Library:Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism Part 1

CURRICULUM OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF MARXISM-LENINISM Part 1 The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism Translated by: Luna Nguyen

CURRICULUM OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF MARXISM-LENINISM PART 1 THE WORLDVIEW AND PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGY OF MARXISM-LENINISM For University and College Students Not Specializing in Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought FIRST ENGLISH EDITION Translated and Annotated by Luna Nguyen Foreword by Dr. Vijay Prashad Introduction by Dr. Taimur Rahman Edited, Annotated, and Illustrated by Emerican Johnson Proofread by David Peat Additional Contributions and Editorial Support by Iskra Books Published in association with The International Magazine

LICENSE

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“Step by step, along the struggle, by studying Marxism- Leninism parallel with participation in practical activities, I gradually came upon the fact that only socialism and communism can liberate the oppressed nations and the working people throughout the world from slavery.” - Ho Chi Minh

SUPPORT FOR THIS WORK

Translating, annotating, and typesetting this book has taken three years, which would not have been possible without the support of our supporters on GoFundMe. GoFundMe is also the reason we are able to make the digital version of this entire text available for free online. We would therefore like to recognize all of our supporters: Zach L. Jake B. Katia S. Jimi C. Kathryn S. Matthew S. Manuel V. Luiza S. Timothy P. Joshua E. Sarah K. Sarah F. De'Vonte T. Corey K. Aidan M. Danion S. Douglas H. Justin F. Blake P. Liam H. Ayodele E. Jesse T. Patrick O. Mendel A. Stephanie P. Christopher R. Daniel H. Marcos F. T. Bryan D. Helios A. C. Ryan P. Peter L.-D. Jeff H. Michael M. Matthew P. Abby L. Matheus G. P. Ellenore M. Duy V. Erin P. Luke F. Jason T. Georgio M. Astor C. Ayo E. Michael E. Noah B. Alex E. David B. G. Heath H. Ian H. Simon L. Joel V. Boyles B. Jackson M. Andrew H. Jake B. Ashley C. Karen N. Robert D. K. Masunungure Daniel S. Mckenzie P. Chandler F. Daniel A. Aadil B. Julianna D. P. Audrey M. Ville I. Joshua R. Kyle R. Larry V. K. III Ariel G. Maximilian H. Peter F. Zero P. Aaron L. John P. Josh P. Daniel G. Jason T. John M. Kayla D. Dmitri S. Crescenzo P. Matthew L. Lindsay H. Jeremy A. C. Antonio R. Glenn A. Adam M. Anthony M. Roger W. Edward C. Dennis C. Amiad H. Hunter S. Caitlin B. Griffin M. Mat C. Joseph Z. B. Aaron W. Nicholas H. Pastor J. Cam S. Benjamin S. Brandon H. Richard M. Adam K. Michael C. Ashley E. Robert D. Olga C. Megan B. Simon C. Alexandria J. Roberto P. Manuel G. F. Jonis F. Darsius ACAB Gerard D. Sam W. John G. Anna N. Voltie M. James H. Eric R. Anthony Z. Kaylee C. Kevin P. Audrin T. Joshua B. Edil F. Calum S. Nam T. Kyril W. Zeke T. Jesse R. Orhan M. Morgan H. Gideon S. Taylor H. Ross P. Tarana I.-M. Saumya I. Siddharth P. Sam P. Dirk K. Jason G. A., Jr. Melinda K. Jillian R. Jacob N. Richard H. Shane F. Derric A. Robyn M. Lachlainn H. Marc G. Blaine H. The Slopstache There is still plenty of work to be done to complete the translation of this entire curriculum. If you would like to financially support our efforts, you can support us at: BanyanHouse.org

DEDICATION AND GRATITUDE

This book is dedicated to all the backers of the GoFundMe campaign that raised the funds to allow me to translate this text. What I initially believed would be a straightforward three-month process of translating ended up taking over three years of not just translation but also research, study, review, annotation, editing, proofreading, peer review, and more - with the incredible support of a full team of talented comrades - in order to make sure that everything would be digestible and intelligible for audiences outside of Vietnam. So, sincerely, thank you to everyone who backed this project for your patience, support, and encouragement. Thank you to my husband and comrade, Emerican Johnson, who helped me throughout the translation process, and who did such a fantastic job editing, annotating, and illustrating this text. He was my constant dialectical companion as we grappled together with the spirit and meaning of the writings of Marx, Lenin, and Engels that are the bedrock of this text. Thank you, also, to Iskra Books for the absolutely vital work they have done in helping us to edit this book and hold it to a high standard. We literally could not have done it without you. In particular, thank you to Ben Stahnke for organizing and cheerleading us through to the end, and to David Peat, for the painstaking, meticulous, and no-doubt frustrating work of proofreading our very, very, very imperfect writing! Thanks also to The International Magazine, who have provided guidance and suggestions throughout the process of developing this translation. I have had the opportunity to work with The International Magazine on various projects and I can recommend no better monthly periodical for internationalist communists to learn about socialist movements around the world. We owe a great deal of gratitude to Dr. Vijay Prashad and Dr. Taimur Rahman for taking the time to read through our translation and, in addition to providing their feedback and encouragement, also taking the time to write the foreword and introduction to the text. I know that you are both extremely busy with your own important literary, academic, and political work, so this assistance is so very much appreciated. Finally, I would like to thank the Vietnamese intellectuals and experts who have done such an amazing job at taking hundreds of texts and distilling them down into the original volume which I have translated here. The elegance and precision with which they have been able to capture the essence of Marxism-Leninism is a monumental contribution to the workers of the world, and I only hope my translation does their work justice. March, 2023 Luna Nguye

