates and abstracts the political form from the set of historical conditions which gave rise to it and which explain it; the dialectician rediscovers these conditions.

Conclusion

Neither nature nor society is an incomprehensible chaos: all aspects of reality are linked by necessary and reciprocal links.

This law has practical importance.

It is therefore always necessary to assess a situation, an event, a task from the point of view of the conditions which generate it, which explain it.

We always have to take into account what is possible and what is not.

We must not take our desires for realities ... Now, for a revolutionary, it is first of all a question of noting the facts in all their reality, in all their truth ... I believe that, in a situation given, we take a given decision, and as the situation changes, we make a different decision from the one we had taken first. We retreat if the conditions for success no longer seem sufficient; we immediately go into battle if we hope, on the contrary, to have to end up with more chances of success by rushing the movement. In any case, one cannot be bound by a formula, by a resolution; we cannot compromise our movement at this point. M. Thorez: “Speech to the Third Congress of the Unitary Federation of Underground Workers” (1924), quoted in Fils du Peuple, p. 43.Social Editions, Paris, 1949.

To forget the conditions of action is dogmatism.

Of course, while the revolutionary proletariat has every interest in respecting this first law of dialectics, the bourgeoisie would like to make it forgotten because its interests are opposed to it. To those who denounce social injustice, she replies: “It is a temporary imperfection! Likewise, she presents economic crises as superficial and momentary phenomena. Dialectical science responds: social injustice, crises are the necessary effects of capitalism.

Bourgeois philosophers idolize metaphysics, which allows reality to be fragmented, and thereby distorted, for the greater good of the exploiting class. As soon as the reflection reaches reality in its totality, they protest: it is no longer a game, it is no longer "philosophy". Philosophy is for them a binder where each notion wisely keeps its place: here thought, there matter; here "man", elsewhere society, etc., etc.

On the contrary, dialectics teaches that everything fits together. And therefore no effort is wasted for the achievement of a goal. The fighter for peace knows that war is not fatal because every action against war is an action which counts, which prepares the victory of peace.

This is why, armed with dialectics, the revolutionary militant has a high sense of his responsibilities: he leaves nothing to chance, he values ​​each effort at its price.

This intelligence of total reality allows us to see far. It confers an indomitable courage, to the point that the dialectician philosopher V. Feldmann, shot by German soldiers, could cry out to them before falling: "Fools, I am dying for you".

He was right. He fought for the German people as well as for the French people, because everything fits together.

See: Control questions

II. Everything is changing (law of universal change and of the continuous development)

An example

The philosopher Fontenelle tells the story of a rose who believed that the gardener was eternal. Why ? Because, as far as I can remember, we had never seen another in the garden. Thus reasons the metaphysician: he denies the change.

Yet experience teaches us that gardeners are perishable, and so are roses. Certainly, there are things which change much more slowly than a rose, and the metaphysician concludes that they are immutable; he brings their apparent immobility to the absolute, he only retains the aspect by which they seem not to change: a rose is a rose, a gardener is a gardener. The dialectic does not stop at appearance; it affects things in their movement: the rose was a button before it became rose; blossoming pink, it changes from hour to hour, even when the eye can see nothing. It will inevitably peel away. But no less necessarily will be born other roses, which will bloom in their turn.

We could find, in everyday life, a thousand examples that highlight that everything is movement, everything is transformed.

This apple on the table is still. But the dialectician will say: this motionless apple is nevertheless movement; in ten days it will not be what it is today. It was a flower before it was a green apple; over time it will decompose and release its seeds. Entrusted to the gardener, these seeds will give a tree from which many apples will fall. We had an apple at the start; and now we have a lot of them. It is therefore quite true that the universe, despite appearances, does not repeat itself.

However, many people speak like the rosé of Fontenelle: "Nothing new under the sun", "There will always be rich and poor", "There will always be exploiters and exploited", "War is eternal ", Etc. Nothing is more deceptive than this so-called wisdom, and nothing is more dangerous. It leads to passivity, to resigned helplessness. On the contrary, the dialectician knows that change is a property inherent in everything. This is the second feature of the dialectic: change is universal, development is incessant.

The second trait of dialectics

Unlike metaphysics, dialectics regards nature not as a state of rest and stillness, of stagnation and immutability, but as a state of perpetual movement and change, of incessant renewal and development, where always something is born and develops, something crumbles and disappears.

This is why the dialectical method wants phenomena to be considered not only from the point of view of their relations and their reciprocal conditioning, but also from the point of view of their movement, of their change, of their development, of their of their appearance and their disappearance. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism. P. 4-5.)

We have seen that everything is held together (first feature of the dialectic).

But this reality, which is unity, is also movement. Movement is not a secondary aspect of reality. There is not: nature, plus movement; society, plus movement. No, reality is movement, process. It is so in nature and in society.

In nature

Movement in the most general sense, conceived as the Coexistence mode of matter, as an attribute inherent in it, embraces all the changes and all the processes that occur in the universe, from the simple change of place to thought. (Engels: Dialectic of nature, p. 75. Editions Sociales. (Expressions underlined by us. GB-MC))

Descartes already noted that rest is relative to movement. If I am seated at the stern of a vessel moving away from shore, I am still in relation to the vessel, but I am in motion in relation to the land; the earth itself is in motion with respect to the sun. The sun itself is a moving star, and so on and on.

But, for Descartes, movement was reduced to a change of place: a boat that moves, an apple that rolls on the table. It is the mechanical movement. However, the reality of the movement is not limited to this. A car travels at seventy kilometers an hour: mechanical movement. But that's not all; the moving car slowly transforms; its engine, its cogs, its tires wear out. It is also subjected to the action of rain, sun, etc. So many forms of movement. A vehicle that has traveled a thousand kilometers is therefore not the same as it was at the start, although we say: "It is the same". A time will come when it will be necessary to renew parts, redo the bodywork, etc .; until the day the car is out of service.

Well, it is in nature. The movement has very varied aspects: change of place, but also transformations of nature and the properties of things (for example, the electrification of a body, the growth of plants, the change of water into vapor, old age, etc.) For the great English scholar Newton (1642-1727), movement was reduced to mechanical movement, to a change of location. The universe was thus comparable to a huge clock which constantly reproduces the same process: this is how he considered the orbits of the planets as eternal.

However, the progress of science since the 18th century has considerably enriched the notion of movement. It was first the transformation of energy, at the beginning of the 19th century.

Let us take the example of the automobile in motion. Launched at high speed, it struck a tree and caught fire. Is there "dissipation of matter?" No, the burning automobile is just as material a reality as the fast-moving automobile; but it is a new aspect, a new quality of matter. Matter is indestructible, but it changes shape. Its transformations are nothing other than the transformations of movement, which is one with matter: matter is movement; movement is matter. Modern physics teaches that there is a transformation of energy; energy, or momentum, is conserved while taking on a new form; the forms it can take are very varied.

In the case of the car whose gasoline ignited under the impact, the chemical energy which, in the internal combustion engine, was transformed into kinetic energy (that is to say into mechanical movement), now transforms everything into heat (calorific energy). For its part, calorific energy (heat) can be transformed into kinetic energy: the heat maintained on a locomotive is transformed into mechanical movement since the locomotive is moving.

Mechanical energy can be transformed into electrical energy: the torrent which "turns" the power station produces electrical energy. In return, electrical energy (current) is transformed into mechanical energy, that is to say, drives motors. Or again: electrical energy is transformed into calorific energy; it actually gives heat (electric heating).

Likewise, electrical energy can give chemical energy: under certain conditions an electrical current breaks down water into oxygen and hydrogen. But chemical energy in turn can be transformed into electrical energy (hydroelectric battery), or mechanical energy (internal combustion engine), or heat energy (combustion of coal in the stove), etc.

The enumeration could take pages. All these transformations are nothing other than matter in motion. We see that they are much richer than the simple displacement, or change of place, although they include it. ["All movement includes mechanical movement" says Engels (Dialectic of nature, p. 257. Social Editions). Indeed, a chemical reaction, for example, brings into play the atoms which constitute the material molecules. But these atoms are moving. And inside the atom, very rapid shifts occur in the nucleus, which nuclear physics studies. Likewise, electrical energy is inseparable from the movement of small particles, electrons.]

In addition to the discovery of the transformation of energy, that of evolution has profoundly enriched the notion of movement.

Evolution of the physical universe first. From the end of the 18th century, Kant and Laplace discovered that the universe has a history. Far from repeating itself, as Newton believed, the universe is change: the stars (including the sun), the planets (including the Earth) are the product of a prodigious evolution, which continues. So it is not enough to say, with Newton, that the parts of the universe move; it must also be said that they are transformed.

Thus, this small portion of the universe, the Earth, has a long history (five billion years, it seems), which is studied by geology.

Likewise the stars form, develop and die. And the Soviet astrophysicist Ambartsumian has just discovered that new stars are always born.

It is precisely because the universe is constantly changing that it does not need a "first motor", as Newton still thought. It carries within itself its possibility of movement, of transformation. He is his own change.

As for living matter, it is also subject to an incessant process of evolution. From the poorest stages of life, plant and animal species were formed. It is no longer possible today to give credit to the myth spread by religion for centuries: God creating, once and for all, species that do not vary. Thanks to Darwin (in the 19th century), science has shown that the prodigious diversity of living species comes from a small number of very simple beings, from unicellular germs (the cell being the unit "hence develops by multiplication and differentiation the whole plant and animal organism ”[Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 36; Etudes ... p. 46.]); these germs have themselves issued from a shapeless albumin.Species have transformed and continue to transform, as a result of the interaction between them and the environment. [The works of Michurin and his disciples even show experimentally that there can be, under certain conditions, transformation from one species to another.] The human species is not exempt from this great law of evolution.

From the first animals, developed essentially by continuous differentiation, the innumerable classes, orders, families, genera and species of animals, to arrive at the form where the nervous system reaches its most complete development, that of vertebrates, and in turn, ultimately, to the vertebrate in which nature comes to consciousness of itself: man. (Engels: Dialectic of nature, p. 41. Editions Sociales.)

So the whole of nature - physical universe, living nature - is movement.

Movement is the mode of existence of matter. Never, and nowhere, has there been matter without movement, nor can there be. Movement in the space of the universe, mechanical movement of smaller masses on each celestial body, molecular vibration in the form of heat or electric or magnetic current, chemical decomposition and combination, organic life: every singular atom of matter in the universe participates at each given moment in one or another of these forms of movement or in several at the same time ... Matter without movement is just as inconceivable as movement without matter. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 92. Editions Sociales.)

Astronomy or physics, chemistry or biology, the object that science studies is always movement.

But then one will say, why do not all scientists admit dialectical materialism?

In his concrete practice, every good researcher is a dialectician; he can only understand reality if he grasps it in its movement. But the same researcher who is a dialectician in practice is no longer so when he thinks about the world, or even when he reflects on his own action on the world. Why ? Because it then falls back under the authority of a metaphysical conception of the world - religion or philosophy learned in school - a conception which has for it the weight of tradition, an amalgam of diffuse prejudices that the scientist in some way breathes. so, without his suspecting it, and at the very moment when he believes himself to be "free-spirited." Such a physicist who does without God very well when he studies atoms experimentally, finds God when he leaves his laboratory; for him this belief "goes without saying".Such an expert biologist in the study of microorganisms is as helpless as a child before the slightest political problem. This physicist, this biologist are the prey of a contradiction, a contradiction between their practice as a scientist and their conception of the world. Their practice is dialectical (and it can only be operative insofar as it is dialectical.) But their conception of the world as a whole has remained metaphysical. Only dialectical materialism overcomes this contradiction: it gives the scientist an objective conception of the universe (nature, society) as a totality in the making; and by that very fact it allows him to correctly situate his practice (his specialty) in a whole where everything is held together.This physicist, this biologist are the prey of a contradiction, a contradiction between their practice as a scientist and their conception of the world. Their practice is dialectical (and it can only be operative insofar as it is dialectical.) But their conception of the world as a whole has remained metaphysical. Only dialectical materialism overcomes this contradiction: it gives the scientist an objective conception of the universe (nature, society) as a totality in the making; and by that very fact it allows him to correctly situate his practice (his specialty) in a whole where everything is held together.This physicist, this biologist are the prey of a contradiction, a contradiction between their practice as a scientist and their conception of the world. Their practice is dialectical (and it can only be operative insofar as it is dialectical.) But their conception of the world as a whole has remained metaphysical. Only dialectical materialism overcomes this contradiction: it gives the scientist an objective conception of the universe (nature, society) as a totality in the making; and by that very fact it allows him to correctly situate his practice (his specialty) in a whole where everything is held together.) But their conception of the world as a whole has remained metaphysical. Only dialectical materialism overcomes this contradiction: it gives the scientist an objective conception of the universe (nature, society) as a totality in the making; and by that very fact it allows him to correctly situate his practice (his specialty) in a whole where everything is held together.) But their conception of the world as a whole has remained metaphysical. Only dialectical materialism overcomes this contradiction: it gives the scientist an objective conception of the universe (nature, society) as a totality in the making; and by that very fact it allows him to correctly situate his practice (his specialty) in a whole where everything is held together.

In society

If it is true that the world is constantly moving and developing, if it is true that the disappearance of the old and the birth of the new are a law of development, it is clear that there are no more regimes. "immutable" social, "eternal principles" of private property and exploitation; that there are no longer "eternal ideas" of submission of the peasants to the landowners, of the workers to the capitalists.

Consequently, the capitalist regime can be replaced by the socialist regime, just as the capitalist regime replaced, in its time, the feudal regime. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, p. 8.)

This is an essential consequence of the second feature of the dialectic. No immutable society, unlike what metaphysics teaches. For the metaphysician, in fact, society does not and cannot change, because it reflects an eternal divine plan: "the social order is willed by God". Private ownership of the means of production is therefore sacred; those who dispute this holy truth are condemned in the name of "morality". May they expiate! God is the providence of the owners, the guarantor of "free enterprise". If any change does occur, however, then it is an unfortunate accident; but it is not serious, it is superficial; we can and must return to the “normal” state of affairs. And so the crusade against the Soviet Union is justified:the recalcitrant, the lost under the common law, must be "brought in", since capitalism is "eternal".

Driven more and more from the natural sciences, metaphysics takes refuge in the sciences of man and society.

Let us admit that we can transform nature; man is what he was and always will be. There is “human nature”, immutable, with its irremediable imperfections. What is the use then of claiming to improve society? Poor utopia ... In short, it is the doctrine of original sin that François Mauriac preaches to the reader of Le Figaro in a hundred ways.

This point of view is far from being reserved for the Christian ideologue. It is widespread in certain petty-bourgeois circles who believe neither in God nor in the devil and pride themselves on him, believing that they are thereby vaccinated against all prejudice. Of course, they don't go to church; but they jealously cultivate the metaphysical, fixist conception of man, which the ancient religion bequeathed to them. Such an anticlerical editor of a newspaper intended for young teachers writes gravely on the fundamental imperfection of our species, and speaks of the "bag of skin" which imprisons us forever. Poor "human nature" promised to all errors ...

Lamentations very profitable to the exploiters of the "human race". Are you complaining that there are profiteers? Naive ... Know therefore once that "the man is thus made", you will not change it!

Here, then, are justified in the centuries of centuries the oppression of the great number, the misery of the small, the war. Society repeats itself indefinitely since "man" remains the same as himself. (We will notice that such a conception gives himself the man as a being-in-itself, whereas the man is in essence a social being.) And as this man is vicious, we must admit that society is cursed. . No doubt religion teaches that we can and must save the souls of individuals. But for society, it is another matter; all true improvement is denied to him, since there is no salvation here below.

Let us observe in passing that it is this metaphysics laden with years which, in the final analysis, justifies the steps taken by the leaders of the Social Democrats when they campaign against the Soviet Union. Stalin said on January 26, 1924:

The greatness of Lenin is above all to have, by creating the Republic of Soviets, in fact shown to the oppressed masses all over the world, that the hope of deliverance is not lost, that the domination of the big landowners and the capitalists is not eternal, that the labor regime can be instituted by the efforts of the workers themselves, that it is necessary to institute this reign on earth and not in heaven. He thus kindled in the hearts of workers and peasants all over the world the hope of liberation. This explains why the name of Lenin has become the name dearest to the toiling and exploited masses.

This is what a Blum, agent of the bourgeoisie in the workers' movement, could not admit. Considered as ideology, the stubborn anti-Sovietism of the socialist leaders is rooted in a philosophy of despair: Lenin, Stalin, the Soviet people are guilty of having wanted to suppress, of having suppressed the exploitation of man by man. Léon Blum, Guy Mollet, etc., multiply the speeches on “liberating socialism”. But they don't believe it. Domesticated by the reactionary and warmongering bourgeoisie, they have a mentality of eternally vanquished. In his book A Human Scale, Blum, at the same time as he proclaims his spiritual solidarity with the Vatican, launches the ban on the Communists; he claims to exclude them from the national community.Why ? Because the Communists show, by their actions, their confidence in a transformation of society, because they recognize in the Soviet Union the example offered to all workers.

This is intolerable to those who serve the bourgeoisie. At all costs, workers must be diverted from the Soviet Union, which shows them the way to possible changes. No calumny will be superfluous in trying to "demonstrate" that in the land of the Soviets nothing has fundamentally changed. That is why slander must necessarily be accompanied by censorship, the ban on all literature from the Soviet Union, which shows the reality of change, of the Revolution.

Social democratic ideology thus appears to be typically metaphysical. Its use is that of the snuffer. Stifle enthusiasm, blur the perspective, demobilize the combatants. Nothing is more significant in this regard than the daily Franc-Tireur, or Le Canard Enchaîné. Stomping or joking, flattery or insult, inevitably returns the evil idea that there will always be “lampists” as they say (a catch-all expression, which eliminates the need for a scientific analysis of classes); and that consequently, it is not worth the trouble to fight against capitalism, since "afterwards, it will be all the same". These “priest-eaters” who “don't get it” are in truth steeped in religious mentality; they are fundamentally convinced of human impotence. Bankruptcy,they bankrupt history. And that's why their laughter rings false; they are desperate.

In fact, not only is change inherent in social reality as well as in nature, but societies evolve much faster than the physical universe. Since the dissolution of the primitive commune, four forms of society have followed one another: slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, socialist society. Feudal society, however, believed itself untouchable, and theologians saw in it a work of God, just as Cardinal Spellmann today identifies American trusts with the will of the Almighty. Nevertheless, feudal society has given way to capitalist society, and the latter to socialism. And already, in the Soviet Union, the passage to a higher stage is being prepared: communism.

This is why, man being a social being, there is no eternal man. Didn't feudal man die at the dawn of modern times, killed by ridicule in the person of Don Quixote? As for the supposedly original egoism, it appeared with the division of societies into classes. The famous “cult of the self” - me above all - is a product of the reigning bourgeoisie, which makes society a jungle: to arrive at any cost, by cunning or violence; to build its happiness on the misfortune of the weak. But within capitalist society itself, a new type of man is being forged, who does not conceive of his happiness apart from collective happiness, who finds his highest joys in the fight for the whole of humanity, who accepts to this end the hardest sacrifices. So this mom,worker at the Renault agency, who, resolutely participating in a strike to increase wages, knows that we will be hungry at home as long as the strike lasts. Thus, these Rouen dockers who, putting the international solidarity of workers above all else, refused seventeen times to unload the weapons intended for the anti-Soviet crusade; they prefer to lack bread. [We will read, on this theme, the beautiful novels of André Stil: Le Premier choc, Le Coup du canon, Paris avec nous. French Editors Reunited.]seventeen times refuse to unload the weapons intended for the anti-Soviet crusade; they prefer to lack bread. [We will read, on this theme, the beautiful novels of André Stil: Le Premier choc, Le Coup du canon, Paris avec nous. French Editors Reunited.]seventeen times refuse to unload the weapons intended for the anti-Soviet crusade; they prefer to lack bread. [We will read, on this theme, the beautiful novels of André Stil: Le Premier choc, Le Coup du canon, Paris avec nous. French Editors Reunited.]

No more than there is original sin, there is no eternal man. All those who today are fighting against capitalism are thereby transforming their own conscience. They humanize themselves to the very extent that they fight an inhuman regime. Like all reality, human reality is dialectical. Out of animality, man rose up through a millennial struggle against nature. Not only is this grandiose story not finished, but it has only just begun, as Paul Langevin liked to repeat. This history is inseparable from that of societies; and here we find, beyond the second law (everything is transformed), the first law (everything is held together: the consciousness of the individual is unintelligible outside of society). This is also why,under certain conditions, man can go back. To safeguard its privileges, the reactionary bourgeoisie strives to turn the wheel of history against the tide; hence the fascism, that of Eisenhower and Mac Carthy, like that of Adolf Hitler. But, by that very fact, it degrades man: the SS who persecutes the deportees in fact persecutes humanity which could still doze within itself; trampling humanity in others, it tramples it in itself. What is best in man is not a gift from the gods; it is a conquest of human history. A conquest that the degenerate bourgeoisie puts in danger every day. The atomic bomb takes the place of reason; the dollar takes the place of conscience. And lawyer Emmanuel Bloch was not wrong to cry out,on the evening of the execution of the Rosenbergs: "Animals rule us!" "

How can we not oppose the magnificent blossoms of socialist humanity to the inhumanity of a rotten class? Here unfolds the power and truth of dialectical materialism, which illuminates the path of communism. The practice of Soviet men, freed from exploitation, does justice to lamentations over the eternity of misfortune. Thus, the Soviet penal code does not have as its object repression, but the qualitative transformation of the culprit by socialist labor. The criminal, in a capitalist regime, is marked with an indelible stain, even though his time in prison is over. In the Soviet Union, just like the misguided young people reeducated by Makarenko have found the “path to life” [Read Makarenko: The Path to Life. Editions du Pavillon; Educational poem.Editions in foreign languages, Moscow, 1953.], criminals and thieves have once again become honest and honored citizens, forever freed from a forgotten past. And it is no coincidence that juvenile delinquency has disappeared there, while in the decaying capitalist society it is spreading its ravages.

Fatality is dead for socialist society.

Magnificent proof of this is currently being administered by Soviet doctors, disciples of Pavlov. "Thou shalt give birth in pain" - the implacable verdict struck successive generations. But here in the USSR, and even among us now, thanks to the dialectical study of the functioning of the nervous centers and the elucidation of the problem of pain, childbirth is no longer a martyrdom. Thus is shaken the old idea that suffering is a law of childbirth, a ransom for "original sin" and "pleasure of the flesh". The new idea that has just emerged will grow and be passed on from generation to generation, while the old belief in childbirth will crumble and disappear forever. ThatA discovery as beautiful as the merit of Soviet doctors is, that is no coincidence: it is the work of profoundly dialectic scholars, for whom the human being has no eternal defects. [The best Soviet novels and films give a concrete representation of the forces of transformation which are impetuously unfolding in man thanks to socialism. See in particular the film: The Knight with the Gold Star; and read, among other novels: Ajaev: Far from Moscow, and G. Nikolaieva; Harvest. French publishers reunited.][The best Soviet novels and films give a concrete representation of the forces of transformation which are impetuously unfolding in man thanks to socialism. See in particular the film: The Knight with the Gold Star; and read, among other novels: Ajaev: Far from Moscow, and G. Nikolaieva; Harvest. French publishers reunited.][The best Soviet novels and films give a concrete representation of the forces of transformation which are impetuously unfolding in man thanks to socialism. See in particular the film: The Knight with the Gold Star; and read, among other novels: Ajaev: Far from Moscow, and G. Nikolaieva; Harvest. French publishers reunited.]

Conclusion

To reduce reality to one of its aspects, to reduce the process to a point in the process, and to believe that the past is strong enough for there to be no future, this is to ignore the dialectic of the real.

Whoever, judging America on Senator Mac Carthy, would believe that the future of the United States is like June 19, 1953 (execution of the Rosenbergs), that one would be seriously mistaken. The future of the United States belongs much more to the new forces that the bloody defenders of a doomed past want to destroy. "What matters above all, writes Stalin, is what develops." However weak the germ may be, it still carries life. It is this life that must be protected by all means: no effort for it is wasted. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's fight against crime, even as crime has struck them, will be no less victorious. As surely as the first light of the morning announces the big day, theexample of the Rosenbergs announces a just and peaceful America.

Happy and green, my sons, happy and green

The world will be above our graves.

("Poem of Ethel Rosenberg to his sons", in Letters from the house of death. Editions Gallimard.)

As for those who killed them in the mad hope of stopping the story, they are already more dead than the dead.

The sense of change, the sense of the new, this is what the metaphysician lacks. On the other hand, this is what makes the superiority of the dialectician in all circumstances. This is what gives Marxism its creative force: Marxism is not a stock of catch-all recipes, applicable mechanically to all situations; science of change, it is enriched by experience. The metaphysician, on the contrary, is indifferent to what changes; "There have been two world wars, he thinks, so there will be a third." Everything around him changes, but he closes his eyes. The bourgeoisie finds its account in such appreciations: as it dreams of surviving itself, it dreads the dialectic, which shows that its reign is in decline, even when it seems solid to the superficial observer,who takes the whirling of the batons for a sign of strength!

This is why Stalin writes, commenting on the second feature of the dialectic:

... its action must be based not on the social layers which are no longer developing, even if they represent for the moment the dominant force, but on the social layers which are developing and which have a future, even if they are do not currently represent the dominant force. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, p. 9. (Expressions underlined by us. GB-MC))

The scientific attitude is not to stop at what is "under the nose", but to understand what dies and what is born, and to take the maximum interest in what is born. To place everything on the same plane is not to respect reality, it is to distort it, because reality is movement. Marxists know how to see far because they consider all reality in its future: thus, the Communists, in true dialecticians, have from the beginning "revealed ... all that was contained in germ in the Marshall Plan" [M. Thorez at the Central Committee of Issy-les-Moulineaux, June 1953.] at the very moment when the socialist leaders welcomed it as a plan for prosperity.

In The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin criticizes those who "only see external phenomena, those who are on the surface ...", those who "do not see the deep forces which, although acting momentarily in a invisible, will nonetheless determine the course of events ”.

Precious indication for all, and particularly for the militant workers. The unity of action which was first established here and there, between communist workers and socialist workers, then which widened to the point of giving birth to the hearts of the masses the certainty of the imminent victory, here is " what is born and develops ”is the“ invincible ”force which, the breeze becoming storm, will sweep away all obstacles. The daily struggle for unity of action among workers whose opinions diverge, but whose interests converge, conforms to the second law of dialectics. The scale and momentum of the strikes of August 1953 attest that no category of workers is doomed to passivity or immobility.

On the contrary, the sectarian is a metaphysician. On the pretext that his workmate is a socialist or a Christian, he refuses to invite him to common action. He thus ignores the great law of change; he does not want to see that, in united action for a common objective, first limited, then larger, the consciousness of this worker will be transformed: shoulder to shoulder action destroys apprehensions and prejudices. The sectarian reasons as if he himself had learned everything at once. He forgets that one is not born revolutionary; we become it. He forgets that he still has a lot to learn; and so should he not rather curse himself than against "the others"? The true revolutionary is the one who, a dialectician, creates the conditions favorable to the rise of the new. Moreaffirms the will of the socialist leaders to prevent unity, the more he affirms, by his attitude towards the socialist workers, his own will for unity.

See: Control questions

III. Qualitative change

An example

If I heat water, its temperature rises from degree to degree. When it reaches 100 degrees, the water boils: it turns into water vapor.

There are two kinds of changes. The gradual increase in temperature constitutes a change in quantity. That is, the amount of heat trapped in water increases. But at a certain moment the water changes state: its quality of liquid disappears; it becomes gas (without however changing its chemical nature).

We call quantitative change the simple increase (or simple decrease) in quantity. We call qualitative change the passage from one quality to another, the passage from one state to another state (here: passage from the liquid state to the gaseous state).

The study of the second feature of the dialectic has shown us that reality is change. The study of the third feature of the dialectic will show us that there is a link between quantitative changes and qualitative changes.

Indeed, and this is essential to remember, the qualitative change (liquid water becoming water vapor) is not the result of chance: it necessarily results from quantitative change, from the progressive increase in heat. When the temperature reaches a certain degree (100 degrees), the water boils, under the conditions of normal atmospheric pressure. If the atmospheric pressure changes, then, as everything is held together (first feature of the dialectic), the boiling point changes; but, for a given body and for a given atmospheric pressure, the boiling point will always be the same. This means that the change in quality is not an illusion; it is an objective, material fact, conforming to a natural law. It is therefore a predictable fact:science looks for what changes in quantity are necessary for a given change in quality to occur.

In the case of boiling water, the connection between the two kinds of change is indisputable and clear.

The dialectic considers that this link between quantitative change and qualitative change is a universal law of nature and of society.

We saw in the previous lesson that metaphysics denies change. Or, if it admits it, it reduces it to repetition; we gave the example of the mechanism. The universe is then comparable to a pendulum whose pendulum constantly travels the same path. Applied to society, such a conception makes human history an ever-starting cycle, an eternal return. In other words, metaphysics is powerless to explain the new. When the new imposes itself on her, she sees in it a caprice of nature, or the effect of a divine decree, of a miracle. On the contrary, the dialectic is neither surprised nor scandalized by the appearance of the new. The new necessarily results from the gradual accumulation of small, seemingly insignificant, quantitative changes:thus it is by its own movement that matter creates the new.

The third trait of dialectics

Unlike metaphysics, dialectics views the process of development, not as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as development which shifts from insignificant and latent quantitative changes to apparent changes. and radical, to qualitative changes; where qualitative changes are not gradual, but rapid, sudden, and take place in leaps, from one state to another; these changes are not contingent, but necessary; they are the result of the accumulation of insensitive and gradual quantitative changes. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism. P. 5.)

Let us clarify certain aspects of this definition.

The qualitative change, we said in the previous paragraph, is a change of state: liquid water becomes water vapor; or liquid water becomes solid water (ice). The egg becomes a chick. The button becomes a flower. The living being dies, becomes a corpse.

Development: what appears to the day has developed little by little and without it appearing. There is no miracle, but a slow preparation that only dialectics can detect. Maurice Thorez says in Fils du Peuple (p. 248): "Socialism will emerge from capitalism as the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis".

The leap: if a candidate needs 60,223 votes to be elected, it is very precisely the 60,223rd vote that achieves the qualitative leap by which the candidate becomes a deputy. This leap, this rapid, sudden change, was however prepared by a gradual and insensitive accumulation of votes: 1 + l + l ... Here is a very simple example of a qualitative leap, of radical change.

Likewise the flower suddenly blooms after a slow maturation. In the same way the revolution which breaks out in broad daylight is a change by leaps which a slow evolution has prepared.

But that does not mean that all qualitative changes take the form of crises, of explosions. There are cases where the transition to the new quality is effected by gradual qualitative changes. In On Marxism in Linguistics, Stalin shows that the transformations of language take place by gradual qualitative changes.

Likewise, while the qualitative passage of a society divided into classes hostile to socialist society takes place by explosions, the development of socialist society takes place by gradual qualitative changes without crises.

In the space of 8 to 10 years, writes Stalin, we have achieved, in the agriculture of our country, the transition from the bourgeois regime, from the regime of individual peasant exploitation, to the socialist collective farm regime. It was a revolution that liquidated the old bourgeois economic regime in the countryside and created a new, socialist regime. However, this radical transformation was not carried out by way of explosion, that is to say by the overthrow of existing power and the creation of a new power, but by the gradual passage of the old bourgeois regime. in the countryside on a new regime. We were able to do it because it was a revolution from above, because the radical transformation was carried out on the initiative of the existing power, with the support of the essential mass of the peasantry.(Stalin: “On Marxism in Linguistics”, in Last Writings, p. 35-36. Social Editions.)

Likewise, the passage from socialism to communism is a qualitative change, but which takes place without crises, because in a socialist regime men, armed with Marxist science, are masters of their history, and because socialist society is it is not made up of hostile, antagonistic classes.

We thus see that it is necessary to study in each case the specific character which the qualitative change assumes. Any qualitative change should not be mechanically identified with an explosion. But, whatever form qualitative change takes, there is never unprepared qualitative change. What is universal is the necessary link between quantitative change and qualitative change.

In nature

Consider a liter of water. Divide this volume into two equal parts; the division in no way changes the nature of the body; half a liter of water is always water. We can thus continue the division, each time obtaining smaller fractions: a thimble, a pinhead ... it's still water. No qualitative change. But there comes a time when we reach the water molecule [A body, whatever it is, is made up of molecules. The molecule is the smallest amount of a given chemical combination. It is itself made up of atoms: an atom is the smallest part of an element that can enter into combination. The molecules of a simple body (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen ...) contain identical atoms (oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen ...)) The molecules of a compound body (water, cooking salt, benzine) contain atoms of the various component bodies.]: It has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Can we continue the division, dissociate the molecule? Yes, by an appropriate method ... but then it is no longer water! It's hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen, oxygen obtained by the division of a water molecule do not have the properties of water. Everyone knows that oxygen keeps the flame alive, but water puts out fires.by an appropriate method ... but then it is no longer water! It's hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen, oxygen obtained by the division of a water molecule do not have the properties of water. Everyone knows that oxygen keeps the flame alive, but water puts out fires.by an appropriate method ... but then it is no longer water! It's hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen, oxygen obtained by the division of a water molecule do not have the properties of water. Everyone knows that oxygen keeps the flame alive, but water puts out fires.

This example is an illustration of the third law of dialectics: the quantitative change (here: the gradual division of the volume of water) necessarily leads to a qualitative change (sudden release of two qualitatively different bodies of water).

Nature is lavish on such processes.

... in nature, in a clearly determined way for each individual case, qualitative changes can only take place by quantitative addition or withdrawal of matter or movement (as we say: energy). (Engels: Dialectic of nature, p. 70. Editions Sociales.)

Engels himself gives a number of examples.

Or oxygen: if, instead of the two usual atoms, three atoms unite to form a molecule, we have ozone, a body which by its smell and its effects is distinguished in a well-defined way from ordinary oxygen. And what about the different proportions in which oxygen combines with nitrogen or sulfur, and each of which gives a body qualitatively different from all the others! What a difference between laughing gas (nitrous oxide N 2 O) and nitrogen anhydride (nitrogen pentoxide N 2 O 5)! The first is a gas, the second, at the usual temperature, a solid and crystallized body. And yet all the difference in the chemical combination is that the second contains five times more oxygen than the first.Between the two, there are three more nitrogen oxides (NO, N 2 O 3, NO 2), which all differ qualitatively from the first two and are different from each other. (Engels: Dialectic of nature, p. 72. Editions Sociales.)

It is this necessary link between quantity and quality which allowed Mendéléiev to make a classification of chemical elements [The element is the part common to all the varieties of a simple body and to the compounds which derive from it. Ex .: Sulfur is preserved in all varieties of sulfur and in sulfur compounds. There are 92 natural elements: they are conserved during chemical reactions between bodies. But under certain conditions, there is transmutation of elements (radioactivity).]: The elements are ordered by increasing atomic weights. [The atomic weight of an element represents the ratio of the weight of the atom of that element to the weight of the atom of a typical element (hydrogen or oxygen).] This quantitative classification of the elements, from the lightest (the hydrogen) to the heaviest (uranium),reveals their qualitative differences, their differences in properties. The classification thus established nevertheless included empty boxes: Mendéléiev concluded that there were thus qualitatively new elements to be discovered in nature; he described in advance the chemical properties of one of these elements, which was later to be actually discovered. Thanks to Mendeleev's methodical classification, more than ten chemical elements were predicted and artificially obtained which did not exist in nature.advances the chemical properties of one of these elements, which later was to be actually discovered. Thanks to Mendeleev's methodical classification, more than ten chemical elements were predicted and artificially obtained which did not exist in nature.advances the chemical properties of one of these elements, which later was to be actually discovered. Thanks to Mendeleev's methodical classification, more than ten chemical elements were predicted and artificially obtained which did not exist in nature.

Nuclear chemistry (which studies the nucleus of the atom), at the same time as it considerably increased the field of our knowledge, made it possible to better understand the importance of the necessary link between quantity and quality. This is how Rutherford, bombarding nitrogen atoms with helions (atomic corpuscles produced by the decay of the radium atom), carried out the transmutation of nitrogen atoms into oxygen atoms. Remarkable qualitative change. However, the study of this change has shown that it is conditioned by a quantitative change: under the effect of the helion, the nitrogen nucleus - which has 7 protons [The proton and the neutron are the constituents of the nucleus of the atom.] - loses one; but it "fixes" the 2 protons of the helion nucleus.This gives a nucleus of 8 protons, that is to say an oxygen nucleus.

The life sciences could also offer us a plethora of examples. The development of living nature in fact cannot be compared to a pure and simple repetition of the same processes: such a point of view makes evolution unintelligible; it is in short that of classical genetics (in particular of Weismann) for which the future of the living being is entirely and in advance contained in a hereditary substance (the genes), itself immune to any change and indifferent to middle action. Impossible then to understand the appearance of the new. In fact, the development of living nature is explained by an accumulation of quantitative changes which are transformed into qualitative changes. This is why Engels wrote:

... madness to want to explain the birth, even if it is from a single cell, starting directly from inert matter instead of living undifferentiated albumin, to believe that with a little stinking water we can constrain nature to do in twenty-four hours what has cost it millions of years. (Dialectic of nature: p. 305. (Word underlined by us. GB-MC))

It will be noted that this development, both quantitative and qualitative, of living nature is suitable for understanding what is meant, in dialectics, by passage from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher. The species engendered by evolution are indeed more and more complex; the structure of living things has become more and more differentiated. Likewise, from the egg, a large number of qualitatively distinct organs are formed, each having its own particular function: the growth of a living being is therefore not a simple multiplication of cells, but a process which passes through many qualitative changes.

If we approach the study of the nervous system and psychology we find the law of quantity-quality in the most diverse forms.

For example: the sensation (sensation of light, heat, auditory sensation, tactile sensation, etc.), which is a phenomenon specific to the nervous system, only appears if the excitation, that is to say the action physical stimulus on the nervous system, reaches a certain quantitative level called a threshold. Thus, a light excitation can only be transformed into a sensation if it has a minimum duration and intensity. The threshold of sensation is the point where the jump takes place from the quantity of the stimulant to the quality of the reaction: below the threshold, there is no sensation yet, the stimulant being too weak.

Likewise, it is through repeated practice that the concept is constituted, from sensations.

The continuation of social practice involves in men's practice the multiple repetition of things which they perceive through their senses and which produce an effect on them; as a result, a leap in the process of knowledge occurs in the human brain, the concept arises. (Mao Tsétoung: “About practice”, in Cahiers du communisme, n ° 2, February 1951, p. 242.)

Sensation is in fact a partial reflection of reality: it only gives us outward aspects. But men, through repeated social practice, through work, deepen this reality; they conquer the intelligence of internal processes, which first escaped them; they access the laws which, beyond appearances, explain reality. This conquest is the concept, which is qualitatively new in relation to sensations, although these are, in great number, necessary for the development of the concept. For example, the concept of heat could never have been formed if men had not had, in infinitely many and varied circumstances, the sensation of heat. But to move from sensations to the current concept of heat, as a form of energy,a thousand-year-old social practice was needed, which made possible the assimilation of the fundamental properties of heat: men have learned to "make fire", to use its calorific effects in a hundred ways for the satisfaction of their needs; then much later they learned to measure a quantity of heat, to transform heat into work, work into heat, etc.

Likewise, the passage from surveying, born of social needs (measuring land), to geometry (science of abstract figures) is a transformation of sensations, gradually accumulated in practice, into concepts.

The same goes for the principles of logic, which, in the eyes of metaphysicians, are innate ideas. For example, this universally spread axiom "the whole is greater than the part, the part is smaller than the whole", is, as a figure of logic, a qualitatively new product of a practice which imposed itself on most ancient societies in various forms: it takes less food to feed one man than to feed twenty.

Lenin writes in his Philosophical Notebooks:

The practical activity of man must have caused the consciousness of man billions of times to repeat different logical figures so that these figures can take on the value of axioms. [The "axioms" are the most general and fundamental truths of mathematical science. Idealism sees in it a revelation of the spirit. But like all truth, axioms are the fruit of laborious conquest.]

And even:

The practice of man, repeating itself billions of times, is fixed in the consciousness of man in figures of logic.

This is the third feature of the dialectic which puts us on the path to a rational interpretation of invention; the metaphysician considers the appearance of new ideas, the invention as a kind of divine revelation; or he attributes it to chance. Isn't invention (in the techniques, the sciences, the arts, and elsewhere) rather a qualitative change which takes place in the mental reflection of reality and which is prepared by the accumulation of small insignificant changes from human practice? That is why great discoveries are made only when the objective conditions are realized which make them possible.

The last examples that we have chosen (passage from sensation to concept; invention brought about by long practice) allow us to underline an important aspect of the quantity-quality process. The passage from the old qualitative state to the new qualitative state is, in fact, very often progress. It is therefore a passage from the lower to the upper. It is so when man goes beyond sensation (lower form of knowledge) to access the concept (higher form of knowledge). But it is also so in the qualitative passage from the non-living to the living; such a change of state constitutes decisive progress. The movement which results in such qualitative transformations is therefore, as Stalin writes, "a progressive, ascending movement". [Stalin:Dialectical materialism and historical materialism, p. 6.]

We will see that this is also the case in the development of societies.

In society

We saw in the previous lesson that, like nature, society is movement.

This movement proceeds from quantitative changes to qualitative change.

This was what Lenin understood when, still a student, in 1887, at the University of Kazan, and already committed to revolutionary action against Tsarism, he replied to the police commissioner, who said to him: to a wall ”-“ A wall? yes, but it is rotten! a push and it collapses ”. Tsarism, in fact, like the wall under the inexorable effect of the rain, had rotted from year to year; Lenin understood that the qualitative change (the collapse of the regime) was near.

The qualitative transformations of society are thus prepared by slow quantitative processes.

Revolution (qualitative change) is therefore the necessary historical product of an evolution (quantitative change). Stalin very strongly defined the quantitative aspect and the qualitative aspect of the social movement:

The dialectical method teaches that movement takes two forms: the evolutionary form and the revolutionary form.

The movement is evolutionary when the progressive elements spontaneously carry on their daily work and bring small quantitative changes in the old order of things.

The movement is revolutionary when these same elements unite, enter into a common idea and rush against the enemy camp to annihilate the old order of things to the root, bring qualitative changes to life, institute a new order of things.

Evolution prepares for revolution and creates favorable ground for it, while revolution completes evolution and contributes to its subsequent action. (Stalin: “Anarchisme ou socialisme?”, In Œuvres, t. I, p. 251 and 252. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1953. We will evoke Eluard's lines: They were only a few. They were a crowd. suddenly.)

And Stalin illustrates this analysis by the events of 1905. In the days of December 1905, the proletariat "the straightened spine attacked the arms depots and marched to the assault of reaction". Revolutionary movement prepared by the long evolution of the previous years "when the proletariat, within the framework of a" peaceful "evolution, was content with isolated strikes and the creation of small unions".

Likewise, the French Revolution of 1789 was prepared by a secular class struggle. In a few years (1789, 1790 ...) considerable qualitative changes took place in France which would not have been possible without the gradual accumulation of quantitative changes, that is to say without the innumerable partial struggles by which the bourgeoisie attacked feudalism until the decisive assault and the installation of the capitalists in power.

As for the Socialist Revolution of October 1917, we will read in the History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR how this prodigious qualitative change, the greatest date in history, was prepared by a series of quantitative changes. If we want to limit ourselves to the period 1914-1917, let us study Chapters VI and VII: they show how the movement of the masses was amplified in these crucial years until the seizure of power by the Soviets .

It should be observed here (as we did at the end of point III of this lesson), that the passage from the old qualitative state to the new qualitative state constitutes progress. The capitalist state is superior to the feudal state; the socialist state is superior to the capitalist state. The revolution ensures the passage from the lower to the upper. Why ? Because it brings the economic regime of society into line with the requirements of the development of the productive forces.

It is very important never to separate the qualitative aspect and the quantitative aspect of the social movement and to consider them in their necessary connection. To see only one or the other is to make a fundamental mistake.

To see only evolution is to fall into reformism, for which the transformations of society are achievable without revolution. In fact, reformism is a bourgeois conception; it disarms the working class by making it believe that capitalism will disappear without a struggle. Reformism is the adversary of revolution since it advocates

the partial mending of the collapsing regime in order to divide and weaken the working class, in order to maintain the power of the bourgeoisie against the overthrow of this power by revolutionary means. (Lenin: "Reformism in Russian Social Democracy", in Marx, Engels, Marxism, p. 251. Foreign Language Editions, Moscow, 1947.)

Reformism is spread by socialist leaders, like Jules Moch, like Blum who proclaimed himself "loyal manager of capitalism". This was the position of Kautsky, for whom imperialist capitalism had to transform itself into socialism. These falsifiers of Marxism invoke, in defiance of dialectics, an alleged “general law of harmonious evolution”. This is how they justify their betrayal of the interests of the working class. Their program is

... war on the idea of ​​revolution, on "the hope" of a revolution ("hope" which appears confused to the reformist, because he does not understand the depth of the current economic and political antagonisms); war against any activity consisting in organizing forces and preparing minds for the revolution. (Lenin: “Reformism in Russian Social Democracy” in Marx, Engels, Marxism, p. 262.)

In contrast, there is another conception that is just as anti-dialectic and therefore counter-revolutionary: it is adventurism, which characterizes in particular anarchists and Blanquists. Adventurism consists in denying the need to prepare for qualitative change (revolution) through quantitative evolution. Concept just as metaphysical as the previous one, since it sees only one aspect of the social movement.

To want the revolution without wanting the conditions is obviously to make it impossible. Adventurism (revolutionaryism) and reformism are therefore identical in substance.

But the adventurists are deluding themselves with the leftist “sentence”. They talk about action at all times, but that is the better to prevent real action. Indeed, they despise modest actions, small quantitative changes, however necessary for decisive transformations.

In volume IV of his Works, p. 129, Maurice Thorez criticizes a certain number of communist factors which, in 1932, in various departments, had taken a stand against a protest petition addressed by all their colleagues from the PTT to parliamentarians. They said to the petitioners: "First join the Unitary Union (CGTU), otherwise your petition is useless". Maurice Thorez explains:

We should not despise the petition, even with a sentence on “mass action”. The petition is an - arguably elementary - form of mass action. It is both a means of pressure on the addressee and an element of rallying and organization for the signatories.

In the case which interests us, the petition is an organized form of the protest of the employees against their state-boss and against those who, parliamentarians, are supposed to hold a part of the power of the state.

The petition can and will have a real impact on the public authorities if, instead of condemning it, the revolutionary elements participate in it, if they patiently and fraternally explain to their fellow workers that the petition is only one of many. means of struggle, that there are others supplementing and supporting the petition and that, for example, a demonstration carried out opportunely in the department, in the region, even in the country, by the whole corporation, will give weight to the signatures .

Maurice Thorez observes that the petition

help to create a united front at the base. We can easily imagine the conversations that take place, about each signature, between fellow workers who are unitary, confederate, autonomous or unorganized. Everyone expresses their opinion, says their preferences. However, everyone believes that the conscious manifestation of the vast majority, perhaps even all postal workers, will have a certain effect. It is obvious that the unitary union member, while signing and having them signed, has formulated his opinion on the action to be developed. He proposed, for example, the election of committees for petitioning. He signed the eventual application of the regulations. He spoke of the possibility of a strike! His confederate or unorganized comrade listened to him, objected to him, asked for more complete explanations. VS'is a first approximation to the base with a view to

common action that will bear fruit.

We must not

gossip about "mass action", but learn to arouse, to organize, to support the most modest forms of protest of the masses in order to be able to reach with the proletarians, and at their head, the highest forms of class struggle. (Maurice Thorez: Œuvres, L. II, t. IV, p. 129, 130, 131. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1951.)

It is in fact in these partial struggles that workers educate themselves, accumulating irreplaceable experience. Daily action for a modest but common demand paves the way for broader action. The constitution of 'grassroots committees, where the workers discuss and fraternally decide on the objectives and the means, this is the condition of the united front. How can you achieve decisive change if this patient work is not done? In the same way, by the accumulation of their millions of signatures, the good people ended up "winning" the presidential signature which made Henri Martin leave the prison.

This is how the third law of dialectics shows its practical significance, its fruitfulness. It sheds light on the current perspectives, giving us the scientific certainty that the realization of the united front and the rallying of the French nation around the working class will be necessary consequences of the quantitative changes which are accomplished in the daily struggles, at the price of the obscure ones. and the patient efforts that the most conscious workers pursue in their companies and offices. The formidable scale of the strikes of August 1953 was precisely the consequence of the innumerable local actions which had developed everywhere during the months which preceded. At the height of the August movement, a union official exposed how workers who, ten days earlier,seemed indifferent to any argument, were now among the most resolute: "Definitely nothing is ever lost ..." he concluded. And it is true: nothing is wasted by the efforts made in the direction of history, the explanations given, the clarifications provided. Quantitative accumulation prepares for qualitative transformation, even when it does not appear.

This is why it is wrong to think that the reactionary policies of the bourgeois politicians will last "still a long time" under the pretext that the majority of the Assembly "is for them". It is wrong to say that France is "a finished country", doomed to vegetate under American tutelage. Forces are accumulating on all sides which will put an end to the policy of dishonor and to the enterprises of the corrupt. On all sides, day after day, the forces are accumulating which will one day reverse the course of events and place France back in the true day of her greatness. The people will have the last word. To say that in France "another policy is possible" than that of the reactionary and anti-national bourgeoisie is not to give in to illusions, it is to state a scientific truth.

Conclusion

Commenting on the third feature of the dialectic, Stalin observes: "Consequently, in order not to be mistaken in politics, one must be a revolutionary, and not a reformist". The revolutionary attitude is only dialectical since it recognizes the objective necessity of qualitative changes, products of a quantitative evolution.

The metaphysician either denies the qualitative changes, or else, if he admits them, does not explain them to himself and attributes them either to chance or to a miracle. The bourgeoisie has every interest in these errors and spreads them profusely. For example, the so-called information press presents political and social events to the general public without the internal links that prepare them and make them intelligible. Hence the idea "that there is nothing to understand".

The dialectician, on the contrary, understands the movement of reality as necessarily uniting quantitative changes and qualitative changes and he unites them in his practice. The leftist who has nothing but "revolutionary" phrases in his mouth does nothing in the perpetual wait in which he is of the decisive moment of "The Revolution". The reformist, precisely because he believes that "natural" evolution transforms society, does not even fight for the reforms he wants. The dialectician alone understands that it is necessary to struggle to obtain reforms and that it is good to do so, because he knows that revolution is linked to evolution. Only revolutionaries can, by their participation in the action, give a truly progressive content to the reforms. Alone, because dialecticians,they can unite around them, in the small ones, then in the big actions, the workers deceived by reformism like those who are seduced by the "leftist phrase". Only a dialectician can understand the value of gradual quantitative changes, the diversity of the paths of the struggle for socialism depending on the conditions, in short this truth that revolution is a process. Only masters of dialectics could guide the working masses in the conquests of the Popular Front and the Liberation. Approaching the most minimal action as a revolutionary and not as a reformist, the dialectician gives all his meaning to The International's just words:Only a dialectician can understand the value of gradual quantitative changes, the diversity of the paths of the struggle for socialism depending on the conditions, in short this truth that revolution is a process. Only masters of dialectics could guide the working masses in the conquests of the Popular Front and the Liberation. Approaching the most minimal action as a revolutionary and not as a reformist, the dialectician gives all his meaning to The International's just words:Only a dialectician can understand the value of gradual quantitative changes, the diversity of the paths of the struggle for socialism depending on the conditions, in short this truth that revolution is a process. Only masters of dialectics could guide the working masses in the conquests of the Popular Front and the Liberation. Approaching the most minimal action as a revolutionary and not as a reformist, the dialectician gives all his meaning to The International's just words:Approaching the most minimal action as a revolutionary and not as a reformist, the dialectician gives all his meaning to The International's just words:Approaching the most minimal action as a revolutionary and not as a reformist, the dialectician gives all his meaning to The International's just words:

Let's group together and tomorrow

The International will be the human race.

The universal victory of the proletariat is not a utopia, it is an objectively founded certainty.

Remarks

a) We have said: insignificant quantitative changes lead to radical qualitative changes.

This means that one cannot separate quantity from quality, quality from quantity, and that it is arbitrary to isolate them (as does for example the metaphysician Bergson for whom matter is pure quantity and spirit quality pure). The reality is both quantitative and qualitative. And it must be understood that qualitative change is a passage from one quality to another. The “liquid” quality becomes “gas” quality when the liquid reaches a certain temperature by quantitative accumulation.

Even in mathematics (which metaphysicians would like to make a science of quantity alone) quantity and quality are inseparable. Adding whole numbers (5 + 7 + 3 ...) is a quantitative process; but it has a qualitative aspect because integers are numbers of a certain kind, which have a different quality from mixed numbers, algebraic numbers, etc., etc.

The qualitative diversity of numbers is considerable: each species has its properties. To add whole numbers, or mixed numbers, or algebraic numbers, it is, one will say, always to add; yes, but each time the bill relates to different qualities. Likewise: adding 5 hats or adding 5 locomotives is always adding, but the objects are qualitatively very different. Quantity is always quantity of something, it is quantity of a quality.

b) Quantity changes into quality. But reciprocally, quality changes into quantity, since they are inseparable.

Example: capitalist production relations, from a certain moment, slow down the quantitative development of the productive forces, or even lead to their regression. The qualitative transformation of the relations of production is reflected in the socialization of the productive forces which thus take off again. Consequence: the productive forces will experience a great quantitative development.

See: Control questions

IV. The struggle of opposites (I)

The struggle of opposites is the driving force behind any change. An example

We have seen that all reality is movement, and that this movement, which is universal, takes two forms: quantitative and qualitative, necessarily linked together. But why is there movement? What is the engine of change and, in particular, of the transformation of quantity into quality, of the passage from a quality to a new quality?

To answer this question is to state the fourth feature of dialectic, the fundamental law of dialectic, that which gives us the reason for movement.

A very concrete example will reveal this law.

I study Marxist philosophy, dialectical materialism. This is only possible if at the same time I am aware of my ignorance and I have the will to overcome it, the will to conquer knowledge. The motor of my study, the absolute condition for progress in study, is the struggle between my ignorance and my desire to overcome it, it is the contradiction between the awareness that I have of my ignorance and the will that I have to get out of it. This struggle of opposites, this contradiction is not external to the study. If I am progressing, it is to the very extent that this contradiction is constantly arising. Of course, each of the acquisitions that mark out my study is a solution to this contradiction (I know today what I did not know yesterday); but immediatelyopens a new contradiction between what I know ... and what I am aware of ignoring; hence a new effort in the study, and a new solution, a new progress. Whoever thinks he knows everything will never progress since he will not seek to overcome his ignorance. The principle of this movement that is study, the engine of the gradual passage from less knowledge to greater knowledge, is therefore the struggle of opposites, the struggle between my ignorance (on the one hand) and (on the other hand) the awareness that I have to overcome my ignorance.he will not seek to overcome his ignorance. The principle of this movement that is study, the engine of the gradual passage from less knowledge to greater knowledge, is therefore the struggle of opposites, the struggle between my ignorance (on the one hand) and (on the other hand) the awareness that I have to overcome my ignorance.he will not seek to overcome his ignorance. The principle of this movement that is study, the engine of the gradual passage from less knowledge to greater knowledge, is therefore the struggle of opposites, the struggle between my ignorance (on the one hand) and (on the other hand) the awareness that I have to overcome my ignorance.

The fourth trait of dialectics

Unlike metaphysics, dialectics starts from the point of view that the objects and phenomena of nature involve internal contradictions, because they all have a negative side and a positive side, a past and a future, all of them have disappearing elements. or that develop; the struggle of these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between what dies and what is born, between what withers and what develops, is the internal content of the process of development, of the conversion of quantitative changes in qualitative changes. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, p. 7.)

The study of contradiction as a principle of development will allow us to identify its main characteristics: the contradiction is internal; it is innovative; there is unity of opposites

Characteristics of contradiction

The contradiction is internal

All reality is movement, as we have seen. Now, there is no movement which is not the product of a contradiction, of a struggle of opposites. This contradiction, this struggle is internal, that is to say that it is not external to the movement considered, but that it is its essence.

Is this an arbitrary assertion? No. A little reflection indeed shows that if there were no contradiction in the world, it would not change. If the seed were only the seed, it would remain the seed, indefinitely; but it carries within itself the power to change since it will be planted. The plant emerges from the seed, and its hatching implies the disappearance of the seed. So it is with all reality; if it changes, it is because it is, in its essence, both itself and something other than itself. Why does life, after giving its flowers and fruits, decline to death? Because it's not just life. Life turns into death because life carries an internal contradiction, becauseit is a daily struggle against death (at every moment cells die, others replace them, until the day when death prevails). The metaphysician opposes life to death as two absolutes, without seeing their deep unity, unity of opposing forces. A universe absolutely void of any contradiction would be doomed to repeat itself: nothing new could ever happen.

The contradiction is therefore internal to any change.

The fundamental cause of the development of things is not to be found outside, but within things, in the contradictory nature inherent in things themselves. Everything, every phenomenon has its inherent internal contradictions. It is they who give birth to the movement and development of things. The contradictions inherent in things and phenomena are the fundamental causes of their development ... (Mao Tsétoung: “A propos de la contradiction”, in Cahiers du communisme, n ° 7-8 August 1952, pp. 780-781. [Phrase underlined by us. GB- MC])

Lenin already said: "Development is the struggle of opposites". (Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism.)

Is it not true, to take the example of the man who studies, that this man is both ignorance and need to learn? In so far as he studies, he is a struggle of these two opposing forces. This is the essence of the man who studies (the essence: the deep nature).

If we return to the process examined in the previous lesson: the transformation of water either into ice or water vapor, we find that such a transformation is explained by the presence of an internal contradiction: contradiction between the forces the cohesion of water molecules on the one hand, and on the other hand, the movement specific to each molecule (kinetic energy that pushes the molecules to disperse); contradiction between the forces of cohesion and the forces of dispersion. Of course, when we limit ourselves to considering water in a liquid state, between 0 degrees and 100 degrees, this struggle does not appear, everything seems calm, inert. What appears is the stability of the liquid state. The apparent aspect (the phenomenon) conceals the deep reality, the essence, itthat is, the struggle between the forces of cohesion and the forces of dispersion. This internal contradiction is the real content of the liquid state. And it is this contradiction which explains the sudden transformation of liquid water into solid water or water vapor. The qualitative transition to a new state is only possible through the victory of one of the opposing forces over the other. Victory of cohesive forces in the passage from liquid to solid; victory of the forces of dispersion in the passage from liquid to gas. A victory which does not annihilate the opposing forces, but which in some way changes their "sign": in the solid state, it is the movement of molecules which is the negative (or secondary) aspect; in the gaseous state, it is the tendency to cohesion which is thenegative (or secondary) aspect.

Water, whatever its current state, is therefore a struggle between opposing forces, which are internal forces - and this explains its transformations.

Does this mean that the external, surrounding conditions play no role? No. The study of the first law of dialectics (everything fits) has shown us that one should never isolate a reality from its surrounding conditions. In the case of water, there is an external condition, necessary for the change of state: it is the decrease or the rise in temperature. The rise in temperature makes it possible to increase the kinetic energy of molecules, and therefore their speed. Cooling has the opposite effect. But we must not lose sight of the fact that, if there were not internal contradictions in the object considered (in this case: water) - as we have noticed above - the action external conditions would be inoperative.The dialectic therefore considers as essential the discovery of internal contradictions, inherent in the process studied, and which alone make it possible to understand the specificity of this process.

The contradictions inherent in things and phenomena are the fundamental cause of their development, while the mutual link and the reciprocal action of a thing or a phenomenon with or on other things or phenomena are second-order causes. (Mao Tsétoung; “A propos de la contradiction”, in Cahiers du communisme, n ° 7-8, August 1952, p. 781. [Expression underlined by us. GB - M. C])

This is what the metaphysical mind cannot admit. As he ignores the internal contradictions, constitutive of reality and driving any qualitative change, he is forced to explain all the changes by external interventions. That is to say either by supernatural "causes" (God "creates" life, thought, kingdoms), or by artificial causes: there are privileged men who hold the mysterious power to make change. things; these are a few "leaders" who "make" the revolution, who "sow revolt", etc., etc. This is how certain reactionary ideologues reduce the Revolution of 1789 to the catastrophic action of a few bad shepherds. The same goes for the Socialist Revolution of October 1917. Dialectics, on the contrary,scientifically shows that the revolutionary outcome as a solution to the problems facing social development is inevitable if there is an internal contradiction, constitutive of this society: contradiction between antagonistic classes. The revolution is the product of this contradiction, which passes through various stages; the revolution comes neither from God nor from Satan.

The respective role of internal contradictions (fundamental causes) and external conditions (second order causes) should be remembered. It makes it possible to understand, in particular, that "the revolution cannot be exported". No qualitative transformation can be the direct product of external intervention. This is how the existence and progress of the Soviet Union transformed the general conditions of the struggle of the proletariat in the capitalist countries. But neither the existence nor the progress of the Soviet Union has the power to engender socialism in the other countries: only the development of the class struggle specific to each capitalist country, the development of the internal contradictions which characterize the countries. capitalists can bring about revolutionary changes in these countries.Hence Stalin's often-repeated phrase: “Each country, if it wishes, will make its own revolution; and if he doesn't want to, there will be no revolution ”. It is thus with the young child: all the means which you will employ to make him walk will be useless as long as his internal, organic development does not allow him to walk.

We can therefore see that the internal character of the contradiction, on which Stalin insists in his statement of the fourth line, has considerable practical significance.

The contradiction is innovative

If we take up the Stalinist statement of the law, we notice that the struggle of opposites is appreciated as "struggle between the old and the new, between what dies and what is born, between what withers and what develops" .

The struggle of opposites, in fact, develops over time. And we saw (third lesson) that, just like societies, just like living nature, the physical universe has a history. The qualitative changes thus bring to light, at a given moment in the historical process, new aspects which are the product of the victory over the old. But this is only possible because the forces of the new have developed against the old, even within the old. It was within the old feudal society and against it that the new productive forces and the corresponding production relations grew, from which capitalist society was to emerge. Likewise, it is in the child and against him that the adolescent grows; it is in and against the adolescent that the adult matures.

It is therefore not enough to note the internal nature of the contradiction. We must also see that this contradiction is a struggle between the old and the new. It is within the old that the new is born; it is against the old that he grows up. The contradiction is resolved when the new definitely wins over the old. Then appears the innovative character, the fruitfulness of internal contradictions. The future is prepared in the struggle against the past. No victory without a struggle.

The metaphysician fails to recognize the innovative power of contradiction. For him, the contradiction can bring nothing good. As he has a static, immobilist conception of the universe, as he wants being (nature or society) to always be identical, contradiction is synonymous with absurdity for him. He tries to push it aside. Thus the economic crises which, for the dialecticians, are the apparent sign of the fundamental internal contradictions of capitalism, are, for the metaphysician, temporary discomforts. Likewise, the class struggle is an unfortunate accident due to the malevolence of the “leaders”. The dialectician knows that where a contradiction develops, there is fruitfulness, there is the presence of the new, the promise of its victory. The class struggle heralds a new society.In all circumstances, the dialectician creates the conditions favorable to the development of this fruitful struggle; the resistance of the forces of the past does not frighten him, for he knows that the forces of the future are steeped in the struggle, as the whole history of the workers' movement attests. On the contrary, it is the essential task of social democracy to divert the revolutionary forces from the struggle; this is how she works to corrupt them, to sterilize them.on the contrary, it is the essential task of social democracy to divert the revolutionary forces from the struggle; this is how she works to corrupt them, to sterilize them.on the contrary, it is the essential task of social democracy to divert the revolutionary forces from the struggle; this is how she works to corrupt them, to sterilize them.

The history * of the sciences and the arts is profuse in examples showing brilliantly the fruitfulness of the contradiction. Great discoveries are the product of a resolute contradiction between old theories and new experimental facts. Example: Torricelli's experiment gave rise to a fruitful contradiction between the fact observed (the mercury contained in the tube overturned on the tank goes down to a certain level which varies according to the altitude; above it is the vacuum) , and the old idea taught everywhere ("nature abhors a vacuum"). The old idea is powerless, in fact, to explain why the level of mercury in the tube varies with altitude. It is the discovery of atmospheric pressure that resolves the contradiction.

Any qualitative change is the fruitful solution of a contradiction.

The fruitfulness of the contradiction is evident in Gorky's books. It is by fighting against her prejudices as an old woman resigned to oppression that Gorky's Mother turns into a revolutionary. (Internal contradiction which develops thanks to external conditions: the example of his son, revolutionary fighter). Likewise Pierre Zalomov, the initiator of the workers' demonstration of May 1, 1902 in Sormovo, the hero of Gorky's book, proudly declared at the Tsarist court:

Tortured by the disagreement between the life to which they aspire and that which is given to them in today's society, the workers are led to seek the means to be used to get out of the abominable situation to which they are condemned by the imperfection of the present regime. . (The Zalomov Family, p. 221. French Editors Reunited.)

And Pierre Zalomov explains how, through a stubborn struggle to overcome this contradiction, the desperate worker he once was became a new man, a revolutionary.

We said at the beginning of this lesson that the man who studies science progresses by constantly resolving the contradictions posed by study itself. Likewise the revolutionary militant, knowing the fruitful power of contradiction, endorses Maurice Thorez's maxim: "criticism and self-criticism are our daily bread." Critique of the work accomplished by the comrades. And also criticism by each of his own work (self-criticism). The worker influenced by social democratic ideology believes that self-criticism is dishonor and prostration. Rather, self-criticism proceeds from a scientific conception of revolutionary action. Through self-criticism, the activist creates the conditions for the victorious struggle of the new against the old in his own conscience,in his daily activity. To refuse self-criticism is not to safeguard one's dignity; it is wasting its possibilities of progress, it is condemning itself to retreat, it is degrading its own substance. It is the relentless, scientific practice of criticism and self-criticism that forged the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Lenin and Stalin. [See History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR Conclusion, point 4, p. 398-399-400.] It was through the practice of criticism and self-criticism that Maurice Thorez in the 1930s saved the French Communist Party from the stalemate to which the Barbé-Celor group was leading it. [See Maurice Thorez; Son of the People, chap. II.]is to waste its possibilities of progress, it is to condemn itself to retreat, it is to degrade its own substance. It is the relentless, scientific practice of criticism and self-criticism that forged the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Lenin and Stalin. [See History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR Conclusion, point 4, p. 398-399-400.] It was through the practice of criticism and self-criticism that Maurice Thorez in the 1930s saved the French Communist Party from the stalemate to which the Barbé-Celor group was leading it. [See Maurice Thorez; Son of the People, chap. II.]is to waste its possibilities of progress, it is to condemn itself to retreat, it is to degrade its own substance. It is the relentless, scientific practice of criticism and self-criticism that forged the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Lenin and Stalin. [See History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR Conclusion, point 4, p. 398-399-400.] It was through the practice of criticism and self-criticism that Maurice Thorez in the 1930s saved the French Communist Party from the stalemate to which the Barbé-Celor group was leading it. [See Maurice Thorez; Son of the People, chap. II.]self-criticism that forged the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Lenin and Stalin. [See History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR Conclusion, point 4, p. 398-399-400.] It was through the practice of criticism and self-criticism that Maurice Thorez in the 1930s saved the French Communist Party from the stalemate to which the Barbé-Celor group was leading it. [See Maurice Thorez; Son of the People, chap. II.]self-criticism that forged the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Lenin and Stalin. [See History of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the USSR Conclusion, point 4, p. 398-399-400.] It was through the practice of criticism and self-criticism that Maurice Thorez in the 1930s saved the French Communist Party from the stalemate to which the Barbé-Celor group was leading it. [See Maurice Thorez; Son of the People, chap. II.]