FOREWORD

In December 1998, Fidel Castro addressed the Young Communist League’s 7th Congress in Havana, Cuba. The Soviet Union and the Communist state system in Eastern Europe had collapsed, which greatly weakened the cause of socialism. Not only was Cuba hit hard by the loss of its major trading partners and political ally, but socialists in general were penalised by the lethal argument made by the imperialist sections that “socialism had been defeated.” After 1991, Fidel revived the phrase “Battle of Ideas,” which was had been used in The German Ideology by Marx and Engels. To the Young Communists, Fidel said: We must meet, in the heat of the battle, with the leading cadres to discuss, analyse, expand on, and draft plans and strategies to take up issues and elaborate ideas, as when an army’s general staff meets. We must use solid arguments to talk to members and non-members, to speak to those who may be confused or even to discuss and debate with those holding positions contrary to those of the Revolution or who are influenced by imperialist ideology in this great battle of ideas we have been waging for years now, precisely in order to carry out the heroic deed of resisting against the most politically, militarily, economically, technologically and culturally powerful empire that has ever existed. Young cadres must be well prepared for this task. Bourgeois ideology had tried to sweep aside its most fundamental critique – namely Marxism – by saying that “socialism had been defeated” and that Marxism was now obsolete. Marxist criticisms of the “casino of capitalism” – as Fidel called it – were being set aside both inside and outside the academy, with neoliberal policy confident enough to ignore each and every criticism. Fidel argued that young communists must learn the fundamentals of Marxism – including both dialectical and historical materialism – and must learn this in a way that was not religious thinking but would allow them to become “new intellectuals” of the movement, not those who repeat dogma but who learn to understand the conjuncture and become “permanent persuaders” for socialism (the two phrases in quotations are from Gramsci’s prison notebooks). The general ideological confidence of the cadre was not clear, and that confidence and their clarity needed to be developed in a project that Fidel called the Battle of Ideas. During this period, communists around the world conceded that the demise of the Soviet Union had created a serious dilemma for the left. Not only were we penalised by the argument that “socialism has been defeated,” but our own arguments to explain the turbo-charged drive toward globalisation and neoliberalism and to make the case for a socialist alternative were not strong enough. One indication of that weakness was the 2001 World Social Forum meeting held in Brazil, which promoted the slogan – Another World is Possible, a weak slogan in comparison to a more precise slogan, such as – Socialism is Necessary. Young people drifted into our ranks in this decade, angered by the wretched social conditions created by the permanent austerity of neoliberalism, but bewildered about how to transform the political environment. The lack of Marxist political education was felt by socialist forces across the world, which is why many parties around the world began to revive a conversation about internal political education for cadre and active engagement with other social forces regarding the pressing issues of our time. Fidel called these two processes – internal education for the Party and external engagement on the dilemmas of humanity – the Battle of Ideas. In line with this broad direction, the government of Vietnam worked with the national publishing house Sự Thật (The Truth) to develop a curriculum for universities and colleges in the country. They developed this order of study along five subject areas: Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, Marxist-Leninist Political Economy, Scientific Socialism, Vietnamese Communist Party History, and Ho Chi Minh Thought. This project worked to educate an entire population that would be able to understand the world in a rational and factual manner, outside the illusions of bourgeois ideology. Four years later, Communist Party of Vietnam adopted a resolution to take this work forward, and – under the leadership of Professor Nguyễn Viết Thông – produced this textbook that brought together the many themes of Marxism into focus for the introductory student and cadre. A book such as this is never easy to create, since it must introduce a form of thought that is critical of the foundations of bourgeois ideology – so it is a critique – but at the same time it provides a worldview to understand the actual world in which we live – so it is a science. The text must, therefore, show how bourgeois thought is partial and at the same time how socialist thought, creatively applied, will allow one to have a firmer grip of reality and be able to participate in fighting to transcend the obstinate facts of human indignity that are reproduced by capitalism. No manual such as this is without its flaws and without its limitations, but no education can start without a manual such as this one. The Vietnamese comrades have done a great service to the left movement by producing a text such as this, which can be used for study and then used as a model to develop similar texts in different parts of the world. Ho Chi Minh, whose interpretation of Marxism and whose ideas about the Vietnamese Revolution, are all over this text once said: “Study and practice must always go together. Study without practice is useless. Practice without study leads to folly.” There can be no better injunction to get to work, to study and develop one’s theoretical armour and to use that theory as the guide to one’s work in the Battle of Ideas and in the battle for the streets, because this unity between theory and action is indeed praxis (thực tiễn), not just practice, but conscious human activity. That is what Fidel encouraged in his lectures on the Battle of Ideas. Dr. Vijay Prashad. 5 March 2023 Caracas, Venezuel