Unity of opposites

There is only a contradiction if there is a struggle between at least two forces. So contradiction necessarily encloses two opposing terms: it is the unity of opposites. This is a third characteristic of the contradiction. Let’s take a closer look.

For the metaphysician, to speak of the unity of opposites is to utter nonsense. For example: he considers science on one side, ignorance on the other. Now we have noticed that all science is a struggle against ignorance. Lenin observed that "the object of knowledge is inexhaustible". So there is no absolute science; there is always something to learn. So all science has an element of ignorance. But in the same way, there is no absolute ignorance: the most ignorant individual has sensations, a certain habit of life, a rudimentary experience (if not, how could he survive?); this is a germ of science.

Opposites fight each other, but they are inseparable. The bourgeoisie in itself does not exist. First of all, within feudal society, there was the bourgeoisie against the feudal class. Then it is, in capitalist society (and already within feudal society), bourgeoisie against proletariat. We cannot pose opposites one without the other, apart from one another. When the proletariat disappears as an exploited class, it is because then the bourgeoisie disappears as an exploiting class. [Marxist political economy is extremely valuable for the study of the unity of opposites, because it is found at all levels of economics. Example: the commodity is a unit of opposites. On the one hand it is a use value (a consumable product), on the other hand it isis an exchange value (a product that is exchanged). These are truly opposites since a product can only be exchanged if it is not consumed, and since a product can only be consumed if it is not exchanged. Marx brilliantly developed all the consequences of this internal contradiction in Capital, a masterpiece of dialectics. Note: in the crises that periodically strike capitalism, this unity of opposites is fully manifested: the masses cannot consume their own products because these products are necessarily, under a capitalist regime, commodities, and therefore, in order to to be able to consume, buy, that is, exchange the product for money.]These are truly opposites since a product can only be exchanged if it is not consumed, and since a product can only be consumed if it is not exchanged. Marx brilliantly developed all the consequences of this internal contradiction in Capital, a masterpiece of dialectics. Note: in the crises that periodically strike capitalism, this unity of opposites is fully manifested: the masses cannot consume their own products because these products are necessarily, under a capitalist regime, commodities, and therefore, in order to to be able to consume, buy, that is, exchange the product for money.]These are truly opposites since a product can only be exchanged if it is not consumed, and since a product can only be consumed if it is not exchanged. Marx brilliantly developed all the consequences of this internal contradiction in Capital, a masterpiece of dialectics. Note: in the crises that periodically strike capitalism, this unity of opposites is fully manifested: the masses cannot consume their own products because these products are necessarily, under a capitalist regime, commodities, and therefore, in order to to be able to consume, buy, that is, exchange the product for money.]is not traded. Marx brilliantly developed all the consequences of this internal contradiction in Capital, a masterpiece of dialectics. Note: in the crises that periodically strike capitalism, this unity of opposites is fully manifested: the masses cannot consume their own products because these products are necessarily, under a capitalist regime, commodities, and therefore, in order to to be able to consume, buy, that is, exchange the product for money.]is not traded. Marx brilliantly developed all the consequences of this internal contradiction in Capital, a masterpiece of dialectics. Note: in the crises that periodically strike capitalism, this unity of opposites is fully manifested: the masses cannot consume their own products because these products are necessarily, under a capitalist regime, commodities, and therefore, in order to to be able to consume, buy, that is, exchange the product for money.]the masses cannot consume their own products because these products are necessarily, under a capitalist regime, commodities, and therefore, in order to be able to consume, buy, that is to say exchange the product for money .]the masses cannot consume their own products because these products are necessarily, under a capitalist regime, commodities, and therefore, in order to be able to consume, buy, that is to say exchange the product for money .]

This inseparability of opposites is an objective fact, denied by metaphysics. This is why the bourgeoisie favors metaphysical conceptions which claim, for example, "to suppress the proletarian condition" (notably by "capital-labor association"), while preserving the bourgeoisie! As if there could be a capitalist bourgeoisie without a proletariat working for it!

Dialectics never separate opposites; it places them in their inseparable unity.

Without life, no death; without death, no life. No top, no bottom; no bottom, no top. Without misfortune, no happiness; without happiness, no unhappiness; without easy, no difficult; without difficult, not easy. Without a landowner, there is no farmer; without a farmer, no landowner. Without bourgeoisie, no proletariat; without the proletariat, there is no bourgeoisie. Without an imperialist national yoke, no colonies and semi-colonies; without colonies and semi-colonies, no imperialist yoke. So it is with all opposites. Under determined conditions, they oppose each other on the one hand, and, on the other hand, they are reciprocally linked, interpenetrate, imbue each other, are interdependent. (Mao Tsétoung: "A propos de la contradiction", in the Cahiers du communisme, n ° 7-8,August 1952, p. 807.)

This reciprocal connection means that the opposite A acts on the opposite B to the very extent that the opposite B acts on the contrary A; and that B acts on A to the same extent that A acts on B. Thus the opposites are not juxtaposed one to the other in such a way that one can change, the other remaining motionless. This is why any strengthening of the bourgeoisie is a weakening of its opposite, the proletariat; any strengthening of the proletariat is a weakening of its opposite, the bourgeoisie. Likewise, any weakening of socialist ideology is progress of bourgeois ideology; and reciprocally. It is therefore perfectly illusory to believe that the bourgeoisie is weakening if the proletariat does not fight against it relentlessly; vs'It is then rather the bourgeoisie which is strengthening and the proletariat which is weakening. So Marx explained that if the working class did not seize every opportunity to improve its situation,

she would swallow herself up to being nothing more than a shapeless, crushed mass of starving beings for whom there would be no salvation. (Marx: Salaries, prices and profits, p. 39, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1948; Travail Salarié et Capital ..., p. 114. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1952.)

This unity of opposites, this reciprocal connection of opposites takes on a particularly important meaning when, at a given moment in the process, the opposites are converted into one another. Indeed, under determined conditions, opposites are transformed into one another. The reciprocal connection then becomes reciprocal transformation, a qualitative change occurs, and it is even this transformation which makes it possible to scientifically define the notion of "quality".

Example: at a given moment in the struggle of the bourgeoisie-proletariat opposites, each of the opposites converts into the other: the bourgeoisie, the dominant class, becomes the dominated class; the proletariat, a dominated class, becomes a dominant class. Likewise, the ignorant man who studies changes into his opposite, into a man who knows; but in his turn the learned man, discovering that he does not know everything, turns into his opposite, into an ignorant man who wishes to learn again.

The unity or identity of the contradictory aspects of an objectively existing phenomenon is never dead, fixed, but alive, conditioned, mobile, temporary, relative; all opposites, under determined conditions, change into one another; and the reflection of this situation in human thought constitutes the conception of the Marxist materialist dialectical world; only the reactionary ruling classes, which now exist and which have existed in the past, as well as the metaphysics which is at their service, do not consider opposites as living, conditioned, mobile, converting into one another, but as dead, frozen; they propagate this false conception everywhere and mislead the popular masses in order to prolong their domination 1.

This is how the capitalist bourgeoisie today, like the feudal class in the past, teaches that its supremacy is eternal; it pursues the Marxist-Leninists who teach, in accordance with dialectical science, the reciprocal transformation of opposites, that is to say the ineluctable victory of the oppressed proletariat over those who exploit it.

It is important, however, not to give a mechanical interpretation of this conversion of opposites. When we say that opposites are transformed into one another, we do not mean by that a simple inversion so that once the passage from one into the other has been made, there would be no nothing changed. The bourgeoisie, the dominant class, becomes the dominated class; the proletariat, a dominated class, becomes a dominant class. But the proletariat is nonetheless a very different class from the bourgeoisie, for the latter is exploitative, while the proletariat, exercising its class dictatorship, does not exploit anyone, but creates the conditions for socialist construction. In other words, the reciprocal transformation of opposites creates a new qualitative state;it constitutes a passage from the lower to the upper, a progress.

In this case, the transformation of opposites leads to their destruction, since socialism liquidates the bourgeoisie as an exploiting class and also the proletariat as an exploited class. New contradictions appear, characteristic of socialist society, but the bourgeoisie-proletariat contradiction has been overcome.

On the other hand, and above all, the unity of opposites (and their reciprocal transformation) only has meaning in relation to the struggle of opposites, which is the essence of this unity. It is therefore not necessary to wish arbitrarily to carry out the reciprocal transformation of opposites, if the conditions for this transformation are not realized. Mao Tsetung does say, in the text quoted above, that the opposites change one into the other "under determined conditions". Determined by what? By the struggle and its concrete characteristics. The unity of opposites, their reciprocal transformation are therefore subordinate to the struggle. A unity breaks up, a qualitatively new unity appears, but all the moments of this process are explained by the struggle.

The unity ... of opposites is conditioned, temporary, transient, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and movement are absolute. (Lenin: Cahiers philosophiques (quoted by Mao Tsetung: "About the contradiction").)

In short, whoever forgot that the unity of opposites is made, maintained and resolved by struggle, would sink into metaphysics.

See: Control questions

IV. The struggle of opposites (II)

Universality of contradiction

The motor of all change, the contradiction is universal. When we speak of "contradiction", idealistic philosophers simply understand "struggle of ideas". For them, contradiction is only conceivable between opposing ideas. They remain in the ordinary sense of the word ("to say the contrary"). But the contradiction between ideas is only one form of the contradiction: it is because the contradiction is an objective reality, present everywhere in the world, that it is also found in the "subject", that it is in humans (which is part of the world).

Any process (natural or social) is explained by the contradiction. And this contradiction exists as long as the process lasts: it exists even though it is not apparent. We saw the example of this in the previous lesson (p. 84) regarding water. In terms of companies,

Mao Tsetung comments on the error of certain theorists, criticized by Soviet philosophers. These theorists,

examining the French Revolution, felt that before the revolution, in the third estate made up of workers, peasants and the bourgeoisie, there were no ... contradictions, just differences. This point of view ... is anti-Marxist. (Mao Tsétoung: “About the contradiction”, p. 786.)

They forget that

in every difference there is already a contradiction, that the difference is a contradiction. As soon as the bourgeoisie and the proletariat appeared, a contradiction arose between labor and capital; it just hadn't gotten worse yet. (Same.)

If indeed the contradiction did not exist from the start of the process, then the process would have to be explained by the mysterious intervention of an external force: however we saw in the previous lesson (III, a) that the external conditions, well than necessary for the process, cannot replace internal contradictions. The internal contradiction is permanent, although more or less developed. This is also why the study of a natural or social process is only possible if its contradiction (s) have developed sufficiently. Thus it was not possible to scientifically study capitalism in 1820, because it had not yet developed its essence: one could only then grasp partial aspects of it, which Marx's predecessors did. Likewise,one can only scientifically study the plant if its growth is quite advanced. Hastily generalizing the knowledge that we have of a process which is only just beginning is a metaphysical attitude, since it is to neglect important aspects of the process.

Once we have clarified the universal character (always and everywhere) of the struggle of opposites, let's see some concrete examples.

In nature

We have, in the previous lesson, exposed the example of water: it is the struggle of opposites which explains its qualitative transformation from liquid state to gaseous state, from liquid state to solid state. In fact, all natural processes involve the struggle of opposites. Already the simplest form of movement (see the third lesson, point III, p. 49), displacement, change of place, is explained by contradiction. Consider a moving vehicle (or a moving man). He can only go from A to B, then from B to C, etc., on condition of constantly "struggling" against the position he occupies. Let this struggle cease, and the march cease. Logicians will say: to affirm B, we must deny A; to affirm C, we must deny B. B comes out of the struggle against A; C comes out of the fight against B ... and so on.

... already the simple mechanical change of place itself can only be accomplished because at one and the same moment, a body is both in one place and in another place, in one and the same place and not in him. And it is in the way that this contradiction has to arise continuously and to resolve itself at the same time, that the movement precisely resides. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 152. Editions Sociales.)

In the physical world, the struggle of opposing forces is universal. A phenomenon as mundane as a rusty fork is the product of a struggle between iron and oxygen.

The fundamental form of movement in nature is the struggle between attraction and repulsion. The unity and the struggle of these two opposites: attraction and repulsion, determine the formation and evolution, the stability, the transformation and the destruction of all material aggregates, whether they are distant galaxies, stars or of the solar system, - solid masses, liquid drops or gaseous clusters, - molecules, atoms or their nucleus.

Let us take the solar system: the movement of the planets around the sun cannot be understood without the struggle of these two opposites: the gravitation which tends to make the planet fall on the sun, the inertia which tends to move it away from the sun.

Let us take a solid body which expands or contracts, a solid which melts and a liquid which solidifies - a liquid which vaporizes and a gas which liquefies: these processes cannot exist without the struggle of two opposites: the forces of molecular cohesion which is attractive and thermal energy which is repellent.

Let us consider the chemical phenomena in which simple bodies combine with one another and compound bodies resolve into simple elements: they all consist in the unity of contrary processes: the bonding and dissociation of atoms; hence the contradictions specific to chemistry: between acid and base, between oxidant and reducing agent, between esterification [We used to say etherification.] and hydrolysis.

Let us consider an atom: we will find there that the relative balance which maintains the electrons around the nucleus results from the struggle of these two opposites: the electrostatic energy which is here attractive, and the kinetic energy which is repulsive. And in the atomic nucleus itself, contemporary science suspects specific forms of attraction and repulsion between proton and neutron.

Everyone knows the two opposite modes of existence of electricity: positive and negative, the two poles - north and south - of the magnet, as well as the phenomena of attraction or repulsion between bodies electrified in a different or identical way, between the different or identical poles of two magnets.

Finally, modern physics has revealed that the particles which constitute all the material aggregates, the electrons of the atom for example, are far from being metaphysically identical to themselves. On the contrary, they are deeply contradictory, having a dual nature, both corpuscular and undulatory, being at the same time comparable to grains and waves. In this way the material character of waves like radio waves is demonstrated, and the old mystery of the nature of light is clarified. [This is why Paul Langevin wrote: “The history of all our sciences is punctuated by similar dialectical processes ... I am aware that I did not fully understand that of physics until the moment I started. learned about the fundamental ideas of dialectical materialism ”. (Thought,n ° 12, p. 12. 1947.)]

As for living nature, it develops according to the law of opposites. We have already noticed in the previous lesson (p. 83) that life is a ceaseless struggle against death. Let us consider a given species, - animal or plant -. Each of the individuals who constitute it succumbs in turn, inexorably. However, the species is perpetuated and multiplied! At the level of the individual, there is victory of death over life; but at the level of the species, it is life that wins. Life being a conquest over the non-living, we can say that the death and decomposition of an individual is a setback, a return from the superior to the inferior, from the new to the old. On the other hand, the general development of the species is a triumph of the new over the old, a progress from the lower to the upper.Life and death are therefore the two aspects of a contradiction which arises and resolves itself indefinitely. Nature is thus transformed, always the same and yet always new. [Readers who would like to make an in-depth study of the struggle of opposites in nature should consult the beautiful work by F. Engels: Dialectique de la Nature, published by Editions Sociales. Note: The dialectical power which manifests itself in nature has struck various great minds since Antiquity (eg the Greek Heraclitus). And we find, later, in Leonardo da Vinci, the presentiment of an analysis of this natural dialectic. Let us judge by this interesting extract: "The body of everything that feeds itself dies unceasingly and is constantly reborn ... But if we replace as much asit is destroyed in a day, it will be reborn as much life as it is spent, in the same way that the light of the candle nourished by the humidity of this candle, thanks to a very rapid influx from the bottom, constantly replenishes that which above, in dying, is destroyed and, in dying, of dazzling light, turns into dark smoke; this death is continuous as this smoke is continuous and the continuity of this smoke is the same as that of food and in an instant the light is entirely dead and entirely born again, with the movement of its food. "]bright light, turns to dark smoke; this death is continuous as this smoke is continuous and the continuity of this smoke is the same as that of food and in an instant the light is entirely dead and entirely born again, with the movement of its food. "]bright light, turns to dark smoke; this death is continuous as this smoke is continuous and the continuity of this smoke is the same as that of food and in an instant the light is entirely dead and entirely born again, with the movement of its food. "]

Mathematics does not escape the law of opposites either, even at the simplest level. In elementary algebra, subtraction (a - b) is an addition (- b + a). Doesn't this unity of opposites seem paradoxical to common sense, which says: “an addition is an addition; a subtraction is a subtraction ”? Common sense is right, but partially: the algebraic operation is itself and its opposite. Mathematical thought cannot escape the laws of the universe, and it progresses only to the extent that it is, like the universe, dialectical. Engels devoted remarkable pages to mathematics, examined from a dialectical point of view. [See Engels: Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature. Ed. Social. (To facilitate the reading of these works, use theexcellent index which follows each of them.)]

In society

All the processes that constitute social reality can also be explained by contradiction. And first of all, the very formation of the company. Human society, as a qualitatively new aspect of reality, is indeed the product of a struggle between nature and our distant ancestors, who were closer to the superior apes than to humans today. The concrete content of this struggle was and remains work, which both transforms nature and transforms people. It is work which, bringing together our ancestors in the struggle for their existence, is at the origin of societies. It is the work that has achieved the qualitative passage from animals to humans. Marx, by discovering the decisive role of work, as a struggle of opposites generating society, made a discovery ofimmense scope; he founded the science of societies, whose general theory is historical materialism. On this contradiction-mother of societies which is work (unity of nature and of man, but unity of opposites) we will read with the greatest profit, in Dialectic of Nature, the magnificent chapter entitled: "The role work in transforming ape into man ”. [Friedrich Engels: Dialectic of Nature, p. 171. Social ed.]"The role of work in the transformation of the monkey into man". [Friedrich Engels: Dialectic of Nature, p. 171. Social ed.]"The role of work in the transformation of the monkey into man". [Friedrich Engels: Dialectic of Nature, p. 171. Social ed.]

But the contradiction does not end there. From the primitive commune to the socialist and communist society, it is the contradiction which is the engine of history, and the lessons devoted to historical materialism will analyze this movement more closely. Fundamental contradiction between the new productive forces and the old production relations. From a certain moment, contradiction between the classes, that is to say the class struggle. The struggle between exploiting classes and exploited classes is an essential aspect of the great law of opposites. And it was in order to be able to deny the role and even the existence of the class struggle that Blum, falsifier of Marxism, rejected dialectical materialism (that is to say in particular the struggle of opposites).

If we take a determined social regime, we find that it is also explained by a fundamental contradiction and secondary contradictions, all of which evolve. There is no capitalism without contradiction between the capitalist bourgeoisie, which owns the means of production, and the proletariat. This capitalism is not static, it is transformed: this is how the capitalism of the first period, competitive capitalism, is transformed in a second period into monopoly capitalism: competition, in effect, ensures the victory of the capitalists. the most powerful, and it is then monopoly capitalism that comes out of competition, but to overtake it. Competition turns into its opposite.

The in-depth analysis of the constitutive contradictions of capitalism can be found in Marx's Capital.

Antagonism and contradiction

A question is frequently asked. “No capitalism without internal contradiction, since it is a regime of exploitation, where the interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are irreducibly opposed. But isn't socialism the end of all contradiction? To which we must answer: "Socialism does not escape the great law of contradiction. As long as there is a society, there are constitutive contradictions of this society ”.

The illusion that the end of capitalism is the end of contradiction stems from a confusion between antagonism and contradiction. But antagonism is only a particular case, a moment of contradiction: all antagonism is contradiction, but all contradiction is not antagonism.

There is certainly a contradiction between an extremely low dose of arsenic and your body; but if the absorbed dose remains very low, the contradiction will not evolve into antagonism. Increase the dose, and it is then the antagonism: the contradiction evolves into violent opposition, fatal for the organism. Likewise within capitalist society, there is always a struggle of opposites which coexist bourgeoisie-proletariat.

But it is only when the development of the contradiction between [these classes] reaches a determined stage that this struggle takes the form of a declared antagonism which, in the process of its development, turns into a revolution. (Mao Tsétoung: "About the contradiction", p. 813.)

Antagonism is only a moment of contradiction: the most acute. The war between imperialist states is the most acute moment of the struggle which constantly opposes them. We must therefore know how to consider the contradiction in all its development. For example, the contradiction between classes stems from the division of labor within the primitive commune; at this stage, there was a difference between social activities (hunting, fishing, herding); but this difference evolved into a struggle when it brought about the birth of classes, a struggle which becomes antagonism in a revolutionary period.

So what happens in the case of socialism? Class antagonism disappears, thanks to the liquidation of the exploiting bourgeoisie. However, for a whole period there were differences between the working class and the peasantry, between town and country, and likewise between manual and intellectual labor. Differences which are not antagonisms, but are so many contradictions to be overcome since man, in a communist society, will be capable of the most diverse activities (which today are shared between different individuals) and since, in particular, the contradiction manual labor-intellectual labor will be resolved into a higher unity. Polytechnic education creates the conditions for this unity, which will make each individual both a practitioner and a scholar.

We can therefore see that the end of the antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat does not mean the end of contradictions. So Lenin wrote, criticizing Bukharin:

Antagonism and contradiction are not at all one and the same thing. The first will disappear, the second will remain under a socialist regime. (Quoted by Mao Tsétoung: Book cited.)

How, indeed, could there be progress without the contradiction, which is the engine of progress? Thus, in The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin explains that the gradual transition from socialism to communism is only possible by solving the contradiction that exists (in socialist society) between two forms of socialist property: collective farm ownership, socialist property of a more or less large group, and national property (eg factories) which is socialist property of the whole community. [See Stalin: “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”, in Latest Writings, p. 156. Ed. Sociales.] However, in a socialist society, contradictions do not evolve into conflicts, antagonisms,because the interests of the members of this society are united and because it is led by a party armed with Marxist science, the science of contradictions: thus the solution of contradictions is carried out without crisis. But these contradictions are no less fruitful, since they allow society to move forward.

Likewise, the general practice of criticism and self-criticism in the lives of Soviet men is one of the purest examples of the development of contradictions without antagonisms. Georges Malenkov declared at the XIXth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union:

In order to advance our cause, we must wage the struggle against negative facts, direct the attention of the Party and all Soviet men to the liquidation of defects in work.

Criticism that is the business of mocking workers, masters of the country.

The broader the criticism from below, the more fully the creative forces and energy of our people will be manifested, and the more powerfully will the feeling that they are masters of the country penetrate the masses. (Malenkov; Activity Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 76.)

Malenkov gives examples of faults to be corrected by such a criticism: waste of raw materials in some companies; wasted time in some collective farms; or even an underestimation of the reality of the capitalist encirclement; or insufficient control of the tasks entrusted to certain organizations or activists.

It is precisely the role of the Communist Party, Malenkov explains, to create the conditions so that all honest Soviet men can boldly and fearlessly criticize the shortcomings in the work of organizations and administrations. Assemblies, activists' meetings, sessions and conferences of all organizations must in fact become a broad forum for bold and vigorous criticism of shortcomings. (Malenkov; Activity Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 76.)

This mass criticism is obviously an aspect of the struggle of opposites, since it makes it possible to eliminate the defects and the survivals which hamper the progress of socialist society; but it is a fraternal criticism because it is the work of men with the same interests.

Within the Party itself, the struggle of ideas is the specific expression of the struggle of opposites. A struggle which allows the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Party to constantly improve its work, but a struggle which does not degenerate into antagonism. If it becomes antagonism, it is because then there is a struggle of the Party against enemies who are in the place and who operate as agents of the bourgeoisie: the struggle of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) against Trotsky, Bukharin or Beria.

The struggle of opposites, the driving force of thought

If the law of contradictions plays such a large role in nature and in society, it is easy to predict that, man being both a natural and a social being, his thought is also subject to the law of opposites. We have already observed the dialectical character of thought in the fourth lesson. It should not surprise us. Materialists, we consider thought to be a moment of universal becoming; the laws of dialectic therefore reign over thought as over the whole of reality. The dialectic of thought is, in its essence, of the same nature as the dialectic of the world; its fundamental law is therefore contradiction. That is why Lenin writes:

Knowledge is the process by which thought infinitely and eternally approaches the object. The reflection of nature in human thought must be understood not in a "dead" way, not "abstractly", not without movement, not WITHOUT CONTRADICTIONS, but in the ETERNAL PROCESS of movement, of the birth of contradictions and their resolution. (Lenin: Philosophical Notebooks.)

It is thus that the qualitative passage from sensation to concept (of which we spoke in the fourth lesson, p. 70) is a movement which takes place by contradiction: sensation in fact reflects a singular, limited aspect of the real; the concept denies this singular aspect in order to affirm the universal ["deny" must be understood not in the sense of annihilating, but in the dialectical sense: to go beyond while relying on ... The (universal) concept goes beyond sensation (limited), but while relying on it.]; it overcomes the limitations of sensation to express the totality of the object. In this sense, the concept is the negation of sensation (for example: the scientific concept of light, as the unit of the wave and the particle, denies the sensation of light, a sensation which reveals to us the presence of light,but don't tell us what it is). But the concept, which is thus developed by the negation of sensation (by the struggle against this lower level of knowledge), acts in return on the sensation. After having denied it, he gives it the means to assert itself with a new force, because we perceive better what we have understood. [This is why culture is said to educate sensitivity.]

Our practice attests that we cannot immediately understand things perceived by our senses and that it is only after being understood that things can be perceived even more deeply by the senses. (Mao Tsétoung: "About practice", Cahiers du communisme, n ° 2, February 1951, p. 243. [Expression underlined by noue, GB-MC])

Thus sensation and concept, concept and sensation constitute a unit of opposites in interaction, each affirming itself against the other, although they are strengthened one by the other (the sensation needing the concept which enlightens it, and the concept needing the sensation which is its fulcrum).

We could consider the various processes specific to thought, we would find there the law of opposites. It is thus that analysis and synthesis, steps absolutely necessary for all thought, and which are considered by the metaphysician as opposed to each other, are certainly opposed, but it is the opposition of two processes inseparable! Analysis and synthesis involve each other. Indeed, to analyze is to find the parts of a whole; but the parts are parts only as parts of a whole, there are no "parts in itself": the whole is therefore present in the parts, synthesis and analysis are therefore defined one by one 'other, although each is the reverse of the other.

Likewise, theory and practice are two opposing forces in dialectical interaction: they permeate and mutually enrich each other.

It is because thought is dialectical that it can understand the dialectic of the world (nature and society). The contradictions of the objective world which sustains and feeds it are reflected in it, and the movement of thought thus created is itself dialectical, like all other aspects of reality.

A thought that ignores contradictions therefore lets the essence of reality escape. The simple definition of the most banal object is already the expression of a contradiction. If I say: "the rose is a flower", I make the rose something other than itself; I put it in the flower class. This is the beginning of dialectical thought, because step by step, from this humble rose, I will find the whole universe (we know that “everything fits together”). A non-dialectical thought will be content to say: "the rose is the rose", which teaches nothing about the nature and the characteristics of the rose.

However, it is sometimes useful to remember that a rose is a rose and not a chariot. Elementary logic, that is to say non-dialectical, which has for principle the principle of identity (a is a, a is not non-a) is not false. It is simply partial, it expresses the immediate, superficial aspect of things. She says: "water is water"; "The bourgeoisie is the bourgeoisie". Dialectical logic, beyond the stable appearance, grasps the internal movement, the contradiction. She discovers that water carries within it contradictions that explain that we can switch from water to hydrogen and oxygen. Likewise, dialectical logic defines the bourgeoisie in opposition to the proletariat, its opposite,and it also defines it in the qualitative diversity of the elements that constitute it (she says: the bourgeoisie is the bourgeoisie, as a class identical to itself, but there is an anti-national bourgeoisie and a national bourgeoisie, which up to a point certain point have conflicting interests).

That said, the logic of identity, known as formal logic or non-contradiction, is necessary although not sufficient. To ignore or flout it is to turn your back on reality. Example: Jules Moch writes in Confrontations:

In the current regime, two classes - capitalism and proletariat - are present.

Absurd phrase. It is quite true that the proletariat is a class; but the antagonistic class of the proletariat is the bourgeoisie, and not capitalism, which is a social regime. The author places in the same category realities which are not of the same order. A class is a class; a social regime is a social regime. To take this for that is to insult the most elementary logic, which wants us to define the terms we use. And this is consequently to insult dialectical logic, which in no way authorizes such a mishmash, but considers identity as an aspect of reality, an aspect which cannot be ignored without falsification. The dialectical contradiction does not oppose anything to anything; for her a cat is first of all a cat,although this is not sufficient to explain what a cat is.

The adventure of Jules Moch is also instructive: it shows that the rejection of dialectics, of the struggle of opposites, leads to the rejection of the most common logic. Because they are at odds, for political reasons, with science, the falsifiers are at odds with common sense.

See: Control questions

IV. The struggle of opposites (III)

The specific nature of the contradiction

The absolute universality of the contradiction should not make us forget the infinite wealth of concrete contradictions. The great law of opposites is the general expression of a fact which, in its reality, takes the most diverse forms. The good dialectician is not satisfied with asserting the universality of the struggle of opposites, as the principle of all movement. It shows how this law is particularized according to the multiple qualitative aspects of reality, how this law is specified.

When dealing with each particular form of movement, we must keep in mind what it has in common with the various other forms of movement. However, it is even more important, and this is what is at the base of our knowledge of things, to consider what each form of movement has that is specific, of its own, that is to say to consider what qualitatively distinguishes it from other forms of movement. Only thus can one distinguish one phenomenon from another. Every form of movement contains its specific contradictions, forming the specific nature of the phenomenon which distinguishes it from other phenomena. Herein lies the internal cause or the basis of the infinite diversity of things and phenomena existing in the world. (Mao Tsétoung: "About the contradiction",Cahiers du communisme, n ° 7-8, August 1952, p. 788.)

In other words, asserting the universality of the struggle of opposites is not enough. Science is the unity of theory and practice, and it is always in a concrete way, with the particularities of life itself, that the universal law of opposites manifests itself. Give an egg the necessary heat and thus ensure that the internal contradiction characteristic of the egg can develop, until the chick hatches. The same amount of heat applied to a liter of water will cause quite different effects, specific to water. Each aspect of reality has its own movement, therefore its own contradictions.

Anything does not turn into anything. Such war turns into such peace; such capitalism, having such peculiarity of development, will give way to a socialist regime having itself such peculiarity: it is in this sense that the old is preserved in the new. Thus, on the one hand, it is wrong to say that a new social system wipes out the past; but on the other hand there is no "synthesis", no possible reconciliation between the old and the new, for the new can only be asserted against the old. The "overcoming" of opposites does not mean their synthesis, but the victory of one over the other, of the new over the old.

It is the specific nature of each stage of material movement that explains the diversity of the sciences, from physics to biology, from biology to the humanities. Each science must detect and understand the specific contradictions of its own subject. It is thus that there are laws particular to electricity; the more general laws of energy (of which electricity is a form) are not sufficient to determine electricity: it is still necessary to carry out the dialectical analysis of the fact "electricity" as such. But it happens that a certain quantity of electricity causes chemical reactions: we then find ourselves in the presence of a new object, with its specific laws. Likewise when we pass from chemistry to biology, from biology to political economy, etc. Certainly,all the moments of reality constitute a unity, but they are nonetheless differentiated and irreducible to each other.

This does not apply only to all sciences. Within the same science, we find the need to study specific contradictions. Example: there are specific movements of the atom; when the physicist passes from the movement of visible bodies (a falling ball) to atomic movements, new laws appear which are the object of wave mechanics.

The dialectic is closely molded on its object in order to understand its movement. It is thus, to give another example, that art is a form of activity irreducible to others, and in particular to science (although art is also a means of knowledge, since it reflects the world) . There are therefore specific contradictions in this domain as elsewhere, and the artist is a dialectician insofar as he resolves them; if he does not solve them, he is not an artist. The great critic Bielinsky wrote:

As filled as it is with beautiful thoughts, as powerfully as it answers the questions of the time, if a poem does not contain poetry, it cannot contain neither beautiful thoughts, nor any questions, and all that one can. to notice it, it is only a fine intention well served. (Bielinsky: Selected Works, vol. III of the Russian edition of 1948.)

While science expresses reality by means of concepts, art expresses it in typical images endowed with great emotional power. Of course, art can only achieve its goal if the artist (poet, painter, musician ...) is capable of dominating his first sensations, of generalizing his impressions; but if the work of art does not know how to find the appropriate images for the artist's idea, it fails.

Lenin's merit was, in particular, to discover, based on the Marxist analysis of capitalism, the specific contradictions of capitalism at the imperialist stage (in particular: the unequal development of the various capitalist countries, hence the frenzied struggle for a new division of the world between the best endowed and the others). He showed that these contradictions made war inevitable and that the revolutionary movement of the world proletariat, supported by the national movement of the enslaved peoples, could under these conditions break the chain of capitalism at its weakest point. Lenin thus knew how to foresee that the socialist revolution would triumph first in one or a few countries.

In The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin, at the same time as he shows the objective character of the laws of the economy, emphasizes one of their specific characteristics: that they are not durable:

One of the special features of political economy is that its laws, unlike the laws of nature, are not durable; that they act, at least most of them, during a certain historical period, after which they give way to other laws. They are not destroyed, but they lose their strength as a result of new economic conditions and leave the scene to give way to new laws which are not created by the will of men, but arise on the basis of new economic conditions. . (Stalin: "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR", Latest Writings, pp. 95 and 96. Ed. Sociales.)

This is how the law of value appeared with commodity production: it is the specific law of commodity production and will disappear with it. The specific law of capitalism is the law of surplus value, because it determines the essential features of capitalist production. But this law cannot suffice to characterize the current stage of capitalism, during which monopoly capitalism has developed all its consequences: it remains too general, and Stalin therefore sets out the specific law of current capitalism, the law of maximum profit. . [Stalin: “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”. Latest writings, p. 128. On the law of maximum profit, see lesson 18, point II b, p. 352.]

Only the careful study of the specific characteristics of a given aspect of reality can keep us from dogmatism, that is, from the mechanical application of a uniform framework to different situations. That is why Lenin recommended that revolutionaries exercise their brains in all circumstances. The true Marxist is not one who, knowing his classics by heart, believes he can solve all problems by means of a few standard solutions, but an analyst capable of putting each problem concretely, without neglecting any of the data necessary for its solution.

To really know an object, it is necessary to embrace it, to study all its aspects, all the relations and "mediations". We will never quite get there, but by making it an obligation to consider objects in all their aspects, we will protect ourselves from errors and sclerosis. (Stalin: Again about the unions.)

The dogmatic is satisfied with generalities. For example, if a slogan is given by the union, it does not concern itself with appropriating it exactly to his company, to each workshop of his company. Likewise, it does not know how to take into account the demands specific to each category of workers.

This schematism always has serious consequences, because it cuts off activists from the mass of workers. This is how to reduce the Resistance to the armed struggle of the Francs-Tireurs and Partisans is to distort it, to neglect its specific character: the Resistance was the patriotic struggle of the French people under the leadership of the working class and of his party, the Communist Party. Whoever ignores this specific character of the Resistance cannot correctly appreciate its various aspects (including this important aspect which was the struggle of the FTP).

Likewise, as Stalin observes in his Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, the world movement for peace has no objective of establishing communism. Its essence, its own law, is the gathering of millions of ordinary people, friends or opponents of communism, for the safeguard of peace; its goal, in France in particular, is not the proletarian revolution, it is the passage from a policy of war to a policy of negotiations. One thing is the "war policy - peace policy" contradiction, another thing is the "capitalism - socialism" contradiction (although imperialist capitalism is responsible for the war policy).

In his study A propos de la contradiction, Mao Tsétoung insisted on the need to resolve “qualitatively different contradictions” by “qualitatively different methods”. He writes:

For example, the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is resolved by the method of socialist revolution. The contradiction between the popular masses and the feudal regime is resolved by the method of democratic revolution. The contradiction between the colonies and imperialism is resolved by the method of national-revolutionary war. The contradiction between the working class and the peasantry in socialist society is resolved by the method of collectivization and mechanization of agriculture. The contradictions within the Communist Party are resolved by the method of criticism and self-criticism. The contradictions between society and nature are resolved by the method of the development of productive forces. The process changes,the old process and the old contradictions are liquidated, a new process and new contradictions are born, and as a result, the methods to be employed to resolve these contradictions also change. The contradictions resolved by the February Revolution and the October Revolution in Russia, as well as the methods employed in these two revolutions to resolve the contradictions were radically different. [The aim of the February 1917 revolution was to overthrow Tsarism. It was a bourgeois democratic revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks applied the appropriate method to this problem: they broke Tsarism by the alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry, by isolating the liberal monarchist bourgeoisie whichstrove to win over the peasantry and liquidate the revolution through an agreement with Tsarism. The objective of the October Revolution of 1917 was to bring down the imperialist bourgeoisie, to get out of the imperialist war, to found the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was a socialist revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks applied the appropriate method to this problem: they broke the imperialist bourgeoisie by the alliance of the proletariat with the poor peasantry, paralyzing the instability of the petty bourgeoisie (Menshevik, Socialist-Revolutionary) which was striving to win the mass of the working peasants and liquidate the revolution through an agreement with imperialism. (See on this subject: Stalin: Principles of Leninism ("Strategy and Tactics".)] Resolving different contradictions by different methods is a principle which Marxist-Leninists must strictly observe. (Mao Tsetung: "About the contradiction", p. 790.)

These remarks have, among other practical consequences, the following, which concern the activity of the Revolutionary Party:

a) The Revolutionary Party, the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Party, can only fulfill its scientific function of leading the movement if each militant strives, as far as he is concerned, to pose and solve the tasks which are properly his; that if each Party organization, each cell, as far as it is concerned, sets out and resolves the tasks which are specifically its own (in its company, its locality, its neighborhood). Each militant is a brain; each cell is a collective which reflects before acting.

b) The Party can fulfill its scientific function of direction only if each militant, each cell, brings it its share of experience, its specific experience, the synthesis being made by the whole of the Party in its regular organizations. That is why the statutes of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union oblige every Communist to always tell his Party the truth. [Statutes of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Point 3. i.] The experience of each militant, each cell is indeed irreplaceable, because who will make known to the Party, for example, the demands of the young people of a village if the country's young communist ignores them?

c) The Party can only fulfill its scientific function of leadership if its members keep the closest contact with the masses of workers, if they are truly the men whom all know and esteem. How, without this permanent contact, could they know the problems specific to each layer of the population and resolve these specific contradictions for a given period?

A party that neglects these demands jeopardizes its future; he loses direction of movement.

Universal and specific are inseparable

We insisted on the need to study the specific character of concrete contradictions. But it is obvious that this study would lose all dialectical character if it made us forget that the specific is not absolute, but relative, that it has no meaning if we separate it from the universal.

An example: we said in the first part of this lesson that there is a specific law of capitalism (the law of surplus value) and a specific law of current capitalism (the law of maximum profit). But this does not suppress the action of a much more general law, the law which has been exercised since the existence of human societies and has subsisted through the various social regimes, as Stalin reminds us in Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, and in The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR: the law of necessary correspondence between the relations of production and the productive forces. (The study of this law will be the subject of lesson 16.)

A good dialectical analysis therefore takes hold of the specific character of such a process, but this is only possible if it does not isolate this process from the overall movement which conditions its existence (see the first feature of the dialectic). The specific takes its value only in relation to the universal. The specific and the universal are inseparable. [We can also notice that the same process is universal or specific depending on the case. The law of surplus value is specific to capitalism, whereas the law of correspondence necessary between productive forces and relations of production is universal (it is valid for slave society, for example, as well as for capitalist society). But the law of surplus value is universal in relation to concrete, specific aspects9 thatit takes at the various stages of capitalism; it thus has a more extensive universality than the law of maximum profit. As for the universal law of correspondence necessary between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces, it is specific to societies.]

Because the particular is linked to the universal, because not only what is particular in the contradiction, but also what is universal are inherent in every phenomenon, the universal exists in the particular. This is why, when we study a given phenomenon, we must discover these two aspects and their mutual relationship, discover what is particular and what is universal, what is inherent in a given phenomenon, and the mutual relationship between them, discover the mutual relationship between a given phenomenon and the many other phenomena which are external to it. In his remarkable work The Principles of Leninism, at the same time as he explains the historical roots of Leninism, Stalin analyzes the contradictions of capitalism which reached their extreme limit under imperialism,he shows how these contradictions made the proletarian revolution a matter of immediate practice and how they created the conditions favorable to the direct assault on capitalism; moreover, he analyzes the causes for which Russia became the center of Leninism, why Tsarist Russia was then the nodal point of all the contradictions of imperialism and why it is precisely the Russian proletariat that could become the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat.why Tsarist Russia was then the nodal point of all the contradictions of imperialism and why it is precisely the Russian proletariat which was able to become the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat.why Tsarist Russia was then the nodal point of all the contradictions of imperialism and why it is precisely the Russian proletariat which was able to become the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat.

Thus, after having analyzed what is general in the contradictions peculiar to imperialism, Stalin showed that Leninism is the Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution; after having analyzed what is specific in these general contradictions, what was peculiar to the imperialism of Czarist Russia, he explained why it is precisely Russia which has become the homeland of the theory and the tactics of the revolution proletarian and that, moreover, this specific contained in itself what has been the general in the given contradictions. This Stalinist analysis is for us a model of knowledge of the specific and the general in the contradictions and the mutual relationship between one and the other. (Mao Tsétoung: "About the contradiction", p. 798.)

The metaphysician does not know how to maintain this unity of the specific and the universal. It sacrifices the specific to the universal (which is what the abstract rationalism of Plato, for example, for whom concrete experience is contemptible), or else it sacrifices the universal to the specific (this is then empiricism). , which refuses any general idea and condemns itself to limited practicalism). The Marxist theory of knowledge considers such an attitude as anti-dialectic, one-sided. Knowledge, in fact, starts from the sensible, which is narrowly circumscribed and reflects a specific situation; but, through practice, it gains access to the universal, to return to the sensible with a new force. The physicist, for example, has at the outset only a limited number of experimental facts; leaning on them,he accedes to the law, the discovery of which allows him to profoundly transform reality through new experiences. The two stages of knowledge are inseparable: it goes from the specific to the general and from the general to the specific, a movement that never stops. Lenin compared this process to a spiral movement: we start from the immediate, sensitive experience (for example the purchase of a commodity), we analyze the operation to discover the law of value, from there we return to the concrete experience (spiral movement); but, armed with the law of value, we understand this experience, the deep meaning of which escaped us at first: we can therefore foresee the development of the process, create conditions suitable for limiting or extending it, etc., etc ..We cannot reach the universal if we do not start from the specific; but in return, the intelligence of the universal makes it possible to deepen the specific. The spiral movement is therefore not a sterile back and forth, it is a deepening of reality. It was by studying the specific contradictions of the capitalism of his time that Marx discovered the universal law of correspondence between relations of production and productive forces. In this way, it made it possible to understand the specific contradictions of social regimes prior to capitalism, insofar as these contradictions come under the universal law of correspondence; and it also made possible an ever more in-depth, ever more specific study of capitalism itself, in its subsequent movement (monopoly capitalism, imperialism).

The artist is great insofar as, striving to achieve the typical (see point I of this lesson), he knows how to express the universal in the singular. All the distress of Paris occupied by the Nazis, Eluard expresses it in two lines, through a daily "little fact": Paris is cold, Paris is hungry Paris no longer eats chestnuts in the street. (Extract from "Courage" (1942), in Au rendez-vous german.)

In the lives of the most successful characters of Balzac and Tolstoy, the essential features of the society of their time are reflected. The novel by G. Nikolayeva: The Harvest, remarkably links the personal and family history of its heroes to the history of a collective farm and of Soviet society: the personal contradictions from which the heroes of the book suffered are resolved in the movement itself. by which the larger contradictions which held back the impetus of the collective farm are resolved; and it is by struggling to ensure in the collective farm the victory of the future over the past that Vassili and Avdotia assure in themselves the victory of the future over the past.

Isn't it this deep unity of the universal and the singular that characterizes the heroes loved by peoples? In June 1917, the soldiers of a regiment wrote to Lenin:

Comrade and friend Lenin, remember that we, the soldiers of this regiment, are all ready as one man to follow you everywhere because your ideas are truly the expression of the will of the peasants and workers. In Stalin are embodied the purest features of Soviet man.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg aroused the love of ordinary people around the world, because the magnitude of the sacrifices they made (their young life, their children, their happiness) was the most overwhelming expression of the invincible love. that men bring to peace.

Main contradiction, secondary contradictions

Having become aware of the strength of the link which unites the specific to the universal, we will see more clearly the relationship between main contradiction and secondary contradictions. Indeed, a given process is never simple, precisely because it owes its specific existence to a large number of objective conditions, which link it to the whole. As a result, any process is the seat of a series of contradictions. But among these contradictions, one is the main contradiction, that which exists from the beginning to the end of the process and whose existence and development determine the nature and progress of the process. The others are secondary contradictions, subordinate to the main contradiction.

What, for example, is the main contradiction of capitalist society? Obviously, the contradiction between proletariat and bourgeoisie. As long as capitalism subsists, this contradiction subsists; and it is this which in the last analysis decides the fate of capitalism, since the victory of the proletariat spells the death of capitalism. But capitalist society, seen in its historical process, includes other contradictions, secondary to the main one. For example: contradiction between the reigning bourgeoisie and the remnants of defeated feudalism; contradiction between the working peasantry (small landowners, sharecroppers, day laborers ...) and the bourgeoisie; contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie; contradiction between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the non-monopoly bourgeoisie, etc.All contradictions that appear and develop in the very history of capitalism. And as this development takes place on a world scale, we must also consider the contradiction between the various capitalist countries, the contradiction between the imperialist bourgeoisie and the colonized peoples.

All these contradictions are not juxtaposed. They become entangled and, according to the first law of dialectics, they are in reciprocal action. And what is the effect of this interaction? This: under certain conditions, a secondary contradiction assumes such importance that it becomes, for a given period, the main contradiction, while the main contradiction takes a back seat (which does not mean that its action ceases). In short, the contradictions are not fixed, they change place.

This is how the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in the colonial countries, although it is in the last analysis decisive since it will be resolved by the victory of socialism in these countries, passes however, for a time, to the second plan. What comes to the fore is the contradiction between colonizing imperialism and the colonized nation (working class, peasantry, national bourgeoisie uniting in a national front in the struggle for independence). This in no way suppresses the class struggles within the colonial country. (All the more so since a fraction of the bourgeoisie of the colonial country is complicit in colonizing imperialism.) But the contradiction to be resolved as a matter of urgency is that posed by theimperialism and that resolves the national struggle for independence. In his Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Stalin brilliantly sheds light on the problem of shifting contradictions about the German question, which is of the utmost importance to our people. [Capital text: Stalin; "The economic problems of socialism in the USSR". Latest writings, p. 122 to 126.]

He first recalls that capitalism has specific internal contradictions, objective contradictions that will last as long as it does. Contradictions which push the bourgeoisie to seek in imperialist war a solution to its difficulties. As a result, inevitably (ie necessarily) the various capitalist countries are bitter rivals. It is an illusion to believe that the supremacy of American capitalism over other capitalist countries puts an end to the contradictions that are inherent in capitalism as such. No Atlantic Pact, no aggressive alliance against the USSR has the power to extinguish these contradictions. Stalin shows how the English bourgeoisie and the French bourgeoisie cannot indefinitely endure the stranglehold of American capitalism on theeconomy of their respective country. It is the same in the defeated countries, Germany and Japan.

Everyone can verify today how right Stalin was. The contradictions between capitalist countries (in particular between the United States and Great Britain) have considerably worsened since the time when Stalin expressed his appreciation (February 1952), to the point that a whole part of the English and French bourgeoisie prefers the understanding. with the USSR as its own liquidation in an anti-Soviet war under American command.

Thus can we understand the scope of the Stalinist appreciation:

It is said that the contradictions between capitalism and socialism are stronger than those existing between capitalist countries. Theoretically, that's right, of course. This is not only fair today, it was also fair before World War II. This is what the leaders of the capitalist countries understood more or less. And yet the Second World War did not begin with the war against the USSR, but with a war between capitalist countries. Why ? Because, first of all, the war against the USSR, the country of socialism, is more dangerous for capitalism than the war between capitalist countries. Because if the war between capitalist countries only poses the problem of the predominance of such capitalist countries over such others, the war against the USSRmust necessarily pose the question of the very existence of capitalism. Because, secondly, although the capitalists, for the purposes of "propaganda", make noise about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union, they do not believe in it themselves, since they take into account the policy of the Soviet Union. peace of the Soviet Union and know that the USSR will not attack the capitalist countries on its own. (Stalin: "The economic problems of socialism in the USSR" Latest writings, p. 124.)Soviet Union and know that the USSR will not attack the capitalist countries on its own. (Stalin: "The economic problems of socialism in the USSR" Latest writings, p. 124.)Soviet Union and know that the USSR will not attack the capitalist countries on its own. (Stalin: "The economic problems of socialism in the USSR" Latest writings, p. 124.)

And Stalin recalls the events after the First World War. Whatever the common hostility of the capitalist countries towards the socialist country, yet imperialist Germany (restored by the English and French bourgeoisies, who dreamed of launching the Hitler hordes on the Soviet Union!) Led its first blows ... against the Anglo-Franco-American capitalist bloc.

And when Hitler's Germany declared war on the Soviet Union, the Anglo-Franco-American bloc, far from rallying to Hitler's Germany, was forced, on the contrary, to unite with the USSR against the Soviet Union. Hitler Germany. (Id., P. 125.)

Conclusion:

The struggle of the capitalist countries for the possession of the markets and the desire to sink their competitors have practically proved to be stronger than the contradictions between the camp of capitalism and that of socialism. (Id., P. 125, [Expression underlined by us. GB- MC])

This displacement of contradictions - a secondary contradiction becoming, for a time, the main contradiction - must be considered in all its practical consequences. In this case, we point out two:

a) The rearmament of the Wehrmacht, supervised by the criminal war generals, with the complicity of the French bourgeoisie, proposes aggression against the Soviet Union. But just as in 1940 Hitler seized Paris before marching on Moscow, so it should be noted that the assassins of Oradour are prepared to occupy and sack our country, once again, in an attempt to solve their own economic difficulties. The policy of Adenauer, protector and accomplice of the Nazis, is not in doubt in this regard. And this is how Eisenhower should be understood when he declares:

It is in our interests, and it is our job, to do things in such a way that the German army can attack in any direction that we Americans deem necessary.

A France weakened by the bloodletting of Indochina and plundered by American imperialism, here is for the German bourgeoisie (put back in the saddle with the help of the French bourgeoisie!) A prey much easier to eat than the powerful Soviet Union.

6) The contradictions between capitalist countries take on such importance that it becomes more and more difficult for American imperialism to impose its law in this jungle: the delay in ratifying the Bonn agreements and the Treaty of Paris, despite American pressure, is just one example among many. Soviet diplomacy, because it perfectly masters the dialectic of opposites, makes the most of the contradictions between capitalists (this is how the USSR develops its trade with capitalist England). The peaceful coexistence between different regimes will thus be the product of a struggle in which the internal contradictions of capitalism, although secondary to the contradiction between capitalism and socialism, will play an important role.

So we see how necessary it is, when we study a process, to follow it in all its development and not to stick to a momentary view. Such a secondary contradiction which arises today will in fact be the main contradiction tomorrow.

This method of analysis applied to France today reveals a very complex set of contradictions: contradiction between proletariat and bourgeoisie; contradiction between petty bourgeoisie (of towns and countryside) and bourgeoisie; contradiction between rival fractions of the bourgeoisie, etc. But there is also, on the external level, a contradiction between French imperialism and the colonized peoples it exploits; contradiction between French imperialism and other imperialisms (mainly US imperialism and resurgent German imperialism), etc. And there is, of course, a contradiction between French capitalism and socialism. Can we put all these contradictions on the same level? No.If we consider contemporary French society as a whole, we discover that the main contradiction is the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a struggle which, since the triumph of the bourgeois revolution [Under the Old Feudal Regime, the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie already existed, but it represented only a secondary contradiction.], runs through the history of France like a common thread, and the outcome of which will decide the future of the country by ensuring victory. of socialism. But the capitalist bourgeoisie, in order to survive, appealed for the protection of US imperialism. It thus betrays the interests of the nation. Its class policy therefore opposes it not only to the revolutionary proletariat, but to other classes,including that fraction of the bourgeoisie which does not benefit from Yankee domination. Consequence: born of the main contradiction indicated above, a secondary contradiction develops (American imperialism and anti-national bourgeoisie on the one hand against the French nation led by the working class on the other hand). This secondary contradiction has taken on such importance that it becomes for a time the main contradiction. The current task of the French Communists, the vanguard of the working class and of the nation, is to resolve this contradiction by raising and carrying forward, at the head of an irresistible united national front, the flag of the national independence trampled by the bankrupt bourgeoisie. [See Stalin's speech at the XIX Congress of the Communist Party of theSoviet Union.]

It is clear that a theoretically poorly armed revolutionary party could not understand and foresee the reciprocal movement of contradictions. He would be in the wake of events.

Main and secondary aspects of the contradiction

To study the specific character of the moving contradictions is not only to differentiate each time the main contradiction from the secondary contradictions, it is also to bring out the relative importance of the two aspects of each contradiction.

Any contradiction, in fact, necessarily involves two aspects, the opposition of which characterizes the process envisaged. However, these two aspects - or, if you will, these two poles - are not to be put on the same level. Let be a contradiction (A against B, B against A). If A and B were two rigorously and constantly equivalent forces, nothing would happen; the two forces balancing each other indefinitely, all movement would stop. So there is always one force that outweighs the other, even if very slightly, and this is how the contradiction develops. We call the main aspect of the contradiction that which, at a given moment, plays the main role, that is to say, determines the movement of opposites present. The other aspect is the secondary aspect.

But, just as the main contradiction and the secondary contradictions can change place - such a secondary contradiction passing to the foreground - so the reciprocal situation of the main aspect and the secondary aspect of a contradiction is shifting. Under certain conditions, the main aspect changes to a secondary aspect, the secondary aspect to the main aspect.

Water, which we spoke about in the fourth lesson, is the seat of a contradiction between the force of cohesion, which tends to bring the molecules together, and the force of dispersion, which tends to move them apart. In the solid state, the main aspect of the contradiction is the force of cohesion, in the gaseous state, the main aspect is the force of dispersion. As for the liquid state, it is a state of unstable equilibrium between the two forces.

In France, under the Ancien Régime, the main aspect of the contradiction between feudalism and capitalism was the “feudalism” aspect. But the capitalist bourgeoisie has developed in its struggle against the old relations of production in such a way that it has imposed the supremacy of new, capitalist relations. These, a secondary aspect of the contradiction, have thus become the main aspect.

Very important remark: we see that there is a qualitative change (see fourth lesson) when the respective position of the two aspects of the contradiction changes radically, the principal becoming secondary, the secondary principal. At the same time there is the dismemberment of the old unity of opposites and the appearance of a new unity of opposites.

Determining each time the main aspect is essential since it is this aspect which determines the movement of the contradiction. The main aspect of the main contradiction is the decisive point of application of dialectical analysis. This does not mean that the secondary aspect is of no interest. Consider the struggle between the old and the new: at its birth, the new is still very weak, it is only the secondary aspect of the contradiction. But because he is the new one, he has the future for him; it will become the main aspect, and its victory will bring about a qualitative change.

Studying historical materialism, we will see how production develops on the basis of a fundamental contradiction, between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces - and how the main aspect of this contradiction is sometimes the productive forces. sometimes the relations of production (see lesson 16).

Another example: social practice and revolutionary theory constitute a unity of opposites, each acting on the other. The determining aspect, if one considers the process over a long period, is the practice: Marxism would not have been constituted and would not have progressed without the objective struggles of the proletariat. But at times, the secondary aspect becomes main, the theory takes on a decisive importance. Thus in 1917, if the Bolshevik Party had not made a correct theoretical assessment of the objective situation, it would not have been able to launch the slogans appropriate to this situation, it would not have been able to mobilize masses and organize them for the victorious assault. The future of the revolutionary movement in Russia would have been compromised for a long time.Not only then is the theoretical aspect not negligible but, under certain conditions, it becomes the main aspect, that is to say determining.

When we say with Lenin: "Without revolutionary theory, no revolutionary movement", the creation and the diffusion of revolutionary theory then begin to play the main, decisive role. When anything has to be done and there is no specific direction, method, plan or guidelines, the development of the direction, method, plan or guidelines becomes then essential, decisive. (Mao Tsetung. "On the Contradiction," p. 805.)

Objective factor, subjective factor are in interaction, and it is necessary at each moment to evaluate as closely as possible their relative importance.

Do these theses sin against materialism? No, they don't sin. For we recognize that in the general course of historical development the material principle determines the spiritual principle, the social being determines social consciousness, but at the same time we recognize and must recognize the return action of the spiritual principle on the principle material, the action in return of social consciousness on the social being ... (Idem, p. 805.)

And Mao Tsetung points out that this is to ensure the definitive superiority of dialectical materialism over mechanistic materialism (which is metaphysical since, for him, the main element remains main and the secondary element remains secondary, whatever the circumstances). .

General conclusion on contradiction – marxism versus proudhonism

Dialectics proper is the study of the contradiction in the very essence of things. (Lenin: Cahiers philosophiques.) Lenin insists on the major importance of this fourth law, which he considers to be the core of the dialectic. The inability to understand this law strikes socialism to the heart. The most notable example is Proudhon. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx classifies Proudhon in the category of conservative or bourgeois socialism: The bourgeois socialists want the conditions of modern society without the struggles and dangers that inevitably follow. They want the current society but purged of the elements that revolutionize and dissolve it. They want the bourgeoisie without the proletariat. (K. Marx-F. Engels: Manifesto of the Communist Party, p. 56-57. Social Editions, Paris, 1951.)

Proudhon indeed considers the unity of opposites as the unity of a good side and a bad one. He wants to eliminate the bad side by keeping the good. This is to deny the internal character of the contradiction: the bourgeoisie-proletariat contradiction is truly constitutive of capitalist society, and capitalist exploitation can only disappear with this contradiction. The reconciliation of fundamentally opposed class interests is utopian.

Marx characterizes Proudhon as follows:

He wants to hover like a man of science above the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; he is only the petit bourgeois constantly tossed between capital and work ... (Marx: Misère de la Philosophie, p. 101. Editions Sociales, Paris.)

This misunderstanding of the dialectic leads Proudhon to reformism, to the negation, a hundred times repeated, of revolutionary action, that is to say of the class struggle. It is therefore not surprising that he wrote to the Emperor Napoleon III (letter of May 18, 1850):

I preached the reconciliation of classes, symbol of the synthesis of doctrines.

or that he wrote in his notebook in 1847:

Try to get along with Le Moniteur Industriel, the masters 'journal, while Le Peuple will be the workers' journal,

to declare, after the coup d'etat of Badinguet:

Louis-Napoleon is, like his uncle, a revolutionary dictator; but with this difference that the First Consul came to close the first phase of the Revolution, while the President opens the second.

Socialist leaders, like Blum (the author of A Human Scale), like Jules Moch (in Confrontations, which we spoke about in a previous lesson) are working to reinstate Proudhonism, under the pretext of respecting "the universal laws of balance and stability ”. Thus they justify surrender to the bourgeoisie. Thus they behave, to use Blum's expression, as "loyal managers of capitalism". To capitulate, to deliver the proletariat to the bourgeoisie, this is the real meaning of their so-called "struggle on two fronts", of their so-called "third force". Social democracy is opportunism across the board; the proletariat must fight it mercilessly if it wants to defeat the class enemy.

The scientific socialism of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is the only revolutionary because it brings to the fore the struggle of opposites, as the fundamental law of reality. Thus he leads a merciless and constant fight against the "opposite" of the revolutionary proletariat, the reactionary bourgeoisie and against the leaders of the social democracy who are working, denying the dialectic, to hide the contradictions, for to demobilize the proletariat in the midst of combat.

The example of the militant dialectician who knows the innovative virtue of the struggle of opposites is, in France, Maurice Thorez. Evoking his “apprenticeship” as a revolutionary leader, he writes in Fils du peuple:

A central thought of Marx impressed itself in my mind: the dialectical movement carries the revolution and the counter-revolution in a ceaseless fight; the revolution makes the counter-revolution ever more bitter, ever more enterprising; in its turn, the counter-revolution advances the revolution and obliges it to create a truly revolutionary Party. (Maurice Thorez: Fils du Peuple, p. 65.)

But the dialectic does not only allow us to understand and push to the limit the main contradiction that constitutes the class struggle (proletariat against bourgeoisie), a struggle which will engender socialism. It gives the proletariat the means of recognizing the immense forces whose alliance it can conquer against the bourgeoisie. The very development of the reactionary policy of the bourgeoisie arouses growing opposition from the working peasantry, the middle classes, intellectuals, etc. As many contradictions that the dialectic brings to light, as Maurice Thorez, theorist of the Popular Front against the reactionary bourgeoisie and of the National Front for the independence of the country, knows how to do.

All the contradictions do not appear at first glance, and this is why the dialectician always goes from appearance to reality and avoids impatience which slows down the movement by wanting to accelerate it. Such a small employee votes RPF, reads L'Aurore, "eats communism" ... Is he a reactionary? To reason thus is not to reach the heart under the bark. If this employee votes RPF and reads L'Aurore, it is because he is dissatisfied and believes he finds allies to the RPF and L'Aurore. His behavior is therefore the subjective reflection of the objective contradictions of which he is a victim. The task of the militant who masters the theory is to help this discontented petty bourgeois to see clearly in himself,to become aware of the objective contradictions which are inherent in capitalism and of which it is a victim, to realize that the solution of these contradictions can only come from the struggle waged by the proletariat in alliance with all the workers, and not from the RPF and L'Aurore who fiercely defend the freedom of the big capitalists in the name of "the freedom of the little ones".

A note: The necessary search for contradictions has nothing to do with the confusion of ideas. We must not mix everything under the pretext of seeking the unity of opposites. A thought which contradicts itself is not a dialectical thought. Why ? Because a dialectical thought understands contradiction, whereas a thought which contradicts itself is its victim: it is a confused thought.

Example: some bourgeois and social democratic leaders have said for years: "We want to negotiate in Vietnam and make peace, but we do not want to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh". Antidialectical reasoning because it turned its back on reality: indeed, to make peace is to negotiate with the adversary, and the adversary of the colonialist bourgeoisie in Vietnam is Ho-Chi-Minh and no one other.

The reasoning is therefore false. If, however, we ask ourselves why, we discover that this reasoning is false because it reflects an objective contradiction, of which those who speak thus are victims: contradiction between the interests of the colonialists, who want to continue the war, and the interests of the people, who wants peace (which forces the colonialists to speak of peace). False and confused reasoning can therefore translate a perfectly objective and dialectical reality. Dialectical analysis goes from false reasoning to the reality that it conceals or ignores.

See: Control questions

Study of marxist philosophical materialism

What is the materialist conception of the world?

The dialectics that we have just studied does not make sense if we separate it from the real world - nature and society -, as all the examples we have presented have shown. From our first lesson on dialectics, we said that dialectics is in reality itself; it is not the mind that introduces it. If human thought is dialectical, it is because reality is before it. [A "dialectical" reasoning which does not reflect the contradictions which are in the things themselves is only a trap, a "sophism". The enemies of Marxism try to confuse “dialectics” and “sophistry.”] Dialectics comes from the real world. This is why in marxist-leninist theory, if the method is dialectical, the conception of the world is materialist. VS'is this "conception of the world" that we will now expose.

The two meanings of materialism

We must first beware of serious confusion. Marxist philosophy is materialist. This has earned it, since its inception, the countless attacks and calumnies of the class opponents of Marxism. The same attacks, the same calumnies were, moreover, directed from Antiquity against materialism in general. They all consist essentially of a gross falsification of the meaning of the word "materialism", the exact philosophical meaning of which is concealed in order to attach to it a "moral" meaning likely to discredit it.

So "materialism" would be immorality, the unbridled desire for enjoyment, the limitation of man's horizon to material needs only. Slander is not new. It was already used in the past by the Church against the philosophical school of Epicurus which affirmed the right to happiness and the need to satisfy the essential needs of human nature for this happiness to be achieved. The clerical and later academic tradition knowingly distorted Epicurean philosophy for centuries. Thus the materialists would be the "pigs of Epicurus' herd".

In truth, if we want to retain only this meaning of the word, we can apply it more precisely not to Gabriel Péri, to Georges Politzer, to Pierre Timbaud, or to Beloyannis, not to the revolutionary proletariat, but to the bourgeoisie itself, to the class of exploiters, which makes its opulence and its pleasures with the misery of the exploited.

Engels masterfully turned against its authors the impudent slander:

The point is that [...] one makes here, though perhaps unconsciously, an unforgivable concession to the Philistine prejudice against the word materialism which has its origin in the old calumny of priests. By materialism, the Philistine understands gluttony, drunkenness, the pleasures of the senses, the sumptuous lifestyle, lust, avarice, greed, the hunt for profits and speculation on the Stock Exchange, in short all sordid vices to which he devotes himself in secret. (Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, p. 23; Philosophical Studies, p. 34.)

The proper meaning, the exact meaning of the word materialism, is the philosophical meaning. In this sense, materialism is a conception of the world, that is to say a certain way of understanding and interpreting, starting from defined principles, the phenomena of nature, and consequently also those of social life. This "conception of the world" applies in all circumstances, it is the basis of the various sciences. It therefore forms a general explanation of the universe giving a solid basis to scientific work of all kinds, in short what is called a theory.

To determine in general what is the basis of materialist theory is the object of this lesson.

Matter and spirit

We must first clarify what is meant by "matter", from which the word "materialism" is taken. The world, that is to say nature and society, presents phenomena that are infinitely numerous, infinitely varied, and which include multiple aspects. However, among all the distinctions that can be made between the various aspects of phenomena, there is one more important than all the others and which can be grasped without prior scientific studies.

Everyone knows that there are things in reality that we can see, touch, measure and that we call material. On the other hand, there are things that we cannot see, touch or measure, but which nevertheless exist, such as our ideas, feelings, desires, memories, etc .: to express what 'they are not material, they are said to be ideal. We thus divide everything that exists in two areas: material or ideal. We can also say, in a more dialectical way, that the real presents a material aspect and an ideal aspect. Everyone understands the difference between the sculptor's idea of ​​the statue he is going to model and the statue itself once completed. Everyone also understands that another person will not be able to have theidea of ​​the statue until she sees it with her own eyes. However, ideas can be transmitted by means of language: thus this person can have an idea of ​​the statue if the sculptor has explained to him what he wants to do, for example a bust of Henri Martin. Thus the material world is in a way doubled by an ideal world which represents it to us, and which we moreover call our "representations".

In the field of social life, too, it is not allowed to confuse the material aspect with the ideal aspect. Thus the socialist mode of production, the social ownership of the means of production, is unquestionably a reality in the Soviet Union. However, the idea that a worker deceived by the SFIO leaders has of it is not the same as that of the communist militant who knows the principle. Here again there is therefore reality on the one hand, and the “representations” that we have of it on the other.