PREFACE TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION

The text of this book constitutes part one of a four-part curriculum on Marxism- Leninism developed and published by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam. This curriculum is intended for students who are not specializing in the study of Marxism-Leninism, and is intended to give every Vietnamese student a firm grounding in the political philosophy of scientific socialism. The entire curriculum consists of: Part 1: Dialectical Materialism (this text) Part 2: Historical Materialism Part 3: Political Economy Part 4: Scientific Socialism In Vietnam, each part of the curriculum encompasses one full semester of mandatory study for all college students. Each part builds upon the previous, meaning that this text is the foundation for all political theory education for most college students in Vietnam. However, it is important to note that this is not the first encounter with dialectical materialism which Vietnamese students wil have had with these ideas, because Vietnamese students also study dialectical materialism, historical materialism, political economy, and scientific socialism from primary school all the way through high school. As such, the text of this book - in and of itself - would probably seem overwhelmingly condensed to most foreign readers who are new to studying dialectical materialism. Therefore, we have decided to extensively annotate and illustrate this text with the information which would have been previously obtained in a basic Vietnamese high school education and/or provided by college lecturers in the classroom. It is our desire that these annotations will be helpful for students who hope to learn these principles for application in political activity, but we should also make it clear to academic researchers and the like that our annotations and illustrations are not present in the original Vietnamese work. We hope that this book will be useful in at least three ways: • As a comprehensive introductory textbook on dialectical materialism and for self- study, group study, classroom use, cadre training, etc. • As a quick and easy to reference handbook for reviewing the basic concepts of dialectical materialism for students of theory who are already familiar with dialectical materialism. • As a companion book for further reading of theory and political texts rooted in dialectical materialist philosophy. Also, please note: because this book is intended to be used as a quick reference and handbook for further study, there are many instances where we duplicate references, quotations, and other such information. We hope that this repetition may be an aid for study by reinforcing important concepts and quotations. This book - Part 1 of the curriculum, which focuses on the universal philosophical system of dialectical materialism - serves as the foundation of all political theory and practice in the Vietnamese educational system as well as in the Communist Party of Vietnam and other organizations such as the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, the Women’s Union, the Farmer’s Union, the Worker’s Union, etc. Dialectical materialism is the framework for theory and practice as well as the common lens through which Vietnamese socialists relate, communicate, and work together. This book focuses almost exclusively on the written works of three historical figures: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels... who initially developed the universal philosophy of dialectical materialism by synthesizing various pre-existing philosophical, political, economic, and historical tendencies including the idealist dialectical system of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the political economics of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the materialist positions of Ludwig Feuerbach, and countless others. ...and Vladimir Illyich Lenin, who further developed and defended dialectical materialism, expanded the analysis of imperialism, demonstrated how to apply dialectical materialism to local material conditions specific to Russia at the turn of the 20th century, and made many other important contributions to dialectical materialist theory and practice. Obviously, there are countless other writers, revolutionaries, philosophers, and scientists who have contributed to dialectical materialism and scientific socialism. This book focuses primarily on Marx, Engels, and Lenin, because these figures laid the foundations and formulated the basic principles of the philosophy of dialectical materialism and the methodology of materialist dialectics which are most universally applicable in all endeavors. It is our desire that translating this important work into English will lead to further study, understanding, and appreciation of dialectical materialism as an applied philosophy which socialists can find value in returning to periodically. At the end of the book, we offer a glossary of terms which doubles as an index, appendices with summaries of important concepts and principles, and an afterword, in which we offer advice for further study and application of dialectical materialism. At the time of publication, we are already in the process of translating and annotating Part 2 of this curriculum, which focuses on historical materialism, with the hopes of eventually releasing the full curriculum. Once it is complete, it will also be made available at BanyanHouse.org - where we also invite questions, constructive feedback, and suggestions.

INTRODUCTION

Just a generation ago, Vietnam was the site of the most brutal war of the 20th century. More tonnage of bombs were dropped on the Vietnamese people than were dropped by all sides combined throughout the Second World War. In addition, countless acts of cruelty were used to scorch the very soil of the nation. By the end of Vietnam’s Resistance War Against Imperialist USA (known to the world as “the Vietnam War”), Agent Orange, napalm, and unexploded munitions had left a land deeply scarred and a people traumatised by decades of death and murder. The impression one had was that although Vietnam had won the war, it was so badly devastated that it could not hope to win the peace. But, miraculously, Vietnam is winning this war today, as the Vietnamese economy has become one of the fastest growing in the world and quality of life for the people is improving at a pace which could scarcely have been predicted in 1975. No one could have imagined that Vietnam would turn around so dynamically and rapidly. How did they achieve this economic miracle? How could this nation - so recently devastated by imperialism and war - possibly be able to reconstruct, revive, rejuvenate, and rebuild? That story is now unfolding before our eyes. Vietnam’s development has not come without hardship, struggle, setbacks, and mistakes. The people of Vietnam have had to learn hard lessons through struggle and practice to develop and strengthen ideological and theoretical positions. In this manner, the philosophical development of Vietnam deserves study and attention from socialists around the world. To outsiders, Vietnam can appear to be rife with contradictions. As depicted by Western journalists, Vietnam is simultaneously a success story driven by capitalist markets and a failing socialist state. Every victory is chalked up to private enterprise, while every setback is attributed to socialism. In this sense, the media has failed to understand the essential character of the core contradictions which drive the development of Vietnam politically, socially, and economically. Luna Nguyen has used social media and played an incredibly important role in helping the English speaking world understand the complexities of such contradictions that beguile so many academics and experts. She has helped to give an insider’s perspective on her own country’s path of development towards socialism. Nguyen’s translation of Part 1 of this influential work, Introduction to the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism, a textbook studied by university and college students across Vietnam, is yet another big step in the direction of making Vietnam’s understanding of their own country’s development available to the English reading world. For me, as an outsider, it is fascinating not only to see how deeply Vietnamese society takes an interest in European philosophical development (referencing Hume, Hegel, Descartes, Marx, Engels, and so many other Europeans, almost as if they are figures seated in some ancient monastery in Fansipan), but, even more importantly, how they have assimilated that knowledge into the wider context of their own history, society, and culture. The textbook truly comes alive in all the parts where these ideas are shown to be relevant to Vietnam itself. For instance, the textbook stands out with discussions of Ho Chi Minh’s concept of “proletarian piety,” which artfully blends elements of Vietnamese culture with Marxist concepts of class consciousness, or the story of Chi Pheo, who stands as a sympathetic stand-in for the interpretation of the unique characteristics of the Vietnamese Lumpenproletariat. The book itself is an instance of the dialectic of the universal and the particular, the abstract and the concrete. Just as importantly, it shows that, in Vietnam, Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought are not mere perfunctory rituals that are repeated like a learnt formula for this or that exam; but that although the Vietnamese political economy in its current form certainly contains contradictions which must be negated in the process of building the lower stage of socialism, the government remains seriously committed to the goals, theory, and practice of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought. Hence, I highly recommend this book, not merely because it is a well-illustrated and easy-to-read book on the principles of dialectical materialism, but more importantly because it offers an insight into how the Vietnamese government collects and synthesises the philosophical developments that are, on the one hand, the collective legacy of all of humanity, and, on the other hand, the concrete manifestations of a revolutionary theory of (and for the oppressed yearning for) freedom in every corner of the world. March, 2023 Dr. Taimur Rahm