This fundamental distinction has obviously not escaped the notice of any of the men who, at a certain stage in the development of societies, tried to establish, long before the birth of sciences worthy of the name and by the sole forces of their thought, a coherent picture of the universe. This is why we were led to lay down another principle alongside matter: spirit. This word generally designates the whole domain of non-material things, that is to say, in addition to the phenomena of our thought, the products of our imagination, imaginary beings, such as those who inhabit our dreams. Thus was formed the belief in spirits, the belief in the existence of a world of spirits, and finally the idea of ​​a superior spirit, which religions call God.

We therefore understand that the distinction between matter and spirit is of immense importance. You have to know how to find it in all the forms in which it occurs. For example, we find it in the distinction that religions make between the soul and the body. Sometimes, instead of using the expressions "matter" and "spirit", we speak of "being" and "thought", or else we oppose "nature" and "consciousness" ..., but it's always the same distinction.

The fundamental problem of philosophy

The preceding analysis is in no way overtaken by the modern development of the sciences. The distinction between the material aspect and the ideal aspect of reality is on the contrary necessary for the good philosophical training of any man of science: he must know how to distinguish between matter and the idea he has of matter. , just as the militant must know how to distinguish between his desires and what is really possible.

Moreover, the philosophers themselves did not see clearly at the first attempt that these two fundamental principles are the most general notions of philosophy. Little by little, during the development of human knowledge, they became aware of it. It is a merit of the great French philosopher Descartes (1596-1650) to have clearly identified them. However, even today, more than one philosopher of the bourgeois university fails to conceive in all its grandeur and simplicity this fundamental distinction and the consequences it entails. He thus lags behind the militant worker trained in the school of Marxism.

Once we have seen clearly that the world as a whole is explained in the last analysis by two principles and only two, we inevitably find ourselves in the presence of the fundamental problem of philosophy. It can therefore be said that most of the “philosophers” of the bourgeois university have not even clearly addressed the fundamental problem of philosophy. They even refuse to take it into consideration, they forbid that one clearly asks them this question.

However, it must be noted that the whole history of philosophy is only a long debate around this fundamental problem which, formulated in various ways, always comes down to this: if it is true that there is, finally, two principles, and only two, to explain the world, which of these two principles explains the other? which one is more fundamental than the other? which is prime, which derivative? which is eternal and infinite, and therefore produces the other?

This is the fundamental question of philosophy.

Such a question has, however it is returned, only two possible answers.

Either matter (being, nature) is eternal, infinite, primary - and spirit (thought, consciousness) is derived from it.

Or the mind (thought, consciousness) is eternal, infinite, primary - and matter (being, nature) is derived from it.

It is the first answer which constitutes the basis of philosophical materialism.

As for the second, it is found in one way or another in all the doctrines which come under philosophical idealism.

These two philosophical attitudes - the only ones which are coherent - are diametrically opposed.

The two meanings of the word "idealism".

Before going any further, we must beware of a trap set by the enemies of materialism, who knowingly substitute for the philosophical meaning of the word "idealism" a "moral" meaning.

In the moral sense, an ideal is a lofty, noble, generous goal as opposed to selfish, narrow perspectives, baseness, etc. And we sometimes misuse the word "idealist" to designate the man who devotes himself to a cause, who sacrifices himself to an idea, achievable or not. The enemies of materialism would like to persuade the good people that, because they explain the world by the existence of a spirit prior to matter, they are the only ones capable, in practice, of devoting themselves to an idea! the only ones capable of having an ideal! A fine example of fallacy.

The reality is quite different. Philosophical idealism, far from being the only one able to inspire martyrs, is commonly used as a cover for the most criminal acts. The calumny according to which the triumph of the revolutionary proletariat would be the triumph of the "spirit of enjoyment" over "the spirit of sacrifice" was in the mouths of the traitor Pétain, as in that of the assassins of Oradour who claimed to fight "barbarism. Bolshevik ”.

As for the materialists, they in no way deny, as we have said, the existence of ideas and we will see the primordial role that they recognize in them. In practice, it is clear that there is a workers' ideal. The revolutionary proletarians have an ideal, the most beautiful ideal that men can propose to themselves: communism, the liberation and the development of all men. This ideal, the highest and most difficult there is, is also the most disinterested since the hope of personal “salvation” in the hereafter has nothing to do with it.

This does not in any way mean that these revolutionaries are "idealists" or "Christians who ignore each other", as those who absolutely want one to be idealist as soon as one widens one's horizon beyond reality. hideous capitalist reality. Neither does this mean that it is a dream, which we always talk about without ever doing anything to make it come true. This does not at all mean that it is an alibi, as when Truman or Eisenhower invoke God and Christian civilization to justify the imperialist massacres in Korea. The revolutionary proletarians have an ideal which they intend to realize and this realization is based on a materialist conception of the world which preserves it as well from utopia as from hypocrisy.

Engels has definitely pilloried the “idealist” bourgeoisie for whom big words about the ideal are only the fig leaf with which it tries to cover the exploitation it imposes on workers:

... by idealism, [the philistine] means faith in virtue, in humanity, and, in general, in a "better world", which he displays before others, but in which he himself does not believe that as long as it is a question of going through the period of unease or crisis which necessarily follows his customary "materialist" excesses, and that he will also repeat his favorite refrain: "What is man? Half beast, half angel! ". (Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 21; Philosophical Studies, p. 34.)

Materialism and idealism are opposed in practice as well as in theory

We can now return to the two answers given to the fundamental question of philosophy.

It is clear that these two answers are absolutely mutually exclusive, and that there can only be one that is right. Why did people fail to recognize the right answer the first time? we will see it later in connection with the origins of idealism.

Let it suffice for us to see for the moment that, since idealism and materialism are absolutely mutually exclusive, and there can be only one correct answer, we are in the presence of a contradiction. Idealism and materialism form a unit, are indissolubly linked as are two opposites. Each progress of one is a retreat of the other. Every advance of materialism is a blow to idealism. And conversely, each abandonment of materialism is an advance of idealism. This unity of opposites therefore means that the struggle between idealism and materialism is inevitable, that there can be no synthesis, no reconciliation between idealism and materialism. (See lesson five, iii, c, and lesson seven: General Concl.) This is important because some idealistic philosophers, seeking to falsify Marxism, claim that dialectical materialism is a synthesis, a going beyond the opposition between materialism and idealism. Such a "synthesis" can in reality only be a disguise of the idealistic commodity.

It is true that Marx wrote that dialectical materialism made the old opposition between materialism and idealism obsolete. By this he meant that dialectical materialism makes it possible to conclude the millennial debate for the benefit of materialism precisely because it is fully developed materialism, because it inflicts an irremediable defeat on idealism.

It is therefore by the struggle against idealism and not by "conciliation", "synthesis" that the contradiction can be resolved, as we have seen by studying dialectics.

However, this theoretical struggle has immense practical importance. The two opposing conceptions of the world indeed command opposing practical attitudes.

When lightning threatens to fall, there are two ways to try to ward it off. Use a lightning rod, or burn a candle while imploring Heaven. The first method starts from the idea that lightning is a material phenomenon, having determined material causes, and whose effects are avoidable by the means that scientific knowledge and technology give us. The second method starts from the idea that lightning is above all a sign of divine anger and power, having a supernatural cause, and that one must therefore attempt to ward off by magical and supernatural means such as candle and prayer, action of the spirit of man on the spirit of God. So the way of conceiving the causes of phenomena inevitably involves different practical means,materialist in the first case, idealist in the second - and different practical results!

The theoretical opposition has still other practical consequences: it is not difficult to understand that the more the use of the lightning rod spread, the less one burned with candles and the better one did without prayers; and consequently the Church, which saw its credit diminish, regarded with a negative eye the progress of science and the decline of credulity. The opposition is no less real when it comes to the phenomena of social life. Rabelais, in the episode of the Picrocholine War, left us an eloquent picture of the two attitudes. When the aggressor Picrochole attacks the convent which he proposes to plunder, the majority of the monks shut themselves up in the chapel and recommend their soul to God: only Brother Jean des Entommeures, arming himself with a solid club and striking with good moves,routs the mercenaries of Picrochole who were already devastating the orchards, thereby showing that the response is better than prayer to get rid of an aggressor.

Thus during the National Resistance to the Nazi aggressor, Catholics participated in various forms of struggle against the occupier. It is a general fact, moreover, that the proponents of idealistic philosophies often behave as materialists in life.

The practical dangers of idealism are thus illuminated. The idealism of the monks of Rabelais would in fact lead in practice to leaving the field open to the aggressor. Likewise the idealism of the pacifists, who refused concrete action against the war and affected to believe in the "good will" of the imperialists in general and of Hitler in particular, practically played into the hands of the Nazis and in 1939 endorsed the shameful word. of order: "Rather servitude than death".

Likewise, today, the idealistic conception that war is fatal and that we must therefore resign ourselves to it as a punishment from Heaven for the sins of mankind still excludes many Christians from the struggle for peace.

Since idealism thus leads to practical attitudes which play into the hands of warmongers and exploiting classes in general, (in accordance with the old idealist precept: "We must not resist the wicked",) it is easy to understand that the classes exploiters have, throughout history, taken all useful measures to encourage, develop, support idealism among the masses. We remember that in May 1940 the gravedigger Paul Reynaud went noisily to Notre-Dame to call for divine protection over France.

Generally speaking, the exploiting classes, determined to maintain at all costs the state of affairs that benefits them, have an interest in teaching that it is the embodiment of a "supreme will" or that it represents. "universal reason", etc .; they have an interest in propagating the idealism which inculcates resignation in the masses.

We can therefore see the immense practical importance of always knowing how to recognize idealistic conceptions, and consequently of studying philosophical materialism.

Marxist philosophical materialism is distinguished by three fundamental features

Philosophical materialism as a conception of the world historically predates Marxism. We will indeed see that materialism consists in considering the world as it is without adding anything foreign to it. However, this way of considering the world has long been imposed on man, insofar as the satisfaction of his needs forced him to dominate nature by effective technical means. The progressive rising classes throughout history have thus encouraged materialist thought. On the one hand because their future was linked to the progress of technology and science; on the other hand because they fought the idea that the old order of things against which they fought could be the embodiment of a providential will. They foresaw that, since theman modifies matter and nature by his work; he can also, by his action, improve his own lot.

We cannot study the history of materialism here. The great eras of materialist philosophy were mainly Greek Antiquity, with the merchant class, which was then the most evolved, the French eighteenth century, with its revolutionary bourgeoisie, finally the contemporary period from the mid-nineteenth century. , with the support of the revolutionary proletariat, and mainly in the country where this class gained power, in the Soviet Union. [We must add the Russian materialists of the 19th century, linked to the Russian democratic bourgeoisie of the time: Bielinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolioubov.] We will study in detail the Marxist philosophical materialism which represents the materialism of the last period, the materialism in its completed form. We will see inother lessons [See the introductory lesson, the 9th (point III) and 14th lessons.] why materialist philosophy could have taken, in the brilliant works of Marx and Engels, its founders, its completed form, precisely towards the mid-nineteenth century.

We will also see that premarxist materialism was not dialectical, in a systematic and consistent way, and therefore could not reflect reality in all its peculiarities, nor therefore constitute a complete conception of the world.

It is therefore important to fundamentally distinguish Marxist philosophical materialism from all previous materialist doctrines, and this is why we will study its basic features in the next few lessons.

These are three in number, which are exactly opposed to the main forms of philosophical idealism.

1. - The world is by nature material.

2. - Matter is the primary datum, consciousness is a second, derived datum.

3. - The world and its laws are perfectly knowable.

Studying each of these points, we will link the study of materialism to the struggle against idealism, and we will characterize the consequences of materialism in the field of social life.

See: Control questions

Traits of marxist materialism

I. The materiality of the world

The idealistic attitude

The oldest form of idealism consists in explaining the phenomena of nature by the action of intangible forces, in considering nature as animated by "spirits".

It seems that this form of idealism is not very difficult to fight. Progress in production, technology and science have indeed marked the gradual elimination of such explanations. It has been a long time since the most developed peoples banished from nature the geniuses of fire, water and air, the mysterious powers over which magic alone had taken hold, and that the stories of fairies and goblins have become tales for little children.

Fetishism has therefore been abandoned and in general the conception which claims to see "spirits" or "souls" everywhere, and which is therefore called "animism".

On a higher level, we no longer say that "nature abhors a vacuum" when we want to explain the rise of mercury in the barometric tube, nor that opium makes you sleep because it has a "dormant virtue". Only children get angry at objects that hurt them as if those objects have a malignant will, in this similar to people who get angry with "bad luck" or use good luck charms.

Newton removed from the celestial spaces the guardian angel that, it was believed, Providence attributes to each of the planets to lead it into its orbit. The Cartesian philosophers, for their part, reduced to nothing the idea that animals had a "soul" and Diderot ironically asked on this subject if, when a severed limb of an animal is still the seat of muscular movements, it is necessary to conceive that there is also a “piece of soul” which remained in this part of the severed body to explain this movement!

However, if the idea that each natural phenomenon would require the action of a particular spirit is foreign to us today, the idea that the world taken as a whole needs in order to exist a superior, universal spirit, persists, as we know, especially in the form of monotheistic religions.

Christian monotheism, for example, well recognizes the material reality of the world. But this is a secondary, created reality. The true being, the ultimate and deep reality is spirit: it is God, who is pure spirit and universal spirit. This is an example of what is called objective idealism.

This philosophical conception has taken many forms. For Plato, material reality was only the reflection of an ideal world, the world of Ideas, where pure intelligence reigned which did not need the material world to be. For the ancient Greek school of the Stoics, the world was only a huge living being, animated by an inner divine fire. For Hegel, the nature and development of human societies were only the outer shell, the visible aspect, the embodiment of absolute and universal thought, existing by itself.

We therefore see that for all these philosophies the world is only apparently material; in the final analysis, its deep reality is elsewhere, its deep reason must be sought in the existence of the spirit. This spirit is independent of our individual human consciousness: so we classify these philosophies in the group of objective idealism.

We can also note that with regard to man, objective idealism most often leads to distinguish the soul and the body, by connecting the first to the spiritual world, the second to the material world. This is particularly the case with Christian idealism. The conception that man thus depends on two principles is called dualism. Dualism in the human sciences is typically idealistic in inspiration,

a) because it explains a being of nature by the existence of a "soul" interior to this being. What joins animism;

b) because it necessarily connects this "soul" ultimately to the existence of a higher spirit. In fact, if he linked it to the material principle, he would no longer be dualist, but monist.

We see by this that vulgar atheism is indeed dualism: it denies the existence of God, but without appealing to a scientific materialist conception; he speaks of "the human mind", of "human consciousness", as if this mind were a distinct, independent principle; it thus remains dependent on the flattest idealism. This is particularly the case of our academic, secular or spiritualist philosophers. The Church is not overly afraid of these idealistic atheists: Maine de Biran under Napoleon, Bergson, Freud or Camus at the time of imperialism. She knows and rightly says that these are just lost sheep. And very often, in fact, we see the sheep, once their career is made, return to the fold!

If, at certain times, objective idealism has been able to give birth to great philosophies with a rational core, in our time - that of imperialism - when the dying bourgeoisie needs to divert the masses, by all means , from the materialist explanation of the world, idealism becomes frankly irrationalist and obscurantist.

Freud, for example, explains man and the phenomena of social life by the existence in man of an immaterial force, a mysterious power, with its occult "tendencies", which he calls "the unconscious". . Good luck for charlatans determined to exploit the credulity of good people. The unconscious is in fact the last form of animism, of the belief in the existence of intangible forces in the world.

Bergson, for his part, purely and simply destroys the materiality of the world. In fact, for him, matter is the product of a creative act. It is in its essence life. All matter is the product of an immense "vital momentum" which lifts the world. Now what is life itself for Bergson? It is consciousness, it is thought, it is spirit. “Consciousness in general, he says, is coexisting with universal life”. [Bergson: Creative Evolution, p. 84.] Consciousness is the principle of life. Far from matter being the necessary basis for the development of consciousness, it is on the contrary consciousness which explains the development of matter by being embodied in it.

Here is the "brilliant" contemporary philosopher, equaled to the greatest by the reactionary bourgeoisie; this is in the name of what "philosophy" he slams "scientism" and tries to discredit the work of intelligence.

In the scientific field itself, idealism continues its offensive since we have been able to see American idealistic scientists seeking to demonstrate "scientifically" the creation of the Universe, the age of the Universe, the time taken by this creation, and restore the old theory of "the death of the Universe", etc. !

If we are finally careful with the revival of brilliance given nowadays to the "occult sciences", to "spiritualism" (encouraged by Bergson and supported by Freudianism), to divert the ignorant and dupes from the materialist explanation of social evils from which they suffer, we will grasp even more clearly all the topicality of the Marxist thesis on the materiality of the world. [See Engels: "The Science of Nature in the World of Spirits", Dialectic of Nature, p. 53-63.]

The marxist conception

Unlike idealism which considers the world as the embodiment of the "absolute idea", of the "universal spirit", of "consciousness", the philosophical materialism of Marx starts from the principle that the world, by its nature, is material, that the multiple phenomena of the universe are the different aspects of matter in motion; that the relations and reciprocal conditioning of phenomena, established by the dialectical method, constitute the necessary laws for the development of matter in motion; that the world develops according to the laws of the movement of matter, and does not need any "universal spirit". (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, p. 10.)

Stalin refers here mainly, when he speaks of idealism, to Hegel's philosophy of which we have said a few words above. He does so because Hegelianism represents the last great idealist synthesis in the history of philosophy, the quintessence and the most coherent summary of all the historical features of objective idealism, both in the realm of nature and in that of society.

Stalin stresses that the various phenomena of the universe are not due to the intervention of spirits whatever they are or of immaterial "forces", but are the various aspects of matter in motion.

Stalin emphasizes the existence of a natural necessity, inherent in matter, which is the basis of the laws of the universe as established by the dialectical method.

Finally, Stalin underlines the eternity of the world, of matter in motion, in perpetual transformation.

We will go over each of these points in detail in turn.

Matter and movement

The question of the relationship between matter and movement is decisive in delimiting idealism and materialism.

For idealism, in fact, movement, dynamism, activity, creative power belong to the mind alone. Matter is represented as an inert, passive and formless mass of its own. For it to take shape, it must receive the imprint of the Spirit, be animated by him. So from the point of view of idealism, matter cannot produce anything by itself; when it is in motion, it is because it comes to it from elsewhere: from God, from the Spirit.

Separating matter from movement is a characteristic feature of metaphysical thought. It is also, let us note it, an indispensable method in the beginnings of science, insofar as the matter in rest (rest which can only be apparent) is of an easier study than the matter in state of change. .

Even when the modern sciences had taken off, the idea persisted that the movement had been given to matter, at the origin of time, by God himself. This is how Newton, who developed the science of the movements of celestial bodies, pictured the Universe as an immense clock, with perfectly regulated mechanical cogs, and he matched his scientific picture of the world with the idea that was needed. an initial shock, a "divine flick" to set this enormous machine in motion.

This is because the first science which reached a certain degree of completion was mechanics, that is to say the science of displacements in space (or changes of place) of solid bodies, celestial and terrestrial, the science of gravity. Now as a first approximation we can, in mechanics, suppose that the quantity of matter of a moving body is independent of the speed with which it moves. Hence, it seems, a confirmation of the metaphysical idea that matter and motion, mass and energy are two distinct realities in themselves.

For materialism, on the contrary, movement is the fundamental property of matter, matter is movement. Already Democritus pictured the atoms, the elements of the world, as animated by an eternal movement. These ideas exerted an influence during the Renaissance. It was Galileo who, at the beginning of the 17th century, scientifically studied the fall of bodies. The development of mathematics made it possible for the first time to satisfactorily reflect the movement of a falling body. The progress of the sciences advanced materialism, and philosophers, including Descartes, came to the idea that everything in Nature is explained by the play of the laws of the mechanical movement of bodies. A rigorous, mechanical determinism, an implacable system of gears succeeded the mysterious action of thedivine intelligence. This explains the French materialism of the 18th century, immense progress over the various forms of religious idealism. However, due to the very peculiarities of the development of science, this materialism was incomplete. First - as we have just seen - mechanics, at the point of development at which it had reached, could suggest that mechanical movement is communicated to matter at the "origin of time", which leaves the door open to an offensive return of religious idealism. Despite this, the most vigorous thinkers, like Diderot, brilliantly defended the idea that movement is an inherent property of matter.religious idealism. However, due to the very peculiarities of the development of science, this materialism was incomplete. First - as we have just seen - mechanics, at the point of development at which it had reached, could suggest that mechanical movement is communicated to matter at the "origin of time", which leaves the door open to an offensive return of religious idealism. Despite this, the most vigorous thinkers, like Diderot, brilliantly defended the idea that movement is an inherent property of matter.religious idealism. However, due to the very peculiarities of the development of science, this materialism was incomplete. First - as we have just seen - mechanics, at the point of development at which it had reached, could suggest that mechanical movement is communicated to matter at the "origin of time", which leaves the door open to an offensive return of religious idealism. Despite this, the most vigorous thinkers, like Diderot, brilliantly defended the idea that movement is an inherent property of matter.could suggest that mechanical movement is communicated to matter at the "origin of time", which leaves the door open to an offensive return of religious idealism. Despite this, the most vigorous thinkers, like Diderot, brilliantly defended the idea that movement is an inherent property of matter.could suggest that mechanical movement is communicated to matter at the "origin of time", which leaves the door open to an offensive return of religious idealism. Despite this, the most vigorous thinkers, like Diderot, brilliantly defended the idea that movement is an inherent property of matter.

But here we have to take into account a historical fact: we only knew scientifically the laws of the simple change of place or displacement. The other forms of motion of matter had not yet revealed their laws: chemistry, thermodynamics, biology did not exist. Or rather, all the phenomena that these sciences study, we tried to explain them by mechanical causes. We were on the wrong track by ignoring the specific character of the various forms of movement of matter. Hence the name mechanistic materialism given to the materialism of this period. It was, underlines Engels, one of the main limitations of premarxist materialism.

So he failed to give a satisfactory explanation of the higher forms of movement of matter: life, thought. For example, the Cartesians considered that animals had no soul, and they concluded that they were comparable to machines; we began to build automata, robots to imitate them. But it is quite obvious that, apart from the movements of locomotion, the living organism cannot be assimilated to a machine, however perfected it may be, and the famous duck of Vaucanson, which accomplished, it is said, all functions of life, however omitted at least one: the function of reproduction. Thus mechanistic materialism mutilates reality. Finally, he makes man a passive product of nature, without action on matter, without power, and therefore without freedom.

In its attacks on materialism, idealism constantly refers to mechanistic materialism, which leaves it in good stead; it brings out without difficulty the aspects of reality that mechanistic materialism mutilates. Hence the tales of "materialism which assimilates man to a machine, makes him a robot ...", etc.

When it came to the study of other forms of material movement, heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical processes, life, idealism did not consider itself beaten. Always starting from the idea that matter is inert, he declared that God had endowed matter with "forces", electric force, magnetic force, chemical affinity force, vital principle, finally spiritual principle, and that matter could not not create them. This was among others the opinion of the English physicist Joule (1818-1889).

Only dialectical materialism could give a satisfactory explanation of these phenomena, showing that they were specific forms of the movement of matter, showing that matter is capable not only of mechanical movement, but of real changes and transformations. qualitative, finally that it possesses an internal dynamism, an activity, a creative power which rests on the existence of contradictions within the very things.

By studying dialectics, we have characterized this dialectical conception of the movement of matter, which has been fully confirmed by the sciences. This is the reason why Stalin, in the text quoted on page 80, specifies that the materiality of the various phenomena of the universe can be scientifically understood only when their laws are established by the dialectical method. Otherwise all science leaves a door open to idealist interpretation.

The great scientific discoveries which brought the dialectic of nature to the fore and made it possible to definitively overcome mechanistic materialism, to constitute dialectical materialism, were three in number:

a) the discovery of the transformation of energy, which gave the idea of ​​qualitative change and made the various physical "forces" appear as aspects of the movement of matter;

b) the discovery of the living cell, which revealed the secret of the constitution of living organisms, made it possible to glimpse the passage from chemical to biological, and to understand the development of living beings;

c) the discovery of the evolution of living species, which broke down the metaphysical barrier between the various species, between man and the rest of nature, and the theory of evolution in general which revealed the entire universe, including human societies, as a process of natural history, as matter engaged in historical development.

However, in order to perceive the full scope of these discoveries, it was already necessary to have a thorough understanding of the dialectical method, it required the genius of Marx and Engels. Thus, dialectical materialism is the only one that can really give higher phenomena, such as life and also thought, a natural explanation without however taking away from them anything of their own character and without the help of any "vital principle" or "spiritual principle". ". What does the detail of this explanation consist of? It is obviously up to science to respond, to science whose progress is informed by the principles of dialectical materialism, to the science of Michurin and Lysenko, that of Olga Lepechinskaya, that of Setchénov, of Pavlov and their followers.

Dialectical materialism trusts the power of science. Idealism, on the contrary, hastens to proclaim its impotence as if it had to have a ready answer. Only fools can demand an immediate response to the problems facing science. Science has no one-size-fits-all answer. Idealism has one: it is "the spirit". But it is only a word which covers ignorance. As "spirit" has, by definition, none of the properties of matter known at a given time, it allows "to explain" everything that relates to properties still unknown to matter. What I do not know, I attribute to the mind, says the idealist in short.

The idealist, who "reproaches" materialism for not having evolved for two thousand years (!) And for always repeating the same thing (we have been able to judge the value of the "reproach"), is moreover of matter a fixed and dogmatic idea. Each time, then, that science discovers a new aspect of the universal movement of matter, and thus reduces the margin left for idealist "explanation", the idealist hastens to proclaim that "matter" has vanished, evaporated. , etc. What has vanished is the narrow, mechanistic, metaphysical idea he had of matter, and nothing else. We must not confuse the successive scientific notions of matter, increasingly rich and profound, which express (with a given approximation) thestate of our knowledge at a given moment, with the philosophical notion of matter which serves precisely as a solid theoretical basis for scientific research.

“Materialism,” said Engels, “is bound to take on a new aspect with each new great discovery. "

Concluding on this point, let us say with Engels that "motion is the mode of existence of matter", that the source of animation, of autodynamism is found in matter itself.

The materialist conception of nature signifies nothing other than a simple understanding of nature, as it stands, without extraneous addition. (Engels: “Unpublished fragment of the“ Feuerbach ”in Etudes philosophiques, p. 68. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1951.)

Natural necessity

New details should be provided here if we want to understand correctly the idea of ​​the autodynamism of matter. This autodynamism leads in fact to the appearance of natural beings having determined forms, and it is the occasion of a new offensive of idealism.

For example, how to explain that snow crystals (or any crystallizable body) always take a specific geometric shape? How is it that the chicken egg gives a chick and the duck egg a duckling when, obviously, the two animal forms: chick and duckling, do not yet exist in the eggs: these indeed differ only in material and not in form. We see that this question is general and arises in all the parts of the sciences called "morphologies" because they study forms: geographical forms, crystalline forms, plant and animal forms, and even grammatical forms, without forgetting the forms. forms of movements and behaviors of animals called "instincts".

To these questions, idealism offers an answer. According to him, the form of the natural object would be "realized" by matter, but would exist prior to this "realization"; it is the form which would command the development of the natural being, it would be in a way its "destiny"; nature would conform to a "plan" which preexisted. Likewise, evolution would be "oriented" in advance, it would be determined not by the actual conditions of life of organisms, but by a "goal" to be reached. Likewise, instinct would be the manifestation of a blind "intention" of animals. In short, one way or another, nature would reveal the presence in it of an "intelligence". In fact, where can the “form”, the “plan”, the “goal”, the “intention” exist?do they pre-exist the still unfinished development of matter? They can obviously only exist in a supreme intelligence which conceives them. This doctrine is that of finality; we see that finality is a consequence of idealism, which sees the world as the embodiment of an "idea".

The answer of dialectical materialism to this question is quite different (mechanistic materialism, for its part, is unable to provide an answer and leaves the field open to finality). For him the form is determined by the actual content, that is to say by the "reciprocal relations and conditioning of phenomena", by the current state of matter and the state of the contradictions which develop therein. indissoluble bond with the conditions due to the surrounding environment. The best proof is that we can intervene in the development of a given shape. Biologists have experimentally demonstrated the link between form and content. If a small portion of the material from a developing egg is transported to another point in the egg,for example, we will see a paw develop where normally there is none: we will have artificially created a monster. Now, at the time of the operation, the various parts of the egg's matter are distinguished from each other only by their chemical properties, by the nature of the substances which are gathered there. And this chemical content of the egg differentiates itself under the influence of external conditions (eg heat) and on the basis of its internal contradictions. It is therefore the biochemical nature of the substance of the eggs of the various species that ultimately determines the shape of the animal's body: it is the development of content which precedes the development of form. There is no ideal "preformation", there is no predetermined "form in itself". If ofelsewhere it was thus all the individuals of a species would be strictly identical!

For dialectical materialism, form cannot exist without content, without determined content, and conversely, content cannot exist without form, without determined form.

To say that content cannot exist without form does not at all mean that it is determined by it. Rather, it is he who determines it. This means that the form is not preexisting, immutable, but changing and that it changes as a consequence of the changes that occur in the content. It is the content that first changes due to the modification of the conditions of the surrounding environment: the form then changes in accordance with the change of the content, the development of the internal contradictions of the content. It follows that far from pre-existing to development, form reflects it, with a certain delay: form lags behind content.

... in the course of development, content precedes form, form lags behind content ... Content without form is impossible; however, this or that form, given its lag behind the content, never fully corresponds to the latter, and thus the new content is "forced" to temporarily assume the old form, which causes a conflict between them. (Stalin: “Anarchism or socialism?” In Œuvres, t. 1, p. 264-265. Social Editions.)

How is it done in each case, in each area of ​​nature and society, the new form being brought to light under the pressure of developing content which "seeks a new form and tends towards it"? (Stalin) It is obviously here again for the sciences to respond, to the sciences enlightened by dialectical materialism. What is certain is that the lag of form over content inevitably generates inconsistencies in nature; far from being "harmonious", nature is thus full of conflicts, "contradictions", imperfections.

We see that dialectical materialism fundamentally undermines the idealist theory of finality; but he also rejects the mechanistic determinism which represents the action of various phenomena on one another in the manner of a simple mechanism, of a mesh of solid bodies, with immutable forms.

Marxist materialism brings to science a fruitful doctrine: the idea that the laws that it discovers, that the relations that it establishes by the dialectical method, are not arbitrary relations, but the necessary laws of matter in motion . Materialist science ignores the anguish of the "empiricists" who are content to note the succession of phenomena and can constantly ask themselves whether the sun will rise tomorrow! Materialist science starts from the idea that it is not possible, under given conditions, that the predicted phenomenon does not occur, because nature is not unfaithful to itself, nature is one.

Materialist science starts from the idea that the scientific law expresses an objective property of matter, expresses the inevitability of the appearance of a given phenomenon, during a given development, under given conditions.

Engels emphasized the inevitability of the appearance of life on any planet when the necessary conditions are met and the inevitability of the appearance of man in the process of the evolution of species, including on a another planet and another time, if the necessary conditions were met.

This then is what is meant by natural necessity, by unity of the Universe, by universality of the laws of matter.

It follows that one cannot create, destroy or abolish the laws of nature or of society. We can only discover them.

These laws, we can discover them, know them, study them, take them into account in our actions, exploit them in the interest of society, but we cannot modify or abolish them. A fortiori cannot one form or create new laws of science. (Stalin: “The economic problems of socialism in the UR SS”. Latest writings, p. 94.)

Consequently, dialectical materialism alone provides a solid theoretical basis for scientific forecasting of the phenomena of nature and of society; it fundamentally eliminates any doubt as to the result of an action undertaken on the basis of scientific knowledge of reality; it therefore assures man at the same time the maximum of certainty and the maximum of freedom by providing him the possibility of acting without fail.

Marxism and religion

Everything we have seen so far allows us to measure the inconsistency of the most widespread form of objective idealism, the religious form.

We know that the Christian religion, for example, requires in order to explain the world the intervention of a creator God, an infinite and eternal spirit. We now see what this requirement is:

a) for idealism, matter is passive and inert: it must therefore receive its movement from the mind;

b) for idealism, matter has in itself no natural necessity, no unity: a mind must therefore keep constant and immutable the laws of matter;

c) for idealism, matter is not engaged in a historical process of development: the world therefore has a beginning and will have an end, so it must have been created by an eternal being.

For materialism on the contrary, the conception of matter in internal and necessary development naturally leads to the thesis of the eternity and the infinity of the Universe in incessant transformation, the affirmation that matter is indestructible and uncreated.

Diderot was already asking that the world should not be explained, under the pretext that the eternity of matter would be incomprehensible, by another eternity even more incomprehensible than the first.

Scientific discoveries since Diderot have made the position of creationism even more untenable. As early as the 18th century, the German Kant formulated his famous hypothesis on the evolution of the solar system and the French Laplace, who took it up scientifically, quietly replied to Napoleon, who complained of not seeing God in his system: “Sire! I did not need this hypothesis ”. The discoveries of the English Lyell in the field of the evolution of the Earth, of the French Lamarck and especially of Darwin in the field of the evolution of living species definitively founded the general theory of evolution and allowed to leave far in behind the old materialism which lacked this historical conception of the universe. It was the second of his limitations,of its inevitable narrowness. [The first narrowness of the old materialism was its mechanistic character. See point III above.]

Finally, the discoveries of Marx and Engels in the field of the science of societies extended this deeply historical conception to all the phenomena of social life and liquidated the third narrowness of the old materialism, which did not know how to consider human society. like a natural history process.