EDITOR’S NOTE

Working on this project has been one of the most illuminating experiences of my life. In translating this work, Luna has opened a door for English speakers into the wide world of Vietnamese scholarship and pedagogy as it relates to socialist theory and philosophy. Luna and I have done our best to capture the original meaning and spirit of the text. Furthermore, as we have mentioned elsewhere, our annotations and illustrations are intended only to contextualize and expand on the core information of the original text similarly to the class/lecture setting for which the curriculum is intended. In their lives, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were never able to finish clarifying and systematically describing the philosophy of dialectical materialism which their work was built upon. Engels attempted to structurally define the philosophy in Dialectics of Nature, but unfortunately that work was never completed since he decided to prioritize publishing the unfinished works of Marx after his untimely death. I believe that this text is a great step forward in that work of systematically describing the philosophical system of dialectical materialism and the methodological system of materialist dialectics. I also believe it’s worth noting how the Vietnamese scholars who crafted this curriculum have embedded the urgent necessity of action - of creative application of these ideas - throughout the text in a way that I find refreshing and reflective of the works of Marx and Engels themselves. As the text will explain, dialectical materialism is a universal system of philosophy which can be utilized to grapple with any and every conceivable problem which we humans might encounter in this universe. In Vietnam, dialectical materialism has been used to delve into matters of art, ethics, military science, and countless other fields of inquiry and endeavor. It is my hope that this book will, likewise, lead to a wider and fuller understanding and (more importantly) application of dialectical materialism in the Western world. March, 2023 Emerican Johnson

A MESSAGE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE

The International Magazine began in 2020 to connect international socialist movements and to strengthen the voice of oppressed people across the globe. We have been following the work of Vietnamese communists in their unique path towards peace, prosperity, and the construction of socialist values with a keen eye and much interest. It is with this spirit of international solidarity and a deep desire to learn from and share wisdom from our comrades around the world that we celebrate the release of this First English Edition of The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism- Leninism Part 1: The Worldview and Philosophical Methodology of Marxism-Leninism. Ho Chi Minh once said: “In order to build socialism, first and foremost, we need to have socialist people who understand socialist ideology and have socialist values.” To this end, Vietnamese communists have expended tremendous resources building a curriculum on Marxist-Leninist philosophy and analysis which includes dialectical materialism, materialist dialectics, scientific socialism, historical materialism, and political economy. These topics are taught in primary and secondary schools and are mandatory subjects for all students attending public universities in Vietnam. Beyond that, Vietnam offers free degrees to students who wish to study Marxist theory and philosophy and Ho Chi Minh Thought (defined as the application of Marxist philosophy to the unique material conditions of Vietnam). In this manner, Vietnam has demonstrated a steadfast commitment to developing “socialist people” “with socialist values.” We are, therefore, extremely excited to have worked with Luna Nguyen on the translation and annotation of Part 1 of the Vietnamese university curriculum on the worldview and philosophical methodology of Marxism-Leninism into English, which will make this unique perspective of socialist theory available to comrades around the world for the first time. After having read through this volume, which outlines the fundamentals of dialectical materialism and materialist dialectics, we find the most important lesson to be the relationship between theory and practice. According to the Vietnamese scholars who authored the original text, Marxist-Leninist philosophy must be considered a living, breathing philosophy which requires application in the real world - through practice - in order to be made fully manifest. We hope that readers of this volume will carry forward this guidance through practice which suits your material conditions, wherever you are in the world. If you would like to learn the perspective of socialists from other nations around the world, we invite you to visit our website at InternationalMagz.com - the home of The International Magazine online. There, you will find articles written by comrades from a wide variety of backgrounds and nationalities with a clear bias towards anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, and anti-imperialism! In solidarity, The Editorial Team of The International Magazine

NOTES ON TRANSLATION

Vietnamese is a very different language from English, which has presented many challenges in translating this book. Whenever possible, I have tried to let the “spirit” of the language guide me, without altering the structure, tone, and formatting of the book. One thing you will likely notice right away: this book is highly condensed! This is because most Vietnamese students are already familiar with these concepts. We have added annotations to try to make the book more digestible for those of you who are new to Marxism-Leninism, and these annotations are explained on the next page. I have worked hard to try to make the language in this book consistent with the language used in popular translations of works from Marx, Lenin, etc., that would be familiar to English-language students of Marxism-Leninism. That said, different translators have been translating these texts into English for over a century, such that different word choices have been used to relate the same concepts, and even Marx, Engels, and Lenin used different terms to describe the same concepts in many instances (not to mention the fact that Marx and Engels wrote primarily in German, whereas Lenin wrote primarily in Russian). As such, I have made it my first priority to keep the language of this translation internally consistent to avoid confusion and, again, to match the spirit of the original text as much as possible. As a result, you may find differences between the translation choices made in this text and other translations, but it is my hope that the underlying meaning of each translation is properly conveyed.

March, 2023

Luna Nguyen

GUIDE TO ANNOTATIONS

This book was written as a textbook for Vietnamese students who are not specializing in Marxism-Leninism, and so it is meant to be a simple and condensed survey of the most fundamental principles of dialectical materialism to be used in a classroom environment with the guide of an experienced lecturer. That said, a typical Vietnamese college student will already have been exposed to many of the concepts presented herein throughout twelve years of primary and secondary education. As such, in translating and preparing this book for a foreign audience who are likely to be reading it without the benefit of a lecturer’s in-person instruction, we realized that we would need to add a significant amount of annotations to the text. These annotations will take the following forms:

• Short annotations which we insert into the text itself [will be included in square brackets like these].

Longer annotations which add further context and background information will be included in boxes like this.

We have also added diagrams to our annotations, as well as a detailed glossary/index and appendices, which are located in the back of the book. We hope these will resources will also be of use in studying other texts which are rooted in dialectical materialist philosophy.

ORIGINAL VIETNAMESE PUBLISHER’S NOTE

In 2004, under the direction of the Central Government, the Ministry of Education and Training, in collaboration with Sự Thật [Vietnamese for “The Truth,” the name of a National Political Publishing House], published a [political science and philosophy] curriculum for universities and colleges in Vietnam. This curriculum includes 5 subjects: Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, Marxist-Leninist Political Economy, Scientific Socialism, Vietnamese Communist Party History, and Ho Chi Minh Thought. This curriculum has been an important contribution towards educating our students - the young intellectuals of the country - in political reasoning, so that the next generation will be able to successfully conduct national innovation. With the new practice of education and training, in order to thoroughly grasp the reform of the Party’s ideological work and theory, and to advocate for reform in both teaching and learning at universities and colleges in general, on September 18th, 2008, the Minister of Education and Training, in collaboration with Sự Thật, have issued a new program and published a textbook of political theory subjects for university and college students who are not specialized in Marxism - Leninism with Associate Professor and Doctor of Philosophy Nguyen Viet Thong as chief editor. There are three subjects: Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism Curriculum of Ho Chi Minh Thought Curriculum of the Revolutionary Path of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism was compiled by a collective of scientists and experienced lecturers from a number of universities, with Pham Van Sinh, Ph.D and Pham Quang Phan, Ph.D as co-editors. This curriculum has been designed to meet the practical educational requirements of students. We hope this book will be of use to you. April, 2016 NATIONAL POLITICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE - SỰ TH

ORIGINAL VIETNAMESE PREFACE

To implement the resolutions of the Communist Party of Vietnam, especially the 5th Central Resolution on ideological work, theory, and press, on September 18th, 2008, The Ministry of Education and Training has issued Decision Number 52/2008/QD-BGDDT, issuing the subject program: The Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism for Students Non-Specialised in Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought. In collaboration with Truth - the National Political Publishing House - we published the Curriculum of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism for Students Non-Specialised in Marxism- Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought. The authors of this text have drawn from the contents of the Central Council’s previous programs (Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, Marxist-Leninist Political Economy, and Scientific Socialism) and compiled them into national textbooks for Marxist-Leninist science subjects and Ho Chi Minh Thought, as well as other curriculums for the Ministry of Education and Training. The authors have received comments from many collectives, such as the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Administration, the Central Propaganda Department, as well as individual scientists and lecturers at universities and colleges throughout the country. Notably: Associate Professor To Huy Rua, Ph.D, Professor Phung Huu Phu, Ph.D, Professor Nguyen Duc Binh, Professor Le Huu Nghia, Ph.D, Professor Le Huu Tang, Ph.D, Professor Vo Dai Luoc, Ph.D, Professor Tran Phuc Thang, Ph.D, Professor Hoang Chi Bao, Ph.D, Professor Tran Ngoc Hien, Ph.D, Professor Ho Van Thong, Associate Professor Duong Van Thinh, Ph.D, Associate Professor Nguyen Van Oanh, Ph.D, Associate Professor Nguyen Van Hao, Ph.D, Associate Professor Nguyen Duc Bach, PhD. Pham Van Chin, Phung Thanh Thuy, M.A., and Nghiem Thi Chau Giang, M.A. After a period of implementation, the contents of the textbooks have been supplemented and corrected on the basis of receiving appropriate suggestions from universities, colleges, the contingent of lecturers of political theory, and scientists. However, due to objective and subjective limitations, there are still contents that need to be added and modified, and we would love to receive more comments to make the next edition of the curriculum more complete. MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Table of Contents

Introduction to The Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism

I. Brief History of Marxism Leninism

1. Marxism and the Three Constituent Parts

2. Summary of the Birth and Development of Marxism-Leninism

II. Objects, Purposes, and Requirements for Studying the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism

1. Objects and Purposes of Study

2. Some Basic Requirements of the Studying Method

Excerpt from Modifying the Working Style

Chapter I: Dialectical Materialism

I. Materialism and Dialectical Materialism

1. The Opposition of Materialism and Idealism in Solving

Basic Philosophical Issues.

2. Dialectical Materialism - the Most Advanced Form of Materialism

II. Dialectical Materialist Opinions About Matter, Consciousness,

and the Relationship Between Matter and Consciousness

1. Matter

2. Consciousness

3. The Relationship Between Matter and Consciousness

4. Meaning of the methodology

Chapter 2: Materialist Dialectics

I. Dialectics and Materialist Dialectics

1. Dialectics and Basic Forms of Dialectics

2. Materialist Dialectics

II. Basic Principles of Materialist Dialectics

1. The Principle of General Relationships

2. Principle of Development

III. Basic Pairs of Categories of Materialist Dialectics

1. Private and Common

2. Reason and Result

3. Obviousness and Randomness

4. Content and Form

5. Essence and Phenomenon

6. Possibility and Reality

IV. Basic Laws of: Materialist Dialectics

1. Law of Transf:ormation Between Quantity and Quality

2. Law of Unification and Contradiction Between Opposites

3. Law of Negation of Negation

Chapter 3: Cognitive Theory of Dialectical Materialism

1. Praxis, Consciousness, and the Role of Praxis in Consciousness

2. Dialectical Path of Consciousness to Truth

Afterword Appendices

Appendix A: Basic Pairs of Categories Used in Materialist Dialectics

Appendix B: The Two Basic Principles of Dialectical Materialism

Appendix C: The Three Universal Laws of Materialist Dialectics

Appendix D: Forms of Consciousness and Knowledge

Appendix E: Properties of Truth

Appendix F: Common Deviations from Dialectical Materialism

Glossary and Index

“Great Victory for the People and Army of South Vietnam!”

_{INTRODUCTION TO THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF MARXISM-LENINISM}

I. BRIEF HISTORY OF MARXISM-LENINISM

1. Marxism and the Three Constituent Parts

Marxism-Leninism is a system of scientific opinions and theories which were built by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and defended and developed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Marxism-Leninism was formed and developed by interpreting reality as well as building on preceding ideas. It provides the fundamental worldview* and methodology of scientific awareness and revolutionary practice. It is a science that concerns the work of liberating the proletariat from all exploitative regimes with the ambition of liberating all of humanity from all forms of oppression.

Marxism-Leninism is made up of three basic theories which have strong relationships with each other. They are: Philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, Marxist-Leninist Political Economics, and Scientific Socialism.

Philosophy of Marxism-Leninism studies the basic principles of the movement and development of nature, society and human thought. It provides the fundamental world-view and methodology of scientific awareness and revolutionary practice.

Based on this philosophical worldview and methodology, Marxist-Leninist Political Economics studies the economic rules of society, especially the economic rules of the birth, development, and decay of the capitalist mode of production, as well as the birth and development of a new mode of production: the communist mode of production.

Scientific Socialism** is the inevitable result of applying the philosophical worldview and methodology of Marxism-Leninism, as well as Marxist-Leninist Political Economics, to reveal the objective rules of the socialist revolution process: the historical step from capitalism into socialism, and then communism.