As Lenin wrote, the materialist conception of the ancient philosopher Heraclitus for whom

the world is one, was created by no god or man; was, is and will be an eternally living flame, which is kindled and extinguished according to determined laws

therefore constitutes a

excellent exposition of the principles of dialectical materialism. (Lenin: Philosophical Notebooks.)

The emergence of dialectical materialism has profoundly transformed the critique of religion and theology. Previously, rationalist philosophers developed their criticism of the Christian God by showing the innumerable inconsistencies which such a notion entails: how can a pure spirit generate matter? how can a being independent of time, of becoming, of change, immutable at the bottom of an immobile eternity, create the world at a given moment in time? how could an infinitely “good” being create the monsters, pests, earthquakes and evils symbolized by the three black riders of Revelation: war, famine and pests? Could God who is almighty have made 2 and 2 make 5 and the true to be the false? and, if he couldn't,was he then all-powerful? and, if he is supremely perfect, can he not punish injustice? but, if he is supremely good, can he not be lenient, and consequently unjust? etc., etc..

In short, rationalist criticism has rightly pointed out all the impossibilities contained in the notion of God, all the "contradictions" which it conceals, which the theology of the remainder recognizes and for which it invokes the divine "mystery" impenetrable to the creature and all the devilments necessary to forge the idea of ​​so-called original sin.

The idealistic rationalist philosophers therefore undertook to revise the notion of the Christian God: they proposed conceptions which, each more impossible than the other, raised new difficulties as soon as the previous ones seemed conquered. As for the pre-Marxist materialists, they came up against all the difficulties mentioned above: the explanation of life and thought, the explanation of the becoming of the world, the explanation of the contradictions of nature and of social phenomena with all the evils they cause to humanity: disease, death, famine, war.

Dialectical materialism has removed these difficulties and the notion of God, already challenged by non-dialectical rationalists, has emptied of all content. The debate on the existence or non-existence of God, raised by vulgar, non-Marxist atheism, has ceased to arise in these terms: God has become, as Laplace said, a mutilous hypothesis. The "problem" of the existence of God has been replaced by the problem of the existence of the idea of ​​God in the minds of men, two problems which objective idealism confuses.

It is a fact that the idea of ​​God, religious feelings, religion exist and this fact requires an explanation. Far from being a “divine” being, both natural and supernatural, mortal and immortal, living here below and in the hereafter, we must say: it is “God”, religion, which is a human phenomenon: the divine is a production of man, and not man a production of the divine.

Already Voltaire, speaking of religions, said that "if God had created man, man had given him back." The German materialist Feuerbach began to criticize the religious phenomenon from this new angle. But it was Marxism which provided the decisive elements of explanation. Here are the principles:

1. The lower forms of religion, magical practices, the primitive idealistic explanation of natural and social phenomena, as well as the higher forms, involving philosophical and moral conceptions and "spiritualized" magical practices such as prayer and mystical sacrifices, express, translate, reflect, on the level of feelings and of thought, a real datum of human practice, namely its relative powerlessness, very great at the beginning of humanity: powerlessness in the face of nature, neither understood nor dominated, powerlessness linked to the weak development of production [See the example of the lightning rod in the previous lesson, 8 th lesson, point V.]; impotence in the face of social phenomena, neither understood nor dominated, linked to class oppression, to the absence of prospects,to the weakness of social conscience.

Everyone knows that religious practices are supposed to ensure success, achievement, including "in business", victory over the adversary, eternal happiness, etc. Religion therefore appears as a means for man to achieve his ends, a practice linked to the ignorance of the causes of his unhappiness and at the same time to the confused aspiration to happiness.

But if it thus reflects the data of practice, it reflects them upside down, not according to objective data, but according to subjective data: the visions of dreams, the inconsiderate desires of man in the grip of ignorance. . “God” for example becomes the supreme savior, the perfection of perfections. The "contradictions" that we have noted in the very idea of ​​"God" only express the internal contradictions of the ideas of "absolute perfection", of "absolute knowledge", of "infinite happiness", which man is. forge, fantastic and metaphysical ideas in which he transposes the contradictions of the real world and the fantastic desires that he conceives in his ignorance upside down. The idea of ​​God only sums up,to accumulate and concentrate in a single bundle all these contradictions which at the same time become metaphysical, absolute, insoluble.

Religion is thus the exact opposite of dialectical materialist science which, for its part, reflects the contradictions of reality, but right side up, faithfully, without extraneous, imaginary, fantastic additions. As Engels said:

Religion has its roots in narrow-minded and ignorant conceptions of the state of savagery. (Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 15; Philosophical Studies, p. 25.)

2. However, in order to study religion, we must take into account a second fact, because, to the very extent that, born of ignorance, it substitutes for scientific explanations for imaginary explanations, religion contributes for an immense part to mask reality, to veil the objective explanation of phenomena, and the religious man who clings to his chimera is in a way hostile in principle to science, the work of the demon. This peculiarity could not fail to be fully utilized by the exploiting classes interested in concealing their exploitation from the eyes of the masses, as we noted in the previous lesson. To perpetuate their class oppression, they need the passivity and inaction of the masses, their resignation, the belief in the inevitability of misfortune,but at the same time the hope of happiness of the masses must be diverted towards the beyond: the consoling prospect of paradise is offered to the exploited masses as the price of their earthly "sacrifices". Thus the belief in the immortality of the soul, first conceived in antiquity as an overwhelming fatality, was transformed into a hope of salvation in the hereafter.

From the earliest times, religion was therefore used as an ideological force for the "maintenance of order", as the opium of the people, according to Marx's formula, even though the enlightened ruling classes no longer believed a word of the mystifications which they perpetuated influence among the masses. Already the priests of ancient Egypt "manufactured" miracles by making the statues of the gods move, the Romans assured that "two auguries cannot look at each other without laughing" and Cicero declared that religion is good for women and slaves . The feudal reactionaries of the Ancien Régime used religion to try to slow the progress of science: they banned medical research, surgery and vaccination,they had Galileo condemned for having maintained that the Earth is not the center of the world; in the twentieth century again, in the Russia of the tsars, Michurin was denounced as sacrilege to the tsarist police: he practiced crosses of plant species!

Very hard blows were dealt to religion by French materialism of the 18th century. However, it was restored in our country by a whole series of reactionary political measures after the Revolution and throughout the 19th century, in particular after the fall of the 1st Empire, after June 48, after the Paris Commune, under the Vichy regime. The staging of so-called miracles was one of the processes of colonialism.

On the theoretical level, this political use of religion, even though its philosophical content had suffered a definitive defeat, is marvelously represented by Kant, a contemporary of the Revolution of 1789. For him, the existence of God is unprovable. However it must be "admitted", because without this idea, everything would be allowed, there would be no longer a great vigilante, a celestial policeman, guaranteed reward and punishment, the "just" was discouraged, the "wicked" would be emboldened, in short the bourgeois order would be compromised. “God” is therefore a counter-revolutionary weapon, quite simply; it is not even necessary to be theoretically certain of its existence, it suffices to admit it practically, usefully. NOT'is this not the constant practice of the bourgeoisie in religious matters? And what better proof of the complete theoretical fiasco of religious idealism?

The historic victory of socialism puts an end to the domination of the reactionary classes. Religion, as an ideological force in the service of these classes, thus loses its social basis. But it lasts for a certain time, as a survival in the consciousness of men. Thus continues, under a socialist regime, a theoretical struggle between science and religion, between ignorance and knowledge. This struggle is an aspect of the knowledge process, since knowledge progresses through struggle. [See lesson 11, point III, and lesson 5, point III, b.] This is the content of the principle of freedom of conscience in the USSR

Conclusion

An idea emerges from this lesson on the materiality of the world: dialectical materialism is only revolutionary today. If "God" or "spirit" etc. is only an empty notion, symbol of all the past ignorance of humanity, then, as the International beautifully says, "there is no supreme savior".

Man has nothing to expect but from himself and from earthly life, and it is precisely materialism that teaches him to see "the world as it is", the world upside down and no longer upside down.

Far from crushing man, materialism reveals to him that there is no destiny, no fatality, and that by scientific knowledge of reality, he can transform his condition, access a new life, know the happiness of life.

As the Greek materialist Epicurus taught, materialism liberates human consciousness oppressed for millennia by the superstitious fear of divine wrath, and, we may add, by the superstitious fear of the state, from "the established order. ", Supposedly incarnation of the wills of" Providence ". As Marx pointed out, materialism leads to socialism.

Nothing is atonement, contrary to what Pétain claimed. Nothing is fatal. Nothing is "written". Nothing is eternal, if not matter in motion. Just as the science of disease enables them to be combated by combating their causes, so the science of the causes of war enables war to be combated. The better we know the causes which, without being able to doubt it, necessarily engender wars, the better equipped we are to fight them effectively. War is therefore not fatal. Instead of generating passivity and resignation, materialism is a call to action; it makes it possible to recognize with precision what is possible, and to define the effective power of man. Such is freedom: not a sound proclamation, but a power which is exercised.

See: Control questions

II. Matter is prior to consciousness

New idealistic subterfuge

We noted in the previous lesson that the objective idealism of religion had been largely undermined by the development of science since the Renaissance and that in the 18th century it was succumbing to the blows of materialism.

It was then that a new form of idealism appeared, destined to replace the sinking conception of the world, a form that we find today in many philosophers. It is due to the English bishop Berkeley (1685-1753). Its purpose is to undermine the theoretical importance of scientific discoveries by trying to demonstrate that the material principle in the world does not exist. As it is hardly possible at this time to suppress the materialists by sending them to the stake as in the heyday of the Inquisition, we will suppress the matter itself, in order to ridicule them, by passing them off as naive, incapable of "philosophizing". We will decree that matter is an illusion and we will thus put an end to this philosophy which claims to relate to reality.Henceforth, we will no longer philosophize except on "consciousness" and anything that goes beyond the limits of consciousness alone will be declared non-philosophical.

Berkeley, moreover, made no secret of the extra-philosophical reasons which, according to him, militated in favor of this conception. He stated bluntly:

Matter, once banished from nature, takes with it so many skeptical [hear: atheists] and impious constructions, so many discussions and muddled questions, ... it has given men so much useless work, that even if arguments which we bring against it were recognized not very convincing ..., I would be no less convinced that the friends of the truth [read: of feudal ideology], of peace [read: of the feudal order] and religion have every reason to want these arguments to be recognized as sufficient. (Quoted by Lenin: Materialisme et empiriocriticisme, p. 17. Social Editions, Paris, 1948. (The expressions in brackets are of name GB-MC))

Elsewhere he still declared:

If these principles are accepted and regarded as true, it follows that atheism and skepticism are at the same time completely demolished, obscure questions cleared up, almost insoluble difficulties resolved, and men who delighted in paradoxes brought back to common sense. . (Berkeley: Three dialogues of Hylas and Philonoüs, preface.)

In his idealistic frenzy, Berkeley attacked all the discoveries of science, including calculus in mathematics, declaring them absurd, illogical and paradoxical.

Studying Berkeley's conception is important because it expresses well the essence of modern idealism. It is at the origin of the opinion accepted in the bourgeois university that a materialist is a crude mind and at the origin of the calculated contempt of the idealistic "philosophers" for the sciences and "scientists".

Diderot was not mistaken about the reactionary importance of the Berkeley system, which, he said,

to the shame of the human mind and of philosophy, is the most difficult to fight, although the most absurd of all. (Quoted by Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, p. 24.)

How does Berkeley go about achieving its goal? Diderot thus defined the kind of idealism he founded:

We call idealists those philosophers who, being aware only of their existence and of the sensations which follow one another within themselves, admit nothing else. (Diderot. Quoted by Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism.)

It is therefore a question of "demonstrating" that nothing exists outside of our consciousness, our representations, our ideas. There is no “external” reality; it all comes down in the final analysis to mental representations that are ours. And if we remove consciousness, or, as we say, the "me", all reality disappears. Thus being, nature, matter cannot exist outside and independently of consciousness, of my consciousness. This is why this sort of idealism is called subjective idealism. Let's listen to Berkeley:

Matter is not what we think it is when we think it exists outside of our mind. We think that things exist because we see them, because we touch them; it is because they give us sensations that we believe in their existence.

But our sensations are just ideas that we have in our mind. So the objects that we perceive through our senses are nothing other than ideas and ideas cannot exist outside of our mind. (Berkeley: work cited.)

Immerse your hands in lukewarm water, says Berkeley, and assume one is hot and the other is cold. Won't the water appear cold to the hot hand and hot to the cold hand? Should we therefore say that the water is both hot and cold? Isn't that absurdity itself? Conclude therefore with me that water in itself does not exist materially, independently of us; it is only a name that we give to our sensations; water exists only in us, in our mind. In short, matter is the idea we have of it; matter is an idea!

We see the sleight of hand, the fallacy, by which Berkeley achieves his objective. From what my feelings are contradictory, relative, he concludes that matter does not exist. He forgets to indicate that, precisely because my feelings are contradictory, I will conclude that the water is lukewarm. From the fact that the moon seems sometimes to be crescent, sometimes round, it does not follow that it does not exist outside us, but that it exists under conditions such that I see it in a different way depending on the moment. . If someone tells me that they see a red tissue yellow, I will not conclude that this tissue only exists in our respective consciousnesses, but that this person has something like jaundice. That a stick seems broken to me if it is immersed in water,I do not conclude that this phenomenon exists only in my consciousness, but on the contrary that the refraction of light rays by water is an objective phenomenon independent of me.

We also see on what Berkeley bases his fallacy: quite simply on the metaphysical way of reasoning, which excludes contradiction in phenomena and the reciprocal action of phenomena on one another. In his opinion, the contradiction can only exist in the mind and not in objective reality. Therefore, it seems to him, if my feelings are contradictory, it is because the thing they represent exists only in my mind, is only an illusion, an imagination like the siren made up of a woman's body and a fish tail.

One question remains: if matter does not exist, where can these sensations come from which arise "in us" at any time? The answer is ready: it is God himself who sends them to us. The bishop becomes bishop again after his foray into "the psychology of sensations" and Berkeley's subjective idealism embraces the drowning old objective idealism; by saving the "inner" God, Berkeley hopes to save the traditional God, the creator, and all theology as well.

This explains the well-known formulas of Berkeley: "To be is to be perceived or to perceive". But as I know the existence of other men only through the sensations by which my "mind" represents them to me, it must logically follow that men too are only ideas of my mind. Consequently, only my conscience exists in the world! Berkeley denies this absurd conclusion which we call "solipsism" (thesis of the existence of the "only myself"), but what means of dismissing it, if he wants to be logical to the end? with himself? We must never fail to point out that, unlike dialectical materialism, idealism can never be consequent, for it always recoils from the absurd conclusion that is solipsism.

After Berkeley, subjective idealism tried to "perfect" itself on many points of detail, to find a new vocabulary, more and more obscure, in order to rejuvenate itself and to raise higher the credit of the idealist philosopher! But it's always a mill grinding the same grain.

Most modern (idealistic philosophers) have produced none, literally no arguments against the materialists that cannot be found in Bishop Berkeley. (Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, p. 26.)

The academic vogue for "philosophies of the mind," of "consciousness," which never take matter with a grain of salt and make it a substitute for the mind, expresses the persistence of subjective idealism à la Berkeley . It is the favorite philosophy of the reactionary bourgeoisie which was all the rage in schools, after the Paris Commune in particular, and which reflects the fear of the bourgeoisie in the face of the progress of materialism within the proletariat. The bourgeois philosophers, responding to the wishes expressed by Thiers in 1848, tried by all means to rehabilitate religion.

Thus, for a Lachelier, the universe is "a thought which cannot be thought of, suspended from a thought which is thought". For Boutroux, "God is this very being whose creative action we feel in the depths of ourselves in the midst of our efforts to draw us closer to him". For a Hamelin, reality is the result of a "construction" operated by our mind. For a Duhem, scientific notions are only "symbols" created by the human mind. For one Brunschvicg, "the mind can only respond for the mind" and the progress of science is attributed to the progress of "consciousness" in the West. And we are not talking about the lesser lords. At the same time "philosophy" is surrounded by a ritual, a mystery; the word "philosophy" is no longer used except as a synonym ofofficial idealism. It is suggested that the correct use of the word is not within the reach of everyone; you have to know how to say the idealistic mass. We are increasing the number of books entitled "Initiation to philosophy", in order to be able to respond to those whom idealistic arguments have not convinced that they "are not philosophers".

The triumph of this philosophical reaction is the philosophy of Bergson, leader of the bourgeois ideologues from 1900 to 1914 and beyond, which we have already had the opportunity to discuss in the previous lesson. Taking up Berkeley's thesis without saying it, Bergson affirms, at the beginning of his book: Matter and Memory, that the world is made of images, which exist only in our consciousness; the brain itself is only one of these images: consequently, far from consciousness not existing without the brain, it is on the contrary the brain which would not exist without "consciousness"! This is an "independent reality", the brain a mechanism at the service of pre-existing thought. It follows that if the brain is affected, the memory subsists ... outside it, in the “unconscious”!As in the oldest religions, there is a pure mind without organic support. Politzer, in the last chapter of his pamphlet: The End of a Philosophical Parade: Bergsonism, showed the very material historical significance of this philosophy of mind. In 1914, Bergson and his pure spirit put themselves at the service of the French imperialists. Following in the footsteps of the most chauvinistic theses, he presents the German people as emptied matter. The spirit has taken refuge in the folds of the usurped flags of French imperialism! The same "philosopher" is panicked by the incurable wounds of dying capitalism and blames ... machinery! He writes:The End of a Philosophical Parade: Bergsonism, has shown the very material historical significance of this philosophy of mind. In 1914, Bergson and his pure spirit put themselves at the service of the French imperialists. Following in the footsteps of the most chauvinistic theses, he presents the German people as emptied matter. The spirit has taken refuge in the folds of the usurped flags of French imperialism! The same "philosopher" is panicked by the incurable wounds of dying capitalism and blames ... machinery! He writes:The End of a Philosophical Parade: Bergsonism, has shown the very material historical significance of this philosophy of mind. In 1914, Bergson and his pure spirit put themselves at the service of the French imperialists. Following in the footsteps of the most chauvinistic theses, he presents the German people as emptied matter. The spirit has taken refuge in the folds of the usurped flags of French imperialism! The same "philosopher" is panicked by the incurable wounds of dying capitalism and blames ... machinery! He writes:Following in the footsteps of the most chauvinistic theses, he presents the German people as emptied matter. The spirit has taken refuge in the folds of the usurped flags of French imperialism! The same "philosopher" is panicked by the incurable wounds of dying capitalism and blames ... machinery! He writes:Following in the footsteps of the most chauvinistic theses, he presents the German people as emptied matter. The spirit has taken refuge in the folds of the usurped flags of French imperialism! The same "philosopher" is panicked by the incurable wounds of dying capitalism and blames ... machinery! He writes:

The material development of civilization, when it claims to be self-sufficient, all the more so when it puts itself at the service of base feelings and unhealthy ambitions, can lead to the most abominable of barbarities.

Here again we recognize the old calumny against materialism. Bergson thus plays his role as a seasoned reactionary ideologist to distract people from the real questions and bring science into disrepute.

At the same time in Germany, the idealist Husserl affirms that consciousness exists before its content, and consequently recommends, as a "philosophical method", to put the world and its objective contradictions "in parentheses". Instead of seeking the origin of consciousness in reality, he claims to seek the origin of reality in consciousness, a desperate attempt which reflects the anguish of the bourgeoisie in the face of its inability to submit to its will the impetuous development of the sciences. which constantly poses new and insoluble dialectical problems to idealism. For Husserl, the answer to the philosophical problems posed by the sciences must at all costs be independent of the existence or non-existence of matter.

Finally, the last version of idealism, the existentialism of the German Heidegger and his French disciples (among others, Jean-Paul Sartre): the "existence" in question here is nothing other than "consciousness. of my existence ”. This consciousness is the only reality. Being and scientific knowledge, objective data and the notions that reflect them are discredited. Rational ideas must give way to "existence". Of course, this "existence" is limited by a "situation", man is "in a situation". But this does not determine his conscience; on the contrary, it is his conscience which determines his situation. Because any situation ultimately boils down to the awareness we have of it, and at any moment we can have the awareness we want,we can "choose". From which we can conclude that ultimately the prisoner in his cell is freer than the swallow in spring as soon as he does not "experience" his deprivation of liberty "existentially"! Thus consciousness makes fun of being, of objective data; it is - supposedly - independent of it. Matter no longer exists as soon as I manage to no longer feel that it exists; and if the proletarian does not "choose" himself proletarian, he is not proletarian!it is - supposedly - independent of it. Matter no longer exists as soon as I manage to no longer feel that it exists; and if the proletarian does not "choose" himself proletarian, he is not proletarian!it is - supposedly - independent of it. Matter no longer exists as soon as I manage to no longer feel that it exists; and if the proletarian does not "choose" himself proletarian, he is not proletarian!

Atheists or not, such "philosophies" bring water to the mill of obscurantism since they deny that science is necessary to unravel social problems. The question is no longer: capitalism or socialism, but only whether the proletariat will "choose" itself revolutionary or not. The Church therefore only fights these philosophies softly or not at all; it allows a Christian Bergsonism and a Christian existentialism to live; it even uses them to give itself an “advanced” guarantee, to divert Christian intellectuals from philosophical reflection on the unbearable contradictions of religious dogma, on the sciences and on materialism. As for social democracy, it uses subjective idealism to falsify Marxism.

The marxist conception

Unlike idealism asserting that only our consciousness really exists, that the material world, being, nature, only exists in our consciousness, in our sensations, representations, concepts, Marxist philosophical materialism starts from this principle that matter, nature, being is an objective reality existing outside and independently of consciousness; that matter is a primary datum, because it is the source of sensations, representations, of consciousness, while consciousness is a secondary datum, derived, because it is the reflection of matter, the reflection of being; that thought is a product of matter when the latter has reached a high degree of perfection in its development; more precisely, thought is the product of the brain, and the brain the organ of thought;one cannot, consequently, separate thought from matter under penalty of falling into a gross error. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism, pp. 10-11.)

Stalin thus enunciates two fundamental theses of the Marxist theory of knowledge: being is an objective reality, consciousness is its subjective reflection. He then indicates that materialism concretely poses the problem of the origin of thought during the development of living beings, the problem of the relationship between thought and the brain. It goes without saying that the scientific study of this question can only lead to new precisions in the field of the theory of knowledge. So let's take a look at these various points.

Objectivity of being

We noted in the previous lesson that it is not permissible to confuse the conceptions that science has of matter, which evolve, deepen and enrich themselves by becoming more and more dialectical, because the properties of matter are inexhaustible [This idea will be clarified in the next lesson.], and the philosophical notion (or concept) of matter which is at the very basis of all scientific work, of all knowledge and which cannot grow old. [On this subject one can read: Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, p. 236-238-239-240 and 110-111.] The time has come to clarify this philosophical concept of matter:

Matter is a philosophical category used to designate the objective reality given to man in his sensations, which copy it, photograph it, reflect it without its existence being subordinate to them. (Idem, p. 110.)

And Lenin elsewhere further specifies:

Objective reality exists independently of the human consciousness which reflects it. (Idem, p. 238.)

So far from reducing reality to what we perceive of it, as Berkeley did, it is a question of explaining what we perceive of reality by reality itself.

Idealism then appears as the attitude of a man who believes himself to be alone, for whom nothing would exist independently of him, who would explain everything by his states of mind, naively. The world would be his world. Naivety coupled with an incredible sufficiency, as if there was no need to go outside to find out! It is the attitude of the one who has an answer to everything as if his "judgment" were the law and the prophets, of the one who takes his conscience to be the measure of all reality and who sets mankind once and for all a limit. which is in fact that of his own consciousness.

The development of science over several centuries has precisely brought to light previously unsuspected aspects of reality. To assert that the world does not need our conscience and the authorization of idealists to exist, it is necessarily the constant point of view of the sciences, which in this profess a spontaneous materialism and admit an objective reality external to the conscience . If science is constantly discovering new properties of matter, it is obviously because the latter does not exist in us but outside of us.

No one doubts that microbes existed before they were even discovered, since there were diseases then considered incurable, which their discovery made it possible to cure.

No one doubts that there was a time when all the conditions required for a living being to exist were not met on earth.

To this the idealists oppose the following "objection": "but what does" exist independently of all consciousness "mean, since it is your consciousness which represents the existence of the world without man, before man? - what does the existence of America mean before its sight caught the eye of Christopher Columbus, since it is "your conscience" that imagines this previous existence? The desert island does not exist without you since it is you who represent it ”, etc.

Lenin replied long ago that the whole theory of knowledge consists precisely in knowing how to distinguish the real existence of man present in the world, under certain conditions of time and place, and the imaginary presence of thought, of consciousness. mentally associated with the representation of the world actually existing before man or in the absence of man. Not knowing how to distinguish that is properly not to be a philosopher.

No one doubts that the material life of society exists independently of the conscience of men, for no one, neither the capitalist nor the proletarian wants the economic crisis which nevertheless inevitably occurs.

The law of value according to which the quantity of labor included in a commodity is expressed by means of value and its forms, operates from the beginnings of commodity production, although the economist Ricardo only discovered it in the nineteenth century.

The class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the nobility has been a reality since the beginnings of the bourgeoisie; yet it was not until the 19th century that bourgeois historians, Guizot, Mignet, Thiers, discovered this truth and consciously expressed it.

What then to think of idealistic assertions like the following:

Everything that is not thought out is pure nothingness ... It is not nature which imposes on us the conceptions of space and time, but it is we who impose them on nature. (H. Poincaré: The value of science.)

if not that only the virginal ignorance of bourgeois ideologists with regard to dialectical materialism allows them to support such theses. Without doubt, it may seem to those who do not have the Marxist philosophical method, that nature, being, matter reflects the thought of man, who imposes his demands on him. For example, once a dam is built, nature will reflect the plan devised by engineers, and the tamed torrent will submit to human will. Does this mean, however, that the laws of nature will have been violated, transformed, abolished, that they do not exist independently of human consciousness, and that without it they would vanish?

On the contrary, all these measures are taken on the exact basis of the laws of nature, the laws of science, because any violation of the laws of nature, the slightest violation of these laws would lead to disorganization, the failure of these measures . (Stalin: "The economic problems of socialism in the USSR", Latest writings, p. 95.)

Consequently, when we speak of "subjugating" the forces of nature or the economic forces, of "dominating" them, etc., by this we do not mean by any means that we can "abolish" the laws of science or the laws of science. "Train". On the contrary, we only mean by that that we can discover laws, know them, assimilate them, learn to apply them in full knowledge of the facts, to exploit them in the interest of society, and to conquer them by this means, subject them to its domination. (Idem, pp. 99-100.)

This allows us to measure the full scope of the fundamental Marxist thesis, expounded by Stalin in his last work, on the laws of science:

Marxism conceives of the laws of science - whether they are the laws of nature or the laws of political economy - as the reflection of objective processes that operate independently of human will. (Idem, p. 94.)

Consciousness, reflection of the being

What does the idea that consciousness is the reflection of being, of reality, natural and social mean?

This means first of all that it is the end of dualism; thought is inseparable from matter in motion. Consciousness does not exist outside and independently of matter.

The material world, perceptible by the senses, to which we ourselves belong, is the only reality. (Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 18; Philosophical Studies, p. 28.)

But this does not mean at all that thought is material, as are the substances that our organs secrete. To believe this is to take a false step towards the confusion of materialism and idealism, to establish an identity between matter and thought, between matter and consciousness. It is to fall into vulgar materialism.

The idea that consciousness is a form of being does not at all mean that consciousness, by its nature, is also matter ... According to Marx's materialism, consciousness and being, idea and matter are two different forms of one and the same phenomenon, which bears the general name of nature or society. So one is not the negation of the other [Here Stalin points out that this in no way contradicts the thesis of the conflict between form and content (see the previous lesson), because the conflict is not between form and content in general, but between old form and new content.]; on the other hand, they do not constitute one and the same phenomenon. (Stalin: “Anarchism or socialism?” Works, Volume I, p. 265.) Nor does the Marxist thesis mean that consciousness is passive, has no role, that Marxists “deny the role of consciousness”, etc. To believe it is to confuse Marxism with the false conception of "epiphenomenism" is to follow the falsifiers of Marxism. If consciousness exercised no action, why would Marx have written so many books, founded the First International, used all means to disseminate his ideas?founded the First International, employed all means to disseminate its ideas?founded the First International, employed all means to disseminate its ideas?

The Marxist thesis means that the content of our consciousness has no other source than the objective peculiarities presented by the external conditions in which we live, and which are given to us in sensations:

Our representations, our “me” only exist insofar as there are external conditions, generating impressions of our “me” ... The object located outside of us is prior to the image we have of it. ; here also our representation, the form, lags behind the object, its content. If I look and see a tree, it just means that long before the representation of the tree arose in my head, there was the tree itself, which gave rise to a corresponding representation in me ... (Idem , p. 266.)

Consciousness is the reflection of the movement of matter in the human brain.

Finally, the Marxist thesis means that consciousness, both from the point of view of the history of nature and of society, and from the point of view of the history of the individual, of each person's personality, is a product of historical development:

In the development of nature and of society, consciousness, that is, what is accomplished in our brain, is preceded by a corresponding material change, that is, by what is outside of us a material change which, sooner or later, will inevitably be followed by a corresponding ideal change. (Idem, pp. 265-266.)

The development of the ideal side, of consciousness, is preceded by that of the material side, of the external conditions: first change the external conditions, the material side, and then change, accordingly, the consciousness, the ideal side. (Idem, p. 262.)

This fact, which anyone can verify, constitutes the experimental proof of materialism, of the dependence of consciousness on being. At the same time, it shows that consciousness cannot be from the outset an exact reflection of reality, like the reflection in a mirror, but constitutes a living, mobile, changing reflection, in constant progress.

Of course, when we think, it does not appear to us first. It seems that the thought holds superbly on its own. We can imagine, as Descartes admitted, that it is enough to think in order to exist, and that this thought does not need the body to be exercised. And idealistic philosophers are so happy to think, that they are ready to believe that all that exists exists by virtue of their sovereign and "free" thought. Ignoring the natural and social roots of thought, they believe that everything starts from her and before her fall in adoration:

The whole universe totters and trembles on my rod. (Paul Valéry.)

Dreadful and pleasant temptation: to believe that ideas hold by themselves, develop by themselves, that consciousness is a way of all-powerful inner God. Illusion already mocked by the great materialist Diderot; he compares the process of formation of idealism to the illusions of a piano which, endowed with sensitivity, would believe itself alone in the world and would think that "all the harmony of the universe" takes place in it. [Diderot: Interview with d'Alembert; in Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, p. 24-25-26.]

Thought and the brain

Materialism has always fought this illusion. Diderot already formulated the hypothesis that matter can think. Marx wrote:

We cannot separate thought from thinking matter. This matter is the substratum of all the changes that are taking place. (Cited by Engels in: Utopian Socialism and Scientific Socialism, p. 17. Editions Sociales. Paris, 1948.)

Engels for his part indicates:

Our consciousness and our thought, however transcendent they appear to us, are only the product of a material, bodily organ, the brain. (Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 18; Philosophical Studies, p. 28.)

And Lenin:

The world picture is a picture that shows how matter moves and how "matter thinks". (Lenin: Complete Works, vol. XIII, p. 310. (Russian edition).)

and he observed that to say that thought is not movement, but "thought" is about as scientific as to advance: "heat is not movement, it is heat".

The natural sciences show that the insufficiency of brain development in an individual constitutes a major obstacle to the development of consciousness, of thought: this is the case with idiots. Thought is a historical product of the development of nature to a high degree of perfection, which is represented in living species by the sense organs, the nervous system, and in particular its upper, central segment, which controls the entire organism: the brain. The brain reflects both the conditions in the body and the external conditions.

What is the starting point of consciousness, of thought? It is sensation, and the source of sensations is in the matter which man works under the pressure of his natural needs. It is the work, the practice, the production, which gives rise to the first movements of thought at the origins of the human species. Work is not the fruit of the curse: "You will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow". Work is the substantial union of man and nature, the struggle of man against nature in order to be able to live, the source of all thought.

The main flaw of all past materialism ... is that the object, the reality, the sensible world are ... not considered there as a concrete human activity, as a practice. (K Marx: Ludwig Feuerbach, “Theses on Feuerbach”, p. 51; Philosophical Studies, p.57.)

Engels has shown in a famous text how the work, by multiplying the sensations of the man barely emerging from animality, had developed his hand, and consequently his brain, which allowed him to make further practical progress. Thus, the hand, the organ of work, is also the product of work. [See Engels: “On the role of work in the transformation of the monkey into man”, Dialectic of nature, p. 168-179.]

The sciences teach on the other hand that, if an individual is cut off from all social life, his thought is profoundly altered, atrophied; his memory is crumbling; his will weakens and becomes null. If he has never known a social life, his human character disappears. We have seen children abandoned in the forests and taken in by wolves take on the habits of wolves.

And Engels remarks that all human work is and has been from the beginning a work in society, without which man could not even have survived natural dangers.

This remark is of the utmost importance for understanding the origins of thought, of reflection. The work constantly highlights new aspects of reality, it poses new problems. It reveals new objective connections that sensations are not sufficient to reflect.

Now, work requires joint effort, joint action, so that all the energies of a group of men apply at the same point and at the same moment - for example, moving a rock. To get men to act together, you need a signal, an order. But as soon as the action becomes more complicated, neither the cry nor the gesture is enough: it is necessary to be able to explain the work to be done, that is to say that it is necessary, beyond the sensations, new signals, qualitatively new, which express the connections between sensations: words. Work thus requires communication, between men, of the complex impressions that it arouses in them. It is therefore the work that created the need for communication. Thus was born language, which is communication before being expression. [Animals,who do not work, who do not transform reality and consequently their sensations, have no need of language. Sensory signals are sufficient for their behavior.]