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* A worldview encompasses the whole of an individual’s or society’s opinions and conceptions about the world, about ourselves as human beings, and about life and the position of human beings in the world.

** The word “science,” and, by extension, “scientific” in Marxism-Leninism has specific meaning. Friedrich Engels was the first to describe the philosophy which he developed with Marx as “Scientific Socialism” in his book Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. However, it should be noted that the English phrase “scientific socialism” comes from Engels’ use of the German phrase “wissenschaftlich sozialismus.”

“Wissenschaft” is a word which can be directly translated as “knowledge craft” in German, and this word encompasses a much more broad and general concept than the word “science” as it’s usually used in English.

In common usage, the word “science” in English has a relatively narrow definition, referring to systematically acquired, objective knowledge pertaining to a particular subject. But “wissenschaft” refers to a systematic pursuit of knowledge, research, theory, and understanding. “Wissenschaft” is used in any study that involves systematic investigation. And so, “scientific socialism” is only an approximate translation of “wissenschaftlich sozialismus.” So, “scientific socialism” can be understood as a body of theory which analyzes and interprets the natural world to develop a body of knowledge, which must be constantly tested against reality, with the pursuit of changing the world to bring about socialism through the leadership of the proletariat

Even though these three basic theories of Marxism-Leninism deal with different subjects, they are all parts of a unified scientific theory system: the science of liberating the proletariat from exploitative regimes and moving toward human liberation.

2. Summary of the Birth and Development of Marxism-Leninism

There have been two main stages of the birth and development of Marxism-Leninism:

1. Stage of formation and development of Marxism, as developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

2. Stage of defense and developing Marxism into Marxism-Leninism, as developed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

a. Conditions and Premises of the Birth of Marxism

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The following sections will explain the conditions which led to the birth of Marxism. First, we will examine the Social-Economic conditions which lead to the birth of Marxism, and then we will examine the theoretical premises upon which Marxism was built. Later, we will also discuss the impact which 18th and 19th century advances in natural science had on the development of Marxism

- Social-Economical Conditions

Marxism was born in the 1840s. This was a time when the capitalist mode of production was developing strongly in Western Europe on the foundation of the industrial revolution which succeeded first in England at the end of the 18th century. Not only did this industrial revolution mark an important step forward in changing from handicraft cottage industry capitalism into a more greatly mechanized and industrialized capitalism, it also deeply changed society, and, above all, it caused the birth and development of the proletariat.

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Marx saw human society under capitalism divided into classes based on their relation to the means of production. Means of production are physical inputs and systems used in the production of goods and services, including machinery, factory buildings, tools, and anything else used in producing goods and services. Capitalism is a political economy defined by private ownership of the means of production.

Within the framework of Dialectical Materialism, all classes are defined by internal and external relationships [see The Principle of General Relationships, p. 107]; chiefly, classes are defined by their relations to the means of production and to one another. The proletariat are the working class - the people who provide labor under capitalism, but who do not own their own means of production, and must therefore sell their labor to those who do own means of production: the bourgeoisie. As the owners of the means of production, the bourgeoisie are the ruling class under capitalism.

According to Marx and Engels, there are other classes within the capitalist political economy. Specifically, Marx named the petty bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat. Marx defined the petty bourgeoisie as including semi-autonomous merchants, farmers, and soon who are self-employed, own small and limited means of production, or otherwise fall in between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx described the petty bourgeoisie as:

• . . . fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois society. . . The individual members of this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen.

Vietnam’s Textbook of History for High School Students gives this definition of the petty bourgeoisie in the specific context of Vietnamese history:

• The petty bourgeois class includes: intellectuals, scientists, and small business owners, handicraftsmen, doctors, lawyers, and civil servants. The vast majority of contemporary intellectuals before the August Revolution of 1945, including students, belonged to the petty bourgeoisie. In general, they were also oppressed by imperialism and feudalism, often unemployed and uneducated.

• The petty bourgeoisie were intellectually and politically sensitive. They did not directly exploit labor. Therefore, they easily absorbed revolutionary education and went along with the workers and peasants.

• However, the intelligentsia and students often suffer from great weaknesses,such as: theory not being coupled with practice, contempt for labor, vague ideas, unstable stances, and erratic behavior in political action.

• Some other petty bourgeoisie (scientists and small businessmen, freelancers, etc.) were also exploited by imperialism and feudalism. Their economic circumstances were precarious, and they often found themselves unemployed and bankrupt. Therefore, the majority also participated in and supported the resistance war and revolution. They are also important allies of the working class.

• In general, these members of the petty bourgeoisie had a number of weaknesses: self-interest, fragmentation, and a lack of determination. Therefore, the working class has a duty to agitate and spread propaganda to such members of the petty bourgeoisie, organize them, and help them to develop their strong points while correcting their weaknesses. It is necessary to skillfully lead them, make them determined to serve the people, reform their ideology, and unite with the workers and peasants in order to become one cohesive movement. Then, they will become a great asset for the public in resistance war and revolution.

Marx defined the “lumpenproletariat” as another class which includes the segments of society with the least privilege - most exploited by capitalism - such as thieves, houseless people, etc.

In the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx defined the lumpenproletariat as: “The ‘dangerous class’ (lumpenproletariat), the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society.” Marx did not have much hope for the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat, writing that they “may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.”

Political Theories, an official journal of the Ho Chi Minh National Institute of Politics, discussed the lumpenproletariat in the specific context of Vietnamese revolutionary history:

• It should be noted that Marxism-Leninism has never held that the historical mission of the working class is rooted in poverty and impoverishment. Poverty and low standards of living make workers hate the regime of capitalism, and causes disaster for workers, but the basic driving force behind the revolutionary struggle of the working class lies in the very nature of capitalist production and from the irreconcilable contradiction between the working class and the bourgeoisie.

• Moreover, it should not be conceived that a class is capable of leading the revolution because it is the poorest class. In the old societies, there were classes that were extremely poor and had to go through many struggles against the ruling class, but they could never win and keep power, and did not become the ruling class of society.

• History has proven that the class that represents newly emerging productive forces which are able to build a more advanced mode of production than the old ones can lead the revolution and organize society into the regime they represent. Fetishizing poverty and misery is a corruption of Marxism-Leninism. . .

• The very existence of the lumpenproletariat is strong evidence of the inhumane nature of capitalist society, which regularly recreates a large class of outcasts at the bottom of society.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, millions of Vietnamese people were forced to leave their homes in rural farmlands to work for plantations and factories which were owned by French colonialists. These workers were functionally enslaved, being regularly physically abused by colonial masters, barred from any education whatsoever, and receiving only the bare minimum to survive. As a result, under French colonial rule, about 90% of Vietnamese were illiterate and the French aimed to indoctrinate Vietnamese people into believing that they were inferior to the French.

The French colonialists also worked with Vietnamese landlords to exploit peasants in rural areas. Those peasants received barely enough to survive and, like the plantation slaves, were prohibited from receiving education. Because Vietnamese peasants and colonial slaves composed the majority of workers while being so severely oppressed and living in conditions of such abject poverty, it was difficult to fully distinguish between the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat in Vietnam during the colonial era.

During this time, Ho Chi Minh and other Vietnamese communists developed the philosophy of “Proletarian Piety.” The word “piety,” here, is a translation of the Vietnamese word hiếu, which originally comes from the Confucianist philosophy of “filial piety.” Filial piety demanded children to deeply respect, honor, and obey their parents. Through the concept of Proletarian Piety, Ho Chi Minh adapted this concept to proletarian revolution, calling for communists to deeply love, respect, and tirelessly serve the oppressed masses. This philosophical concept sought to unite the proletariat, lumpenproletariat, and petty bourgeoisie into one united revolutionary class. Even some feudal landlords and capitalists - who were, themselves, oppressed by the col- onizing French - were willing to fight for communist revolution and were welcomed into the revolutionary movement if they were willing to adhere to the principle of proletarian piety. The working class and peasantry would lead the revolution, the more privileged classes would follow, and all communist revolutionists would serve the oppressed masses through sacrifice and struggle.

During this period, many novels were written and circulated widely which featured main characters who were members of the lumpenproletariat or enslaved by the French, such as Bỉ Vỏ, a story about a beautiful peasant girl who was forced to become a thief in the city, and Chí Phèo, the story of a peasant who worked as a servant in a feudal landlord’s house who was sent to prison and became a destitute alcoholic after being released. The purpose of these stories was to show the cruelty of the colonialist-capitalist society of Vietnam in the 1930’s and to inspire proletarian piety, including empathy and respect for the extreme suffering and oppression of the lumpenproletariat, peasantry, and colonial slaves. These stories also presented sympathetic views of intellectuals and members of the petty bourgeoisie: for instance, in the novel Lão Hạc, the son of a peasant leaves to work for a French plantation and the father never sees him again. The aged peasant becomes extremely poor and sick without the support of his son, and the only person in the village who helps him is a teacher, representing the intellectual segment of the petty bourgeoisie.

The writers of these novels were communists who wanted to promote the principles of proletarian piety. Rather than looking down on the most oppressed members of society, and rather than sewing distrust and contempt for the petty bourgeoisie, Vietnamese communists inspired solidarity and collaboration between all of the oppressed peoples of Vietnam to overthrow French colonialism, feudalism, and capitalism. Proletarian piety was crucial for uniting the divided and conquered masses of Vietnam and successfully overthrowing colonialism. Note that these strategies were developed specifically for colonial Vietnam. Every revolutionary struggle will take place in unique material conditions, and the composition and characteristics of each class will vary over time and from one place to another. It is important for revolutionists to carefully apply the principles of dialectical materialism and materialist dialectics to accurately analyze class conditions in order to develop strategies and plans which will most suitably and efficiently lead to successful revolution.

The deep contradictions* between the socialized production force** and the capitalist relations of production*** were first revealed by the economic depression of 1825 and the series of struggles between workers and the capitalist class which followed.

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* See: Definition of Contradiction and Common Characteristics of Contradiction, p. 175

** In Marxism, “socialization” is simply the idea that human society transforms labor and production from a solitary, individual act into a collective, social act. In other words, as human society progresses, people “socialize” labor into increasingly complex networks of social relations: from individuals making their own tools, to agricultural societies engaged in collective farming, to modern industrial societies with factories, logistical networks, etc.

The production force is the combination of the means of production and workers within any society. The “Socialized Production Force,” therefore, is a production force which has been socialized - that is to say, a production force which has been organized into collective social activity. Under capitalism, the “Socialized Production Force” consists of the proletariat, or the working class, as well as means of production which are owned by capitalists.

*** Marx and Engels defined “relations of production” as the social relationships that human beings must accept in order to survive. Relations of production are, by definition, not voluntary, because human beings must enter into them in order to receive material needs in order to survive within a given society. Under capitalism, the relations of production require the working class to rent their labor to capitalists to receive wages which they need to procure material needs like food and shelter. This is an inherent contradiction because a small minority of society (the capitalist class) own the means of production while the vast majority of society (the working class) must submit to exploitation through wage servitude in order to survive.

Examples of such early struggles include: the resistance of workers in Lyon, France in 1831 and 1834; the Chartist movement in Britain from 1835 to 1848; the workers’ movement in Silesia (Germany) in 1844, etc. These events prove as historical evidence that the proletariat had become an independent political force which pioneered the fight for a democratic, equal, and progressive society.

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Annotation 5 Here are some brief descriptions of the early working class movements mentioned above:

Resistance of Workers in Lyon, France:

In 1831 in France, due to heavy exploitation and hardship, textile workers in Lyon revolted to demand higher wages and shorter working hours. The rebels took control of the city for ten days. Their determination to fight is reflected in the slogan: “Live working or die fighting!”

This resistance was brutally crushed by the government, which supported the factory owners. In 1834, silk mill workers in Lyon revolted again to demand the establishment of a republic. The fierce struggle went on for four days, but was extinguished in a bloody battle against the French army. About 10,000 insurgents were imprisoned or deported.