At the same time, the human brain is refined and enriched with new connections. The brain is therefore also a social product. Finally, the appearance of language signifies the appearance of thought proper, of reflection. A decisive step has been taken. Without work, social activity, no language and no thought.

It is said that thoughts come to the mind of man before being expressed in speech, that they are born without the material of the tongue, without the envelope of the tongue, naked so to speak. But it is absolutely wrong. Whatever thoughts come to the mind of man, they can arise and exist only on the basis of the material of language, only on the basis of terms and sentences, of language. There are no bare thoughts, freed from the materials of language, freed from the "natural matter" that is language. “Language is the immediate reality of thought”. (Marx.) The reality of thought manifests itself in language. Only idealists can speak of a thought detached from "natural matter", language, of a thought without language. (Stalin:“On Marxism in Linguistics”, Latest Writings, p. 45-46.)

These theses of dialectical materialism received, as Lenin had foreseen and demanded, a striking confirmation of the natural sciences, with the physiological work of the great scientist Pavlov.

Pavlov discovered that the fundamental processes of brain activity are conditioned reflexes, triggered by sensations, both external and internal, that occur under specific conditions. He showed that these sensations serve as signals for all the activity of the living organism.

Second, he discovered that words, with their content, their meaning, can replace the sensations provided by the objects they designate and in turn trigger conditioned reflexes, responses, either organic or verbal. They thus form signal signals, a second signaling system, which is constituted on the basis of the first and which is specific to man. Language is thus the condition of man's higher activity, of his social activity, the support of abstract thought which goes beyond the sensation currently present, the support of reflection. It is he who allows man to reflect reality with the maximum precision.

Thus Pavlov showed at the same time that what mainly determines the consciousness of man, it is not his organism, the biological conditions, as vulgar materialists and psychoanalysts believe, but on the contrary it is the society where he lives, and the knowledge he has of it. In man, the biological is subordinate to the social. Social conditions of life are the real regulator of organic and mental life. [See "Introduction to the work of Pavlov", Scientific questions, n ° 4. Edit. of the New Critique. Lectures given during the philosophy course of the New University.] Thought is by nature a social phenomenon.

It is thus quite true that the brain is the organ of thought, but it is only its organ, and this in no way contradicts the central assertion of Marxism:

It is not the conscience of men which determines their existence, it is on the contrary their social existence which determines their conscience. (Marx: “Contribution to the critique of political economy”, in Marx-Engels: Etudes philosophiques, p. 79.)

Two degrees of knowledge

Pavlov's physiological works and discoveries allow us to further specify the way in which the reflection of reality, the reflection of being, that is to say knowledge, is formed in consciousness.

Let's take a simple example: how do you teach a child the meaning of common words? in the first place it is necessary to show him several times in a row the thing which the word designates; secondly and at the same time, you have to tell him the name and make him pronounce it as often as necessary until he correctly and "spontaneously" associates the word with the thing and knows how to use it. the word in the absence of the thing, that is to say in the abstract.

Thus the meaning of the word, as soon as it: is assimilated, represents the idea of ​​the thing, and this idea or concept is formed on the basis of repeated sensations and on the basis of the language which signals them. There are therefore two degrees of knowledge: immediate sensation, and the abstract idea (or concept). Besides, it is easy to see that the isolated sensation is a less perfect knowledge than the idea; in fact, as long as the child has seen only white swans, he will believe that the swan is a white bird, which is partially false; on the contrary, the zoologist who knows the swan by its scientific definition will have a more precise, more exact, more "adequate" idea. We can therefore see that it is the abstract idea which most accurately reflects reality, but it is quite certain that this scientific idea of ​​the swan does notwas able to form only on the basis of a systematic inventory of species and varieties that exist in nature, on the basis of sensations.

When it is a question of things in themselves "abstract", for example the notions of kinship, the child can acquire them again only by means of the social practice often enough repeated.

Let us take a more complex example: the small trader has excessively heavy tax forms, the textile worker is threatened with unemployment, the small civil servant earns 20,000 francs a month. Suppose the first read L'Aurore, the second Franc-Tireur, and the third Le Figaro. Each one finds in his newspaper an echo of his misery; the bourgeois editor moans over the sad fate of the little people. These newspapers therefore reflect the situation in part, in its sensitive aspects. But they stay there, they are careful not to explain it, they blame anything, the waste of the Administration, the number of small businesses or the peasants. On the contrary, the reader of L'Humanité, the reader of a report by Maurice Thorez, will find the explanation which gives the key to all aspects of the situation, theanalysis of the crisis of capitalism and its contradictions, the notion, abstract, but which deeply reflects reality, of the fundamental law of current capitalism, the search for maximum profit.

Thus in all fields, knowledge goes from the sensible to the rational. For Berkeley seeing the sun flat and red was "proof" that it only existed in our consciousness; for Marxism it is simply the proof that sensitive knowledge is insufficient because, if it gives us contact with reality, it does not make us understand what reality is. Dialectics have taught us that in order to understand a phenomenon, it is necessary to relate it to others, to know its origin, to grasp its internal contradictions. Science, knowledge by ideas, will not only let us know what the sun really is, but also why we see it flat and red. Science gives us the essence of phenomena.

Logical knowledge differs from sensible knowledge ... in that sensible knowledge embraces particular aspects of the phenomenon, the external connection of things, while logical knowledge, taking an immense step forward, embraces what things have of common, embraces the totality and the essence of things and their internal connection, leads to the discovery of the internal contradictions of the world around us, and can thus assimilate its development in its totality and with all the multiplicity of its internal connections. (Mao Tsétoung: “About practice”, Cahiers du communisme, February 1951, p. 243.)

The passage from the first degree of knowledge, the degree of sensations, impressions, emotions, to the second degree, that of concepts, constitutes a remarkable example of dialectic, since it is the quantitative accumulation of sensations that qualitatively produces this phenomenon. new: the concept.

What is called the emotional degree of knowledge, that is to say the degree of sensations and impressions, ... such is the first degree of knowledge.

The continuation of social practice involves in the practice of men the multiple repetition of things [This repetition is not fortuitous, it results from natural necessity. See previous lesson, point IV.] Which they perceive through their senses and which produce an effect on them; consequently there takes place in the human brain a leap in the process of knowledge: the concept arises. By its very nature, the concept represents the assimilation of the nature of things, of what they have in common, of their internal connection.

There is a difference between the concept and the sensation, not only in quantity, but in quality. (Idem, p. 242.)

So, to use Lenin's formula:

Concepts are the highest products of the brain, which is itself the highest product of matter. (Lenin: Philosophical Notebooks.)

And if there are contradictions in the ideas of men, it is because there are contradictions in the reality that our thinking reflects:

The dialectic of things produces the dialectic of ideas and not vice versa. (Lenin: Philosophical Notebooks.)

Marx had already said:

The movement of thought is only the reflection of the real movement, transported and transposed in the human brain. (Marx: Afterword to the 2nd German edict, in Le Capital. LI, t. I, p. 29. Editions Sociales.)

Conclusion

We realize the immense practical importance of the Marxist thesis on the anteriority of matter in relation to consciousness.

First, if it is the conditions which change first, and then consequently the consciousness of men, we must seek the underlying reason for this or that doctrine, theory or ideal, not in the brain of men, nor in their imagination or their genius of invention, but in the development of material conditions. Only the ideal which is based on a study of these conditions is good and acceptable.

Second, if men's consciousness, feelings, mores and customs, are determined by external conditions, it is evident that only a change in these conditions can change men's consciousness. There is no such thing as an eternal man, of "eternal human nature". In a private property regime where the individual struggle for existence flourishes, it is "natural" that man should be a wolf for man. In a system where socialist emulation flourishes, socialist property, it is inevitable that the ideas of brotherhood among men will triumph. Man is neither good nor bad: he is what circumstances make him. Marxism provides a decisive answer to the question posed by bourgeois ideologues:must it be said that it is "bad institutions" that make man bad, or that man's wickedness perverts "institutions"? It is not a question of "institutions", but of capitalism which perverts man. The idea of ​​revolution through "moral renewal" is a lie.

In reality a new man can be formed, with a new socialist conscience, in new, socialist conditions of life. What is needed for this? To hasten the advent of these new conditions by transforming action on social reality, on the inhuman capitalist system. As Marx said, "if man is formed by circumstances, circumstances must be formed humanly". [K. Marx: “Contribution to the history of French materialism”, in Etudes philosophiques, p. 116.]

Thus appears in all its clarity the connection between materialism and socialism, already glimpsed by certain French philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment. Right-wing social democratic leaders who do not want socialism are therefore led to do all they can to falsify Marxism by rejecting materialism, by sheltering behind the most retrograde idealism, as we will see in other lessons. Materialism, on the contrary, opens to the proletariat and to humanity the path to its material and cultural emancipation, the revolutionary path.

See: Control questions

III. The world is knowable

The ultimate refuge of idealism

We saw in the previous lesson that the appearance of the subjective idealism of Berkeley in the eighteenth century is explained by the need to save by a roundabout route the objective idealism of religion, which succumbed to the blows of the natural sciences. and materialism. But Berkeley's philosophy had the serious fault of being unable to account for the progress of the sciences which were contemporary to it, and to cite only this example, of mathematics. She pretended to ignore them, declared them absurd. And we have seen that idealistic philosophers of the Berkeley line tend to stay away from scientific questions. But that cannot be enough. From the eighteenth century the development of science was such, especially after theelaboration of the general mechanical theory of the universe by Newton, that Berkeley's position became untenable. Idealism had to find a fallback position: it is a question of at least reserving for religion the possibility of surviving itself, of giving it the benefit of the doubt. "Materialism claims that matter is raw, we don't know anything about it," the new philosophy will claim.

So this philosophy tries to present itself as a "third way", between idealism and materialism; it refuses to take sides on the fundamental problem of philosophy by deciding that it is not possible to take sides; it flatters itself in adopting a “critical” and not a “dogmatic” position.

Objective idealism subordinated matter to a universal Spirit, subjective idealism dissolved matter in our consciousness. But one is ruined by the natural sciences, the other is ruined by physiology and the social sciences. Comes our new philosophy which says: "But where do you know that science makes us know reality as it is? Certainly the sciences exist; but, to know if the objective reality is in its principle matter or spirit, it would first be necessary to know if our spirit can know the objective reality in itself ”. So this "third philosophy" does not subordinate matter to spirit, does not dissolve matter in consciousness, but initially reasons as if one were foreign to the other,as if matter were impenetrable to the mind, to our knowledge, and as if our knowledge was also incapable of unraveling the nature and possibilities of our mind.

Generally speaking, this tendency, which claims that it is impossible to answer the fundamental question of philosophy because we are and always will be incapable of knowing the first principles of things, is called agnosticism (from two Greek words meaning " unable to know ”).

The precursor of this philosophy is in the 18th century the Scotsman David Hume. Its main representative is the German Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804), a contemporary of the French Revolution, of whom we have already spoken. [See the 9 th lesson: Marxism and religion, point V.] In France, in the 19th century Auguste Comte (1798-1857) supported a similar position, and a series of authors in whom agnosticism took root. mixture with other forms of idealism (indeed, among these authors, one never finds the philosophical tendencies in their pure state as among the founders of doctrines, but of unstable proportions). Furthermore, Kant's philosophy played a role in the labor movement because enemies of Marxism relied on it to attempt a "revision" of Marxism.

So let's look at the “arguments” of agnosticism. Hume writes:

It can be taken for granted that men are inclined by their natural instinct ... to trust their senses, and that without any reasoning, we always assume the existence of an external universe, which does not depend on our perception. and which would exist even if we were annihilated with all sentient beings.

We see it: so far Hume recognizes that materialism corresponds to common sense,

But this primordial and universal opinion is promptly shaken by the most superficial philosophy which teaches us that nothing other than the image or the perception will never be accessible to our mind ... The table which we see seems smaller when we we move away from it, but the real table that exists independently of us does not change; therefore our mind has perceived nothing other than the image of the table. (Quoted by Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, p. 22.)

So here we are faced with an argument in the purest Berkeley style: let us remember the example of the "flat and red" sun (previous lesson). With one difference, however: Berkeley denied the independent existence of matter; Hume does not deny it: he admits the existence of a "real table" which exists independently of us and does not change while our sensations change, but this table we will never know how it is, since we do not know of any it than the relative images that our senses give us. The table itself is unknowable.

So Hume distinguishes in reality two levels: on the one hand the table as we see it, the table for us, which is in our consciousness in the form of an image, which is subjective, and which is only appearance. ; on the other hand, the "real" table, the table in itself, which is outside our consciousness, which is objective and constitutes reality, but which is unknowable. Conclusion: we never know anything but the appearances of things, we always ignore their being and therefore we cannot decide between idealism and materialism. The idealist and the materialist who are perpetually discussing what things are in themselves, matter or spirit, are like two men walking in the snow with their noses on one in blue glasses, theanother with rose-colored glasses and who would discuss what color the snow is. The materialist sees the importance of the material side of things, the idealist the importance of the ideal side; very clever who will say what things are in themselves, because everyone is "a prisoner from his point of view." We can see the importance of this philosophy for people who claim to “remain neutral” and maintain themselves “in a scientific reserve”.importance of this philosophy for people who claim to “remain neutral” and maintain themselves “in a scientific reserve”.importance of this philosophy for people who claim to “remain neutral” and maintain themselves “in a scientific reserve”.

It is precisely with regard to science that Kant, relying on Hume's reasoning, will intervene. Kant has the reputation of a very difficult philosopher. [Our criticism of Kantian philosophy in no way calls into question the contribution of his scholarly work: hypothesis of the nebula, which the French Laplace was to take up and develop.] In fact, Kantian ideology is found everywhere. It is the idea that there is a "secret" of things and that this secret escapes us, it is the false neutralism imposed on the bourgeois school as if it were possible to keep the balance equal between the truth and error, science and ignorance is the idea that it is not good to be too affirmative, that there is truth everywhere, that "everyone has their point of view" , etc. VS'is therefore the very type of ideology capable of disorienting the masses.

Kant, therefore, starts from the distinction between the unknowable thing-in-itself and the thing-for-us, the appearance, which results from the shock produced on our sense organs by the thing-in-itself. We are not in things, we will never be there. On the other hand, appearances are multiple, chaotic, contradictory. The task of science will therefore consist in putting it in order, in forming a coherent picture that satisfies our need for logic. How is it going to be done? It is the human mind which, then specifies Kant, interprets the data of the senses according to its own requirements. Science is nothing other than the result of this interpretation. So the laws of science, the relations between phenomena, are only the product of the human mind.Far from reflecting the real laws of matter in motion, they reflect the "laws", the demands of the human mind. Far from representing objective truth, they represent only a subjective truth. Of course, they do not depend on Peter or Paul, but the fact remains that for Kant they relate to the human mind; (as if there could be a divine spirit that sees the world differently).

What is the consequence of this theory? Science remains on the surface of things. In fact, an absolute, impenetrable, eternal mystery is the real background against which the illusory progress of science takes place. Consequently, no absolute truth should be attributed to science. It is only a question of interpretation. Kantianism leads straight to skepticism and inaction, including in the field of theoretical scientific research. Agnostics are thus led to make no difference between the errors of yesterday's science and the truths of today's science. "Truth today, mistake tomorrow," they say, concluding that if science has been wrong once, we cannot know when it is right. They confuse themethodical critical mind of the scientist in his laboratory with the mind of universal skeptical doubt. For them knowledge raises a barrier between the world and us. Hence the interminable considerations, made fashionable in the bourgeois university, on the value of science, the bankruptcy of science, etc. If science is only about appearances, it is ultimately only an appearance of science, an appearance of knowledge.is ultimately only an appearance of science, an appearance of knowledge.is ultimately only an appearance of science, an appearance of knowledge.

Agnosticism, as we have said, has taken on similar forms which must be recognized. Auguste Comte's positivism affirms that science must confine itself to noting the relations between facts without seeking the reason for these relations; it must refrain from seeking the “why” of things, not wanting to reach the absolute; any research of this kind, any explanatory theory of phenomena which brings to light their essence, is condemned by Auguste Comte as "metaphysics", by an illegitimate use of the word. This is the official credo of the bourgeois university in scientific matters.

For nominalism, supported for example by Henri Poincaré, science is only a "language", a way of formulating what we perceive of phenomena, but not a decisive explanation of reality. Henri Poincaré even questions the great discovery of the Earth's rotation around the Sun, and only wants to see Copernicus's system as a “language”. These philosophies not only give science a false view, but also engage it in ways where it is sterilized; they deprive him of the beautiful boldness of the science of the Renaissance; they agree to make it harmless. All these tendencies have had for a hundred years an abundant posterity in France and in Germany, in England and in America. They have had particular success in the social sciences.

Now let's take a look at agnosticism.

1. Agnosticism does not attack science head-on; in the time of Kant and Comte this is no longer possible. Neither does he deny the existence of objective reality; before science, the agnostic is therefore materialist. But he hastens to give pledges on the other side, to protest that science is not all knowledge. The agnostic therefore strives to diminish the credit of science, to hide its materialistic content and its value of knowledge, to flee matter while admitting it, so as not to get into trouble. In short, it is a question of confiscating science for the benefit of idealism; science will be used to sing the praises of the "human spirit". In short, this materialism is a shameful materialism.

If, however, the neo-Kantists in Germany strive to give new life to Kant's ideas, and the agnostics in England to Hume's ideas (where they had never disappeared), this constitutes, to the point of scientific view, a regression from the long-standing theoretical and practical refutation of it, and, in practice, a shameful way of accepting materialism in secret, while publicly denying it. [Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 17; Philosophical Studies, p. 27.]

2. This “intermediate” position perfectly matches the needs of the bourgeoisie which, at the time of the rise of capitalism, could not do without the development of the sciences in the service of production, but which at the same time seeks a compromise. with feudal ideology, religion, either because it already needed to consolidate its power: this was the case in France in the time of Comte, or because it had not yet been able to emancipate itself from it. feudal order: this was the case in Germany in Kant's time.

3. Agnosticism is only an "intermediary" position in appearance. Practically first, what does the refusal of the absolute mean for Comte, for example in politics? This can be seen by his slogan: “Neither restoration nor revolution”, a bourgeois slogan par excellence. By contenting himself with a shameful materialism, which does not dare to fight openly under the pretext that one cannot take sides, the agnostic leaves the field open, not to the two partners equally, but to the stronger. But which is the strongest in practice? As Lenin showed in What to do ?, it is unmistakably idealism, because it has the benefit of seniority as an official ideology, and because theoretically it draws minds down the slope of ease.Materialism, on the contrary, is unofficial, difficult because it is scientific, unusual. Agnosticism's “impartiality” therefore resembles Leon Blum's “non-intervention” in the conflict between the Spanish Republic and fascist intervention. Kant himself knows very well that, left without a valid theoretical answer, men will turn to those who claim to provide one, and who are in place, idealists and theologians, for men have a need for philosophical certainty; agnostic "neutrality" is therefore only hypocrisy. We will also see that, on the theoretical level, agnosticism has idealistic presuppositions.agnosticism therefore resembles Leon Blum's "non-intervention" in the conflict between the Spanish Republic and fascist intervention. Kant himself knows very well that, left without a valid theoretical answer, men will turn to those who claim to provide one, and who are in place, idealists and theologians, for men have a need for philosophical certainty; agnostic "neutrality" is therefore only hypocrisy. We will also see that, on the theoretical level, agnosticism has idealistic presuppositions.agnosticism therefore resembles Leon Blum's "non-intervention" in the conflict between the Spanish Republic and fascist intervention. Kant himself knows very well that, left without a valid theoretical answer, men will turn to those who claim to provide one, and who are in place, idealists and theologians, for men have a need for philosophical certainty; agnostic "neutrality" is therefore only hypocrisy. We will also see that, on the theoretical level, agnosticism has idealistic presuppositions.for men have a need for philosophical certainty; agnostic "neutrality" is therefore only hypocrisy. We will also see that, on the theoretical level, agnosticism has idealistic presuppositions.for men have a need for philosophical certainty; agnostic "neutrality" is therefore only hypocrisy. We will also see that, on the theoretical level, agnosticism has idealistic presuppositions.

4. Finally, agnosticism leads straight to mysticism, to fideism. We call this the reactionary doctrine which admits, above reason, another kind of "knowledge": faith. Indeed agnosticism rejects all attempts at a rational demonstration of religious dogmas, to which objective idealism indulged, since for it, knowing the principles of the world, God or matter, is impossible by reason, by philosophy. Consequence: as we do not know the end of things, as man is enveloped in an unfathomable mystery, nothing prevents having access to the supreme reality by non-rational, mystical ways, nothing prohibits to give faith a chance, nothing prevents us from thinking that it is true knowledge. [We saw (lesson 9) that, for Kant,faith has a practical, counter-revolutionary role. My philosophy, he explained, has this precious advantage that it makes room for science and faith altogether.] Agnosticism does not say like religious idealism: "Religion is philosophically the truth," it says, "Maybe religion is not a mistake, maybe there is truth in religion." We see the “nuance”, a nuance which is enough to attract the theoretical wrath of the Church and its support in practice!is it not a mistake, perhaps there is some truth in religion ”. We see the “nuance”, a nuance which is enough to attract the theoretical wrath of the Church and its support in practice!is it not a mistake, perhaps there is some truth in religion ”. We see the “nuance”, a nuance which is enough to attract the theoretical wrath of the Church and its support in practice!

Contemporary fideism in no way repudiates science; it only repudiates "excessive pretensions", namely the pretension to discover objective truth. If there is an objective truth (as the materialists think), if the natural sciences, reflecting the outside world in human "experience", are the only ones capable of giving us objective truth, all fideism must be absolutely rejected. . (Lenin; Complete Works, vol. XIII, p. 98-99. (In Russian).)

By making science a subjective truth, agnosticism leaves objective truth to faith. “Scratch the agnostic,” said Lenin, “you will find the idealist”. Starting from subjective idealism, it ends up in objective idealism. Just give it a chance, that's all theology can ask for today. By limiting the horizon of scholars, by prohibiting them from any major theoretical generalization, agnosticism and positivism deliver them bound hand and foot, to the fantastic inventions which theology has for them; the Pope speaks to them more or less this language: "Science, you see, is powerless: only faith, which goes beyond it, makes it possible to pierce the mystery of the universe". Only the Marxist conception of knowledge,and the method of dialectical materialism, can draw science from this "impotence" in which positivism locks it up.

The marxist conception

Unlike idealism which contests the possibility of knowing the world and its laws; who does not believe in the value of our knowledge; which does not recognize objective truth and considers that the world is full of "things in themselves" which can never be known to science, Marxist philosophical materialism starts from the principle that the world and its laws are perfectly knowable, that our knowledge of the laws of nature, verified by experience, by practice, is a valid knowledge, that it has the meaning of an objective truth; that there are no things unknowable in the world, but only things still unknown, which will be discovered and known by the means of science and practice. (Stalin: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism,2-c, p. 12.)

We see that Stalin emphasizes the central role of practice as a means of discovering the truth and as a means of verifying our knowledge, as the basis of science.

The role of practice

Engels, in a famous text, criticized Kant's theory of the thing-in-itself:

The most striking refutation of this philosophical fad, as indeed of all the others, is practice, especially experience and industry. If we can prove the correctness of our conception of a natural phenomenon by creating it ourselves, by producing it with the aid of its conditions, and, what is more, by making it serve our ends, it is so. end of Kant's elusive "thing-in-itself". The chemicals produced in plant and animal organisms remained such "things-in-themselves" until organic chemistry set about preparing them one after the other; thus, the "thing-in-itself" became a thing for us, like, for example, the coloring matter of madder, alizarin, which we no longer grow in the fields in the form of madder roots,but that we extract coal tar much more simply and cheaply. The Copernican solar system was, for three hundred years, a hypothesis on which one could bet 100, 1000, 10,000 to one, but it was, despite everything, a hypothesis; but when Leverrier, using the figures obtained thanks to this system, calculated not only the necessity of the existence of an unknown planet, but also the place where this planet must have been in the sky, and when Galle la then actually found, the Copernican system was proven. (Engels: Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 16-17; Etudes philosophiques, p. 27. We have seen above that the agnostic Poincaré, who is posterior to Engels, persisted in considering the Copernicus system as a hypothesis;he had simply neglected the glaring verification that Engels quotes.)

Why does the analysis of practice provide a refutation to this "philosophical fad" of agnosticism? How to refute a theory by practice? Doesn't that even make us "get out of philosophy", as idealists often say? Let us first observe that their own point of view is untenable: they affirm that science has a practical, industrial value, that it should be used, and at the same time they deny it any theoretical value. How do they arrange with each other, what do they mean by the "practical" value of science? In fact, they cannot answer. If the separation of theory and practice has any meaning, it can only be this: it signifies separation,opposition that exists under the capitalist regime between intellectual labor and manual labor, and nothing else.

What then is the Marxist conception of practice? The word applies at the same time: 1 ° to work, to production, to industry; 2 ° scientific research work, experimentation, experimental verification; 3 ° to social practice, the highest form on which the other two depend, for example the practice of class struggle. Practice is the activity of man transforming reality; it begins with material labor and sensation. Kant considers sensation as a simple image, sensibility as a passive faculty; for the dialectic, sensation is movement and we saw in the previous lesson that sensation is linked to practical activity. Sensitivity and activity are not separated like Kant teaches, as a metaphysician.[“Im Anfang war die Tat” (Goethe) (in the beginning was action), quoted by M. Thorez, Fils du Peuple, p. 68.]

If practice is the source of sensations, impressions, of the first degree of knowledge, it is also the production of objects. Kant says: we are not in things; it metaphysically separates the object and the subject, introduces a break between thought and reality. Nothing is more wrong. We are "in" things to the extent that we produce them: by producing them, we incorporate our activity, our thought into them. If we know how to produce alizarin "artificially", it is because we have mastered its nature, we know it in itself. For materialism, the superstition that an "artificial" product is not worth a "natural" product is irrelevant. If therefore our conception of a thing is right, exact, theeffect of our practice will correspond to our expectations and this will constitute the objective verification of our knowledge. Everything is indissolubly linked to the process which produces it. By intervening correctly in this process, by stimulating it, man literally binds himself to the thing itself, penetrates into it and thus proves the correctness of his conception.

As long as we employ these objects for our own use according to the qualities we perceive in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or inaccuracy of our sense perceptions. If these perceptions are false, the use of the object they suggested to us is false; therefore our attempt must fail. But if we succeed in achieving our goal, if we find that the object corresponds to the representation we have of it, that it gives what we expected from its use, it is positive proof that, within the framework of these limits, our perceptions of the object and its qualities are consistent with the reality outside us. And if, on the other hand, we fail, we usually do not take long to discover the cause of our failure;we find that the perception which served as the basis of our attempt, was either by itself incomplete or superficial, or had been related in a way that reality did not justify to the data of other perceptions. This is what we call faulty reasoning. As often as we have taken care to educate and use our senses correctly and to enclose our action within the limits prescribed by our correctly obtained perceptions [ie "scientifically controlled". (Engels).] And correctly used, so often we will find that the result of our action demonstrates the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the objects perceived. (Engels: “Historical Materialism,” in Philosophical Studies, pp. 93-94.)either was by itself incomplete or superficial, or had been related in a way that reality did not justify with the data of other perceptions. This is what we call faulty reasoning. As often as we have taken care to educate and use our senses correctly and to enclose our action within the limits prescribed by our correctly obtained perceptions [ie "scientifically controlled". (Engels).] And correctly used, so often we will find that the result of our action demonstrates the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the objects perceived. (Engels: “Historical Materialism,” in Philosophical Studies, pp. 93-94.)either was by itself incomplete or superficial, or had been related in a way that reality did not justify with the data of other perceptions. This is what we call faulty reasoning. As often as we have taken care to educate and use our senses correctly and to enclose our action within the limits prescribed by our correctly obtained perceptions [ie "scientifically controlled". (Engels).] And correctly used, so often we will find that the result of our action demonstrates the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the objects perceived. (Engels: “Historical Materialism,” in Philosophical Studies, pp. 93-94.)a way that reality did not justify with the data of other perceptions. This is what we call faulty reasoning. As often as we have taken care to educate and use our senses correctly and to enclose our action within the limits prescribed by our correctly obtained perceptions [ie "scientifically controlled". (Engels).] And correctly used, so often we will find that the result of our action demonstrates the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the objects perceived. (Engels: “Historical Materialism,” in Philosophical Studies, pp. 93-94.)a way that reality did not justify with the data of other perceptions. This is what we call faulty reasoning. As often as we have taken care to educate and use our senses correctly and to enclose our action within the limits prescribed by our correctly obtained perceptions [ie "scientifically controlled". (Engels).] And correctly used, so often we will find that the result of our action demonstrates the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the objects perceived. (Engels: “Historical Materialism,” in Philosophical Studies, pp. 93-94.)to use our senses correctly and to enclose our action within the limits prescribed by our correctly obtained perceptions [ie "scientifically controlled". (Engels).] And correctly used, so often we will find that the result of our action demonstrates the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the objects perceived. (Engels: “Historical Materialism,” in Philosophical Studies, pp. 93-94.)to use our senses correctly and to enclose our action within the limits prescribed by our correctly obtained perceptions [ie "scientifically controlled". (Engels).] And correctly used, so often we will find that the result of our action demonstrates the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the objects perceived. (Engels: “Historical Materialism,” in Philosophical Studies, pp. 93-94.)))

To use a phrase quoted by Engels, "the proof of pudding is that you eat it", the proof that science is true, it is that it allows to transform the natural and social world. This is why Marx wrote:

The question of whether human thought can arrive at objective truth is not a theoretical question, but a practical one. It is in practice that man must prove the truth, that is to say the reality and the power ... of his thought. (Marx: "Second thesis on Feuerbach", in Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 51; Philosophical studies, p. 61.)

So practice gives us the criterion of truth. But one will perhaps ask why this is so, and why science is possible, what is the foundation of the possibility of science, the foundation of truth. The answer to this question is contained in the lesson above. Kant in fact speaks to us of the "human mind" and doubts that it can know reality, he imagines it foreign to matter, prior to experience; moreover, he believes him to be immutable, incapable of transformation. We recognize here its metaphysical, anti-dialectical position, and at the same time we grasp from life the presupposition of all idealism for which the spirit is originally given, with its "faculties" constituted once and for all.We have seen that materialism, on the contrary, poses and resolves the question of the origin of the human spirit, shows that it is a product of evolution, a product of the millennial experience of humanity, a product of in practice, consciousness is a social product. If consciousness comes out of nature and society, it is not foreign to them. It can therefore correctly reflect the laws of nature and society. "It is the dialectic of things which produces the dialectic of ideas, and not vice versa". (Lenin.)It can therefore correctly reflect the laws of nature and society. "It is the dialectic of things which produces the dialectic of ideas, and not vice versa". (Lenin.)It can therefore correctly reflect the laws of nature and society. "It is the dialectic of things which produces the dialectic of ideas, and not vice versa". (Lenin.)

Consequently, unlike idealism which presents error as natural to man and the discovery of truth almost as a miracle, materialism shows that truth is first, even if it is not at first glance perfect. , because it is nothing other than the reflection of reality in the brain of man, and this reflection is a natural process: the being of the world is always present to us.

Under these conditions, how does materialism explain error? How is it possible? Where does it come from, in particular, that there are false conceptions of the world, such as idealistic conceptions and, among others, religions? To answer these questions, we must start from the fact that things have multiple aspects that our senses discover successively thanks to the development of our practical activity. If one sticks to one of its aspects, it is not possible to have valid knowledge of things. For example, the shape of a staff dipped in water cannot be exactly known if we only stick to the testimony of our eyes. So it is with all things. The error is not absolute.It takes root when one part of the practice is isolated from all the others. That is why it can always be corrected and eliminated by the practice itself.

But we saw in the previous lesson that knowledge includes two degrees: sensation and concept. The passage from the first to the second constitutes a generalization. This is a second possible source of error, because sometimes we generalize from insufficient bases. Such is the case of the one who observes the behavior of a few bourgeois politicians and who asserts: all politicians are corrupt. We recognize here the metaphysical way of thinking which brings an aspect of reality to the absolute: it is here again the insufficiency of concrete analysis which is at the origin of the error. But it should be noted that, as soon as we generalize, there is the possibility of leaving the real, of distorting the image we have of it. The error is not absolute: itis distorted truth. In the very process of knowledge exists, to use Lenin's term, the possibility of an imaginative flight out of reality. Ideas have a driving force of their own. Once born, they exist in themselves. In other words, cerebral activity can be exercised in a relatively autonomous way, by detaching itself from the practice, the only one capable of controlling the value of the constructions of ideas which form outside it. Practice, there too, is therefore the only way to reduce error to the dimensions of truth, to "bring back to earth" thought.Once born, they exist in themselves. In other words, cerebral activity can be exercised in a relatively autonomous way, by detaching itself from the practice, the only one capable of controlling the value of the constructions of ideas which form outside it. Practice, there too, is therefore the only way to reduce error to the dimensions of truth, to "bring back to earth" thought.Once born, they exist in themselves. In other words, cerebral activity can be exercised in a relatively autonomous way, by detaching itself from the practice, the only one capable of controlling the value of the constructions of ideas which form outside it. Practice, there too, is therefore the only way to reduce error to the dimensions of truth, to "bring back to earth" thought.

It should be noted that certain conditions of production and social existence do not favor this constantly necessary elimination of error. For example, the weak development of the productive forces at the beginnings of societies did not allow man to discover the true causes of natural phenomena, which he then explained by imaginary causes: hence legends, myths, religious beliefs. Engels wrote:

[The] instinct of personification [of the forces of nature which created gods everywhere, ... [considered] as a necessary transitional stage, ... [explains] the universality of religion. (Engels: Anti-Dühring, p. 380. See also above, lesson 9, point V.)

The division of society into antagonistic classes, one of which works, while the other, the owner, directs production, designs plans, and can indulge in some intellectual work, promotes the development of purely speculative conceptions. At the same time the products of man's mental activity, the ideas by which he directs production and social life appear to be the true origin of reality and to depend only on themselves. This reversal of the relationship between objective reality and ideas, which is only possible by “the imaginative flight out of reality”, constitutes the idealist conception of the world, which gives all things an inverted, “fantastic” image and represents the supreme form of error.

So materialism not only refutes idealism, but explains its origin. Lenin wrote that idealism is an outgrowth, one of the features or one of the facets of knowledge which gives excessively in the absolute, detached from matter. Idealism certainly reflects reality, but in reverse, and makes it walk on its head. Idealists, Lenin said, are fruitless flowers, parasites that grow on the living, productive, all-powerful tree of true human, objective, absolute knowledge. And Mao Tsetung wrote, "Knowledge detached from practice is inconceivable." (Mao Tsétoung: "About practice", in the Cahiers du communisme, February 1951, p. 245.)

A falsification of the marxist notion of practice

This notion of practice has taken on such importance with the rise of Marxism that it is no longer possible to do without it. This is why the reactionary bourgeoisie tried to seize it and falsify it. She also wanted to have a philosophy of action, this is the doctrine called pragmatism.

Born in the United States of America during the period of imperialist expansion, pragmatism has enjoyed wide distribution in Europe, especially since World War II.

Practice proving the truth of knowledge, pragmatism claims to conclude that anything that succeeds, anything that is useful is true. Starting from the formula "whatever is true is useful", pragmatism turns it around and proclaims "all that is useful is true". It is therefore the exact opposite of Marxism.

It is not difficult to see that pragmatism is a crude variety of agnosticism. According to him, the foundation of truth is not conformity with reality, the correct, verified and controlled reflection of reality, but simply utility. But whose usefulness? of Peter or of Paul, of the bourgeoisie or of the proletariat? Everything that is true is useful, except for those who need the lie. It is the lie which is more and more useful to the reactionary bourgeoisie, and only the truth can be useful to the proletariat. For pragmatism, therefore, the truth is subjective, and not objective. In fact, it loses interest in the truth in itself, it is a philosophy of ignorance, the most backward of idealisms.

For example pragmatism will say: "religion exists, it is useful to some people, therefore it is true". In fact, pragmatism, an ideology typical of the decadent bourgeoisie, which denies science, quite simply subordinates truth to the interests of the ruling class. It is the apology of Machiavellianism. Reason of State (McCarthyism) justifies the assassination of the Rosenbergs. The most opposite things will be declared true in turn, if such is the interest of Capital. It is the idolatry of maximum profit.

As a philosophy of action, pragmatism recommends action that succeeds, whatever the principles; for him the end, the utility, justifies the means. This is the typical philosophy of fascist adventurers, according to the formula: "The truth is what Mussolini is thinking at this moment".

In scientific matters, pragmatism recommends the abandonment of theory, of thought, of forecasting. He advocates “experiments to see”, at random, whatever they are. If they are successful, so much the better; if not so be it. Pragmatism thus authorizes criminal “experiments”. This abject "theory" constituted all the ideological baggage of the Nazi doctors and their Japanese emulators who experimented on prisoners; it is now that of their American followers, in terms of bacteriological warfare. The bourgeois ideologues, at the same time as they try to "justify" the class practice of the bourgeoisie in this way, claim to attribute pragmatism to the Marxists. To hear them, the Marxists would put "efficiency" above all else,would consider as true only what is useful to the obscure purposes of their sect. Certain ideologues thus claim to attribute Hitler's theory of the "vital lie" to Marxists.

The Marxist conception is quite different. Far from an idea being true because it is useful, it is on the contrary because it is true, that is to say objectively founded, and only in this case, that it is useful, applicable. , because practice, as the rationalist Descartes already pointed out [Discourse on Method, Part 1], will “punish” the false conception, the erroneous method. American imperialism, as well as Hitler, experiences this every day. It is not because an idea fails that one declares it false, it is on the contrary because it was objectively false that it has failed.

To make the "useful" lie the equivalent of the truth is the "tactic" of the opportunist. Only unprincipled upstarts and adventurers, products of imperialist decadence, can advocate such a course of action. Marxism never sacrifices the truth. Marxists know how to endure apparent and fleeting "failures" and how to proclaim scientific truth for the greater good of practice. There was a time when the Communists alone in France condemned the Marshall Plan as contrary to the national interest. Pragmatism, on the contrary, is always on the side from which the wind blows, it seeks only immediate success. But practice has made it possible to verify the theoretical data on which the condemnation of the Marshall Plan was based,it made it possible to bring out the truth in the eyes of the broad masses, to show which appreciations were in conformity with reality, and which were contrary.

It is in this sense that practice is the criterion of truth.

Relative and absolute truth

Practice therefore allows us to verify the correctness of our idea of ​​the properties of a thing. What then remains of Kant's "thing-in-itself"? Nothing.

Dialectics indeed, and even the idealist dialectician Hegel, teaches that the distinction between the properties of a thing and the thing in itself is absurd. If you know all the properties of a thing, you know the thing itself; it remains that these properties are independent of us? This is precisely what must be understood by materiality of the world; but this objective reality is by no means unknowable since we know its properties. It would be absurd to say: “Your character is one thing, your qualities and your faults are another; I know your qualities and your faults, but not your character ", because" character "is precisely the set of faults and qualities. In the same way, painting is the totality of pictorial works;it would be absurd to say: there are the pictures, the painters, the colors, the processes, the schools, and then there is "painting" in itself, which hovers above and is unknowable. There are not two parts ”in the object. It is a whole whose various aspects we gradually discover through practice.

With regard to the “hidden” properties of things, dialectics have taught us that they are revealed by the internal struggle of opposites which gives rise to change: the liquid state “in itself” is precisely this state of relative equilibrium which reveals its internal contradiction at the time of freezing or boiling. Therefore:

There is and there can be no difference in principle between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself. There is only a difference between what is known and what is not yet. (Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, p. 85.)

Through a deeper and deeper knowledge of reality, the thing "in-itself" gradually becomes a thing "for-us".

We therefore see that, for the materialist dialectical theory of knowledge, there exists an absolute truth, that is to say, in conformity with reality in itself. Unlike Kant, for whom the truth was relative to the human mind, Marxism defines truth as a natural process: the more and more exact reflection in the consciousness of men of the objective reality external to this consciousness. To say that Marxists deny the existence of truth is therefore pure slander.

But if we return to the example of the liquid, we see that it is through the change that the internal content of a phenomenon appears. It is therefore necessary to wait sometimes for a phenomenon to have reached a certain degree of development, of ripening, so that its truth appears clearly; when the contradictions are too young, we do not yet distinguish them. This is what makes it difficult to study the beginnings of a living being, for example. This is the case with capitalism, whose incurable wounds, insoluble contradictions, appear better and better in the eyes of the broad masses when it is in agony. As the dialectician Hegel observed:

The Minerva owl (symbol of science, of truth) does not take flight until dusk.

It is consequently the very development of phenomena which allows the progress of knowledge; and that is why one must know how to observe patiently and take into account the time necessary for the reflection of reality to form in the brain. [This in no way contradicts the fact that it is possible to hasten the process of knowledge by means of imagination, scientific anticipation, hypothesis.]

On the theory of knowledge, as in all other fields of science, it is important to always reason dialectically, that is to say never to assume our consciousness to be invariable and ready-made, but to analyze the process by which knowledge arises from ignorance, or whereby vague and incomplete knowledge becomes more adequate and precise knowledge. (Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, pp. 85-86.)

So are there things forever unknowable? Not at all, but only unknown things, which "will be discovered and known by means of science and practice".

The entire history of science confirms the inexistence of the unknowable, the incessant transformation of the unknown into the known. Kant, on the contrary, considered certain problems insoluble. Its scientific horizon was also limited by the limits of the science of time: for example organic chemistry, biology ... did not yet exist. Since then, the horizon has widened, but those who rehash Kant do not want to see him.

So while agnosticism is pessimistic and laments the infirmity of the "human spirit", materialism is optimistic, and does not hold any problem, such as cancer, to be unsolvable. There is only the provisional unknown and the capitalist regime, by slowing down the development of science, prolongs this provisional. Better still, materialism makes it possible to plan the development of science by foreseeing the fields where the discoveries are ripe, by taking all measures to hasten them. Besides, has it not often happened in the past that mature discoveries have been made almost simultaneously by scientists who did not know each other, magnificent proof that knowledge is a natural process brought about in us by things themselves. same.But we must also consider that the development of a given phenomenon is not independent of all the others, everything is linked and nature is infinite in space and time, nature always produces something new, it is inexhaustible. . This is why the development of knowledge is itself infinite. There is more in the world than there will ever be in our knowledge, but since everything fits together, what we ignore is what we know. Consequently science cannot stop at a given point and, in this sense, each of its truths, considered in itself, is relative because it is relative to all the other truths. Beyond the molecule, we have discovered the atom, beyond the atom the electron, the nucleus, beyond the nucleus of other particles, but it does notthere is no reason to believe that one can exhaust reality. "The electron itself, said Lenin, is inexhaustible."

Moreover, this does not detract from the objective value of our knowledge, because "in the relative, there is the absolute". (Lenin.)

From the point of view of modern materialism, that is to say of Marxism, the limits of the approximation of our knowledge to absolute objective truth are historically relative, but the very existence of this truth is not contestable, as it is not disputable that we are approaching it. The outlines of the painting are historically relative, but it is undeniable that this painting represents an objectively existing model. The fact that at such and such a moment, under such and such conditions, we have progressed in our knowledge of the nature of things to the point of discovering alizarin in coal tar or of discovering electrons in the atom, is historically relative, but what is not relative at all, itis that any such discovery is an advance of "absolute objective knowledge". (Lenin: Materialism and Empiriocriticism, p. 116.)

Therefore, there can be no exact scientific theory which over time becomes false or out of date; each retains its value; when its narrowness, its limitations are discovered, they are overcome by the inexhaustible contribution of experience. The progress of science is not a race for originality, for ingenuity, it is progress in truth, in depth.

The union of theory and practice

For dialectical materialism, knowledge is not an operation by which the mind "interprets" the data of the senses, but a complex process by which the increasingly exact reflection of reality is constituted in the human brain. . We know that this process includes two qualitatively distinct degrees: the sensible degree and the rational degree, or again the practice and the theory. We have also seen that practice is the necessary starting point of theory, the source of knowledge, and that it is also the criterion of its truth. So any theory must necessarily return to practice and this for two reasons: the first is that the theory is precisely made for the practice, it is developed not for the vain curiosity of a dilettante, who contemplates the world,but precisely to help transform it; the second is that, since the real is movement, incessant change, the theory which seeks to be sufficient in itself sterilizes and is nothing more than a dead dogma; without the constant return to practice, the process of knowledge stops, it is no longer possible to obtain an increasingly accurate reflection of reality, to correct the insufficiencies of the theory, to deepen the knowledge of the world.to obtain an increasingly accurate reflection of reality, to correct the insufficiencies of the theory, to deepen knowledge of the world.to obtain an increasingly accurate reflection of reality, to correct the insufficiencies of the theory, to deepen knowledge of the world.

We call empiricists those philosophers who think that knowledge holds entirely in the first degree, sensations; we call idealistic rationalists those who admit well the role of ideas, of theoretical knowledge, but consider that they have fallen from the sky, that they cannot leave practice. Both arbitrarily separate the two degrees of knowledge, do not understand their unity.

We can see the importance of this thesis in the field of revolutionary practice. Here, as in the sciences, each individual cannot experience everything by himself; a social experience has accumulated, which theory elaborates and which each one must strive to assimilate, if he does not want to fall into conceptions whose falsity has already been recognized and corrected thanks to the secular experience of the labor movement.

He who neglects theory gets bogged down in practicality, acts blind and walks in darkness. Whoever neglects practice freezes in dogmatism, he is no more than a doctrinaire whose reasoning rings hollow.

Obviously, theory becomes irrelevant if it is not linked to revolutionary practice; just as practice becomes blind if its path is not illuminated by revolutionary theory. (Stalin: Des Principes du léninisme, p. 18. Editions Sociales, Paris, 1951.)

The Marxist conception of knowledge allows us to refute the misconception that to be "impartial", "objective", to see the truth in itself, one should stay away from practice. This is called bourgeois objectivism, a war machine against Marxism. One might as well say: the physicist who has carried out experiments cannot be objective since he has been "influenced" by his experiments!

If you are looking to gain knowledge, you need to participate in practice, which changes reality. If you want to know the taste of a pear, you have to take it in your mouth and chew it. If you are looking to know the organization and the nature of the atom, you have to carry out physical and chemical experiments, modify the medium of the atom. If you want to know the theory and methods of the revolution, you must participate in the revolution. All genuine knowledge comes from direct experience. (Mao Tsétoung: "About the practice", p. 244.)

This is why it is impossible to assimilate Marxism correctly and deeply if one stands with folded arms, contemplating the action instead of participating in it; with all due respect to the petty-bourgeois ideologues who claim that one could only judge the value of Marxism by staying away from the very movement by which the theory is constituted, verified and enriched. Only revolutionary practice makes it possible to discover the truth of capitalist society because only it proposes to transform this society, to modify the conditions in which this society moves; and only revolutionary practice needs the truth since without a correct theory one runs to failure. That is why

Materialism in a way supposes the spirit of party; it obliges us, for the appreciation of any event, to hold ourselves openly and unequivocally to the point of view of a determined social group. (Lenin: Works, t. I, p. 380-381, 4th Russian edition, and Brief overview of his life and work, p. 31. Editions in foreign languages, Moscow, 1946.)

This social group today is the revolutionary proletariat.

It is through practice that truths are discovered, through practice that truths are confirmed and developed. It is necessary to actively move from sensations, from sensitive perceptions to rational knowledge, from rational knowledge to the active leadership of revolutionary practice, to the transformation of the subjective and objective world. Practice goes to knowledge, then there is practice again, knowledge again: this movement is endless in its cyclical repetition - the content of each cycle of practice and knowledge rising, relative to the preceding cycle. , at a higher level. (Mao Tsétoung: "About the practice", p. 252.)

It is therefore radically wrong to consider Marxism as a theory which represents only the "subjective" meaning that History takes for the proletariat (in other words its subjective interpretation of events), and not as a science. It would follow that the proletarians would not need to learn Marxism, since it would be their spontaneous point of view, and that the non-proletarians should not learn it, since it would not represent their point of view. ! On the contrary, we say: Marxism is a science; all need it and must learn it; it is neither superfluous nor contraindicated for anyone!

Being objective does not mean rejecting all theories; it is to stick to a theory consistent with the objective processes of social development. This conformity can only be verified by social practice; this practice does not create the process of development, it only helps it, just as a scientist in a laboratory can propose to accelerate the progress of a process, but not to destroy or create its law.

Consequently, we must not only defeat agnosticism theoretically, but also practically ruin it by making by action the proof that one can act on the world knowingly, the proof that Marxism is the historical truth. For example, while agnosticism says about war: Whose fault? we do not know ! the action of honest people leads them to discover the warmongers. This is how the proletariat has verified by experience the value of Marxist materialism, its value of forecasting. He judged that the Communists were never wrong to be the first to be right. Now, who says exact forecast, says exact science.

Thus agnosticism serves the class interests of the bourgeoisie: if there is no science of society, nothing can be foreseen and nothing must be done; let the ruling class sleep on its two ears! Agnosticism drives the exploited to impotence. On the contrary, if scientific knowledge of society is possible, the oppressed and exploited can seize it and make the unity between practice and theory the guiding star of their struggle.

In the face of agnosticism which breeds skepticism and pessimism, which is the act of men overwhelmed by events they do not understand, men who no longer believe in anything, that is to say who are ready to believe anything, dialectical materialism generates reasoned optimism and makes it possible to understand that man can consciously direct the course of events. Materialism inspires unlimited confidence in the power of thought united with action. Thus the deep truth of Marx's thesis becomes clear:

Philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways, but it is about transforming it. (Marx: "XI th thesis on Feuerbach", in Ludwig Feuerbach, p. 53; Philosophical studies, p. 64.)

See: Control questions

Dialectical materialism and the spiritual life of society

The spiritual life of the society is a reflection of its material life

The dialectical materialist thesis

If it is true that nature, being, the material world is the first datum, while consciousness, thought, is the second, derived datum; if it is true that the material world is an objective reality existing independently of the consciousness of men, while consciousness is a reflection of this objective reality, it follows from there that the material life of society, its being is also the first datum, while its spiritual life is a second, derived datum; which the material life of the society is an objective reality existing independently of the will of man, while the spiritual life of the society is a reflection of this objective reality, a reflection of the being.

— Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism

The thesis according to which the spiritual life of society reflects its material life is thus a direct consequence of the philosophical materialism exposed in The spiritual life of the society is a reflection of its material life

The material life of the society is an objective reality existing independently of the conscience and the will not only of individuals, but of man in general

It is precisely this objective reality, independent of conscience, that some thinkers, because they do not understand its laws, call fatality. Existentialists have renewed the vocabulary while keeping the same thing: they speak of "man thrown into the world", of man "in situation". We will see in the fourth part of this work, devoted to historical materialism, that this situation is not a mystery and that it can be studied scientifically.

A few examples will help us understand what is happening to this objective reality, independent of consciousness.

When, under feudalism, the young bourgeoisie of Europe began the construction of the great manufactures, it was unaware of the social consequences of this "innovation" which was to lead to a revolution against the royal power whose benevolence it appreciated at the time (the monarchy encouraged the nascent manufactures) and against the nobility into which it dreamed of entering!

When the Russian capitalists implanted modern large-scale industry in Tsarist Russia, they were not aware that they were preparing the conditions for the future triumph of the socialist revolution.

When the shoemaker, whom Stalin refers to in Anarchism or Socialism?, joined Adelkhanov, he "did not know that the distant consequence of this decision, which he believed to be provisional, would be his adherence to socialist ideas.

Here is the very interesting passage that Stalin devotes to the shoemaker:

Imagine a shoemaker who had a very small workshop, but could not compete with the big bosses, so he had to close his workshop and, let's suppose, he was hired in a shoe factory in Tiflis, at Adelkhanov's house.  He was hired at Adelkhanov's, not to become a permanent salaried worker, but to raise money, build up a small capital and then be able to reopen his workshop. As we can see, the shoemaker's situation is already proletarian, but his conscience is not yet proletarian; it is entirely petty-bourgeois. In other words, the petty-bourgeois situation of this cobbler has already disappeared, it no longer exists, but his petty-bourgeois conscience has not yet disappeared, it is behind his de facto situation. It is obvious that here again, in social life, it is the external conditions, the situation of men, that change first, and then, as a consequence, their consciousness. Let us return, however, to our shoemaker. As we already know, he is thinking of raising money to reopen his workshop, so the proletarian shoemaker is working, and he realizes that it is very difficult to raise money, because his salary is barely enough to provide for his existence. He also notices that it is not very attractive to open a private workshop: the rent of the premises, the whims of the customers, the lack of money, the competition of the big bosses and so many other worries, such are the worries that haunt the spirit of the craftsman. However, the proletarian is relatively free of all these worries; he is not worried about the client or the rent to be paid; in the morning, he goes to the factory; in the evening, he leaves it "the most quietly in the world", and, on Saturdays, he also quietly puts his "pay" in his pocket. It is then that for the first time the petty-bourgeois dreams of our shoemaker have their wings clipped; it is then that, for the first time, proletarian tendencies are born in his soul. Time passes, and our shoemaker realizes that he lacks the money to get the bare necessities, that he is in great need of a wage increase. At the same time, he realizes that his comrades are talking about unions and strikes. From that moment on, our shoemaker becomes aware that in order to improve his situation, it is necessary to fight against the bosses, and not to open a workshop of his own. He joined the trade union, went on strike and soon embraced the socialist ideas... So the change in the shoemaker's material situation ultimately brought about a change in his consciousness: first his material situation changed, and then, some time later, his consciousness changed accordingly. The same has to be said of the classes and the society as a whole.

— Stalin, Anarchism or Socialism?

When the U.S. imperialists, and subsequently the Western capitalists, in 1947, on the basis of the Marshall Plan, organized the economic blockade of the U.S.S.R. and the people's democracies, it was far from clear that they would contribute to the formation of a new world market, a socialist market, and to the disintegration of the old single capitalist market.

Such is the "fatality" on which many novelists have embroidered. The struggle for the satisfaction of immediate interests leads, in the more or less long term, to social consequences independent of the will of those who engaged in this struggle. These immediate interests are by no means arbitrary since they respond to the objective situation, at a given moment, of a society, of a given social class. This is a fundamental proposition of historical materialism, as formulated by Marx:

In the social production of their existence, men enter into determined, necessary relations, independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a determined degree of development of their material productive forces

— Marx, Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

For example, the capitalist relations of production have not been chosen by men. The development of the productive forces within feudal society necessarily led to the formation of capitalist relations of production and not to others, whether men wanted it or not. This is how each new generation is forced to start from the objective conditions that are made for it. "Fatality" then? No, because as we shall see, the scientific study of the objective relations of production makes it possible to understand their nature, to foresee their evolution, to accelerate it.

Alleging the 'independence' of the mind, in the manner of the idealists, is quite simply to ignore the objective conditions that impose themselves first and foremost on the mind, even though it knows nothing about them, for such is the unfortunate fate of the idealist thinker: as he starts from his consciousness, without questioning the objective conditions that make it exist and that make it exercise itself, he believes that it is sufficient for itself. Illusion fought by materialism.

Having said that, it is necessary to draw an important practical conclusion from the remarks we have just presented: we have shown that very great material changes have taken place in history without those who participated in the transformation, or who brought it about, being aware of its consequences, without their having wanted it. It is therefore false to claim that there will be no socialist revolution in a country where all the workers have previously acquired revolutionary theory! The millions of people who, in October 1917, made the revolution with their hands did not see as far as Lenin and the Bolsheviks the scientific vanguard of the revolution. But in carrying out this great historical task, they were working on the transformation of their own consciousness, on the victory of the new man, a victory scientifically foreseen by Marx.

The spiritual life of the society is a reflection of the objective reality of the society

It is not the will of men that arbitrarily determines social relations, as we have said, but rather the conscience of men, which is conditioned by the material reality of the society of which they are members.

Now this society-we will return to this at greater length in Part 4 of this manual-is not born of a miracle: it is the totality of relationships that have been formed to assure men a victorious struggle over nature; relationships necessarily conditioned by the level of productive forces available to men and which they had to accommodate (ten thousand years ago, relationships between men could not be those that great industry engendered!).

It is this very complex set of factors that must be taken into account when one wants to understand how social ideas are a reflection of society.

History shows that if, at different times, men have had different ideas and desires, it is because at different times men fought differently against nature to provide for their needs, and that, consequently, their economic relations took on a different character. There was a time when men fought against nature in common, on the basis of primitive communism; at that time their property was also communist, and therefore they hardly distinguished between "mine" and "yours"; their conscience was communist.  The time came when the distinction between "mine" and "yours" became part of production; from then on, property itself took on a private, individualistic character. This is why the feeling of private property entered into the consciousness of men. And this is finally the time - the time of today, when production again takes on a social character; consequently, property will not be long in taking on, in its turn, a social character - and this is why socialism gradually penetrated the consciousness of men.

— Stalin, Anarchism or Socialism?

We see the error of vulgar materialism. Noting that there is no thought without a brain, he concluded that social ideas have a purely organic determination: modify the organism of an individual, and you will change his political ideas!

Philosophical materialism certainly states that the brain is the organ of thought. But the brain itself is inseparable from the objective conditions that make men exist: it is the brain of a social being. As Marx wrote, "...man in his reality is the totality of social relations." In the thinking brain is thus reflected "the totality of social relations" (that the individual is unaware of this fact, that such and such a university philosopher has never thought about it, is powerless to change the fact).

One of the most characteristic examples of ideology as a reflection is provided by religion. The idealists, like the theologians, profess that every man spontaneously finds in himself the idea of God, that this idea has existed since the origins of mankind, that it will last as long as it does. In reality, the idea of God is a product of the objective situation of men in ancient societies. According to Engels' formula, religion is born from the limited conceptions of mankind, but in what way? On the one hand, by the almost total impotence of primitive man before a hostile and incomprehensible nature; on the other hand, by their blind dependence on a society they did not understand and which seemed to them the expression of a superior will. Thus the gods, inexplicable and all-powerful beings, masters of nature and society, were the subjective reflection of man's objective impotence before nature and society.

The progress of the natural and social sciences was to reveal the illusory character of religious beliefs. However, as long as the exploitation of man by man persists, objective conditions remain for the belief in a superhuman being who dispenses happiness and misfortune. "Man proposes, God disposes": the peasant of ancient Russia, crushed by misery and with no prospects for the future, entrusts his fate to the divinity. The socialist revolution, by giving the community control over the productive forces, gives mankind the possibility of scientifically directing society, while at the same time increasing his power over nature at an ever-increasing rate. The objective conditions are created so that the religious mystifications which other objective conditions had generated and maintained are gradually erased from human consciousness.

In the same way, moral ideas are a reflection of objective social relations, a reflection of social practice. Idealists see in morals a set of eternal principles, absolutely independent of circumstances: they come to us from God, or they are dictated to us by the infallible "conscience. But we need only beware that, for example, the commandment "Thou shalt not steal" could only have existed and had meaning from the day private property appeared. In communist society, the notion of theft will lose all real basis because the abundance of goods will be such that there will be nothing to steal. How then can one speak of eternal morality? Morality is transformed with and by society. This is why, since society evolves through class struggle, there is a counter-current struggle between the morality of the dominant class and the morality of the exploited class; the first is conservative or reactionary in spirit; the other is more or less revolutionary. But since the ruling class has, for many years, powerful means to impose its ideas, millions of men accept without discussion the morality of the ruling class as the morality. Mystification of which the members of the dominant class are themselves victims.

Let us illustrate this with an example. The revolutionary French bourgeoisie of the 18th century led its leap against feudalism in the name of eternal Liberty, Reason and Justice. It identified its revolutionary class interests with those of mankind in general, and it was sincere. But the victory of the bourgeois revolution gave words their true meaning, their historical meaning. It showed that these universal moral ideas were the expression of class-specific interests. Freedom? yes, freedom for the bourgeoisie to produce and trade for its class profits; freedom to keep political power for itself, etc. But to the proletariat, this bourgeoisie which had made the Revolution under the flag of freedom, refused the freedom to form unions, to fight by strike, etc., and to the proletariat, this bourgeoisie which had made the Revolution under the banner of freedom, refused the freedom to form unions, to fight by strike, etc. It is the name of eternal morality that it guillotined Babeuf, because in fact it wanted to suppress bourgeois property.

Engels said:

We know today that this reign of reason was nothing other than the idealized reign of labour, that eternal justice as it was then proclaimed found its adequacy in bourgeois justice. (Engels. Anti-Dühring)

Does this mean that there will never be universal morality? Not at all. Morality will be the same for all men when the social conditions which will make such a morality effective will be objectively realized, that is, when the world triumph of communism will have abolished forever all opposition of interests among men, abolished all classes. It is therefore the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie (and against its supposed universal morality), and not the easy preaching of the idealists, which objectively opens the way to the triumph of a universal morality, that is to say, a fully human morality. Is this universal morality impenetrable to us today? No, its principles of fraternal solidarity find their first realization already in capitalist society in the morality of the revolutionary class, the proletariat. And even more so, of course, in the countries where socialist revolution has already triumphed. Indeed, while the bourgeoisie, liquidating feudalism, substitutes one exploitation for another, the proletariat, breaking capitalism, suppresses all exploitation of man by man.

The suppression of class antagonisms prepares the blossoming of the universal communist morality, of which the class morality of the revolutionary proletariat constitutes the first form.

We see that the opposition of moral ideas in the course of history, and in a general way, the opposition of ideologies, reflects the opposition of the interests of the social classes in presence. It is in this way that we can understand how social and political ideologies evolve. If, for example, the bourgeoisie in France, in one hundred and sixty years, has gone from moral universalism ("All men are brothers") to fascist racism (hatred of the Jews, hunting of North African workers, etc.), this can be explained by the material evolution of this class. Revolutionary, it believed that it could speak for all men. Threatened in its turn in its reign, it justified its domination by a claim of right of blood. This is how the feudal lords used to do it!

How new ideas and social theories emerge

For idealism, ideas arise in the minds of men without knowing why, regardless of their conditions of existence. But then a question arises which idealism is incapable of answering: why has such an idea appeared in our days and not in antiquity?

Dialectical materialism, which never separates ideas from their objective basis, does not believe that new ideas arise by a magical operation. New ideas arise as a solution to an objective contradiction that has developed in society. Indeed, we know that the driving force behind any change is contradiction (see lesson 5). The development of contradictions in a given society poses the task of resolving them when these contradictions become more acute.  New ideas then emerge as an attempt to resolve these contradictions.

It is the objective development of the contradictions peculiar to feudal society-divorce between old and new productive forces-that gave rise to revolutionary ideas in the rising class: hundreds of plans for social and political reform arose, and a similar process took place in capitalist society: socialist ideas were born to resolve the contradictions from which millions of men, women and children suffered.

What distinguishes the great innovators is their ability to solve problems that, as a reflection of the objective contradictions of society, are more or less confused in the consciousness of their contemporaries:

Humanity only ever poses problems that it can solve, because, on closer inspection, it will always be found that the problem itself only arises where the material conditions for solving it already exist or at least are in the process of formation.

— Karl Marx, Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Incomprehensible for those who are not initiated into dialectical materialism, this famous phrase can be explained in this way. Who says "problem" says "contradiction" to be solved. But what is contradiction if not a struggle between the old and the new? If therefore a contradiction appears, it is because the new is already there, even if only partially. For example: feudal society could only be called into question today when, within it, the antagonistic forces that were later to destroy it (industry, the bourgeoisie) began to exercise themselves.  The solution of the problem was the victory of this newcomer who sought Savoy.

The issue of survivorship

The concept we have outlined in this lesson sheds light on an important feature of the history of ideas: the question of survivorship.

Survival occurs when an idea survives in the mind when the objective conditions that founded its existence have disappeared.

An essential thesis of philosophical materialism is that consciousness is posterior to material reality (nature and society). It is posterior to the consciousness of the objective situation. This is how the former shoemaker Stalin talks about leads an objectively proletarian life, but keeps, for a certain time, a petty bourgeois consciousness.

In the same way, in a society whose material base is changing, men only become aware of these changes with a certain delay.  When these appear, then they look for solutions in the arsenal of old ideas they have kept from the past. Survivors (ideas born in old objective conditions) are an obstacle to new ideas, which correspond to the new objective conditions.  Example: at the very beginning of capitalism, the proletarians exploited by the industrial bourgeoisie, were looking for a solution to their misery in an unutopic return to craftsmanship: they therefore destroyed the machines.

But the survivors must inevitably retreat, as the contradictions of objectives develop: then the return to the past appears more and more impossible, while new ideas are reinforced, the only ones adapted to the objective forces that are rising. The past is prolonged in consciousness until the day when the present becomes intolerable to the point that a new one must be found; then the future prevails.

Conclusion

The title of this lesson was justified. It is from the material life of societies that one must start to understand their spiritual life.

From this we will draw some lessons of great practical significance.

1. The only problems that can be solved in a given period of time are those posed by the real needs of society.  Marxists, therefore, base their action on a thorough study of the objective conditions in a given period; that is why this action is fruitful. They thus oppose Blum's idealism which, denying the material character of social facts, especially economic facts, transformed socialism into mysticism; all action was therefore doomed to failure.
2. In his relations with the workers, the revolutionary militant must never stop at what the workers think. Ideas are one thing, material conditions are another. Such a proletarian can have conservative ideas without knowing it, under the ideological pressure of the bourgeoisie. Is that surprising? No, since the ruling class, at the same time as it exploits the workers, does everything possible to persuade them that it is perfect this way (the official morality taught in school does not preach class struggle, but serene acceptance of what is). We must not condemn this proletarian: his misconceptions express the objective reality of a society where the bourgeoisie reigns. Much more!  Beyond the diversity of opinions that share the workers, the revolutionary, proceeding with the materialist analysis of the objective conditions, will highlight the community of interests, thus founding the unity of action: unity of action is possible because in the last resort it is not the ideas that determine the conditions of the class struggle, but the conditions of the class struggle that determine the ideas. That is why in 1936, Maurice Thorez, addressing the Catholic workers or Cross of Fire, said to them: You are workers like us, who are communists. "Let us unite in the common struggle for the good of our people and our country"
3. The transformation of ideas, as we have shown in this lesson, has a material basis. This is of great consequence for the revolutionary education of the workers: the penetration of revolutionary ideas can only take place in and through struggle, in connection with the concrete tasks of life, on the construction site, in the workshop, in the office. It is the social struggle (objective condition) that makes possible the decisive changes in the consciousness of the workers (subjective reflection). It is thus through the united struggle to resolve the objective contradictions of capitalist society that the non-encrusted revolutionary workers make their experience, with the help of the marxist-leninist vanguard, discovering solutions to their ills. In turn, they become revolutionaries.

See: Control questions

The role and importance of ideas in social life

Conclusion

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The formation, importance and role of scientific socialism

Conclusion

See: Control questions

Historical materialism

Production: productive forces and production relationships

Conclusion

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The law of necessary correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces

The role of human action

See: Control questions

The class struggle before capitalism

The development of the bourgeoisie

See: Control questions

The contradictions of capitalist society

Conclusion

See: Control questions

The superstructure

Conclusion

See: Control questions

Socialism

Conclusion

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From socialism to communism

Conclusion

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The materialist theory of state and nation

The state

Class struggle and freedom

The proletariat and freedoms

See: Control questions

The nation (i)

The working class and the nation

Proletarian patriotism

See: Control questions

The nation (ii)

Notes on Alsace and the Moselle

See: Control questions