The Chartist Movement in Britain:

Chartism was a working class movement in the United Kingdom which rose up in response to anti-worker laws such as the Poor Law Amendment of 1834, which drove poor people into workhouses and removed other social programs for the working poor. Legislative failure to address the demands of the working poor led to a broadly popular mass movement which would go on to organize around the People’s Charter of 1838, which was a list of six demands which included extension of the vote and granting the working class the right to hold office in the House of Commons.

In 1845, Karl Marx visited Britain for the first time, along with Friedrich Engels, to meet with the leaders of the Chartist movement (with whom Engels had already established a close relationship). After various conflicts and struggles, Chartism ultimately began to decline in 1848 as more socialist-oriented movements rose up in prominence.

Workers’ Movement in Silesia, Germany:

In June, 1844, disturbances and riots occurred in the Prussian province of Silesia, a major center of textile manufacturing. In response, the Prussian army was called upon to restore order in the region. In a confrontation between the weavers and troops, shots were fired into the crowd, killing 11 protesters and wounding many others. The leaders of the disturbances were arrested, flogged, and imprisoned. This event has gained enormous significance in the history of the German labor movement. In particular, Karl Marx regarded the uprising as evidence of the birth of a German workers’ movement. The weavers’ rebellion served as an important symbol for later generations concerned with poverty and oppression of the working class in German society.

It quickly became apparent that the revolutionary practice of the proletariat needed the guidance of scientific theories. The birth of Marxism was to meet that objective requirement; in the meantime, the revolutionary practice itself became the practical premise for Marxism to continuously develop.

- Theoretical Premises

The birth of Marxism not only resulted from the objective requirement of history, it was also the result of inheriting the quintessence* of various previously established frameworks of human philosophical theory such as German classical philosophy, British classical political economics, and utopianism in France and Britain.

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*In the original Vietnamese, the word tinh hoa is used, which we roughly translate to the word quintessence throughout this book. Literally, it means “the best, highest, most beautiful, defining characteristics” of a concept, and, unlike the English word quintessence, it has an exclusively positive connotation. Quintessence should not be confused with the universal category of Essence, which is discussed on p. 156 {Around annotation 155 for this wiki}

German classical philosophy, especially the philosophies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach , had deeply influenced the formation of the Marxist worldview and philosophical methodology.

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German classical philosophy was a movement of idealist philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries. Idealism is a philosophical position that holds that the only reliable experience of reality occurs within the human consciousness. Idealists believe that human reason is the best way to seek truth, and that consciousness is thus the only reliable source of knowledge and information.

One of Hegel’s important achievements was his critique of the metaphysical method.

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Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that attempts to explain the fundamental nature of reality by classifying things, phenomena, and ideas into various categories. Metaphysical philosophy has taken many forms through the centuries, but one common shortcoming of metaphysical thought is a tendency to view things and ideas in a static, abstract manner. Metaphysical positions view nature as a collection of objects and phenomena which are isolated from one another and fundamentally unchanging. Engels explained the problems of metaphysics in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organized bodies in their manifold forms - hese{sic} were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature that have been made during the last 400 years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constraints, not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century.

Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) is considered the father of empiricism, which is the belief that knowledge can only be derived from human sensory experience [see Annotation 10, p. 10]. Bacon argued that scientific knowledge could only be derived through inductive reasoning in which specific observations are used to form general conclusions. John Locke (1632 - 1704) was another early empiricist, who was heavily influenced by Francis Bacon. Locke, too, was an empiricist, and is considered to be the “father of liberalism.”

Engels was highly critical of the application of metaphysical philosophy to natural science. As Engels continues in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes - ideas - are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. . . For him a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis one to the other. At first sight this mode of thinking seems to us very luminous, because it is that of so-called sound common sense. Only sound common sense, respectable

fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. And the metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the particular object of investigation, sooner or later reaches a limit, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions. In the contemplation of individual things, it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It cannot see the wood for the tree.

Dialectical Materialism stands in contrast to metaphysics in many ways. Rather than splitting the world into distinct, isolated categories, Dialectical Materialist philosophy seeks to view the world in terms of relationships, motion, and change. Dialectical Materialism also refutes the hard empiricism of Bacon and Locke by describing a dialectical relationship between the material world and consciousness [see: The Relationship Between Matter and Consciousness, p. 88].

For the first time in the history of human philosophy, Hegel expressed the content of dialectics in strict arguments with a system of rules and categories.

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Dialectics is a philosophical methodology which searches for truth by examining contradictions and relationships between things, objects, and ideas. Ancient dialecticians such as Aristotle and Socrates explored dialectics primarily through rhetorical discourse between two or more different points of view about a subject with the intention of finding truth.

In this classical form of dialectics, a thesis is presented. This thesis is an opening argument about the subject at hand. An antithesis, or counter-argument, is then presented. Finally, the thesis and antithesis are combined into a synthesis, which is an improvement on both the thesis and antithesis which brings us closer to truth.

Hegel resurrected dialectics to the forefront of philosophical inquiry for the German Idealists. As Engels wrote in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

Hegel’s work’s greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought.

Hegel’s great contribution to dialectics was to develop dialectics from a simple method of examining truth based on discourse into an organized, systematic model of nature and of history. Unfortunately, Hegel’s dialectics were idealist in nature. Hegel believed that the ideal served as the primary basis of reality. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels strongly rejected Hegel’s idealism, as well as the strong influences of Christian theology on Hegel’s work, but they also saw great potential in his system of dialectics, as Marx explained in Capital (Volume 1):

The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

Starting with a critique of the mysterious idealism of Hegel’s philosophy, Marx and Engels inherited the “rational kernel” of Hegelian dialectics and successfully built materialist dialectics.

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In order to understand the ways in which the critique of Hegel’s philosophy by Marx and Engels led to the development of dialectical materialism, some background information on materialism - and the conflicts between idealist and materialist philosophy in the era of Marx and Engels - is needed.

Materialism is a philosophical position that holds that the material world exists outside of the mind, and that human ideas and thoughts stem from observation and sensory experience of this external world. Materialism rejects the idealist notion that truth can only be sought through reasoning and human consciousness. The history and development of both idealism and materialism are discussed more in the section The Opposition of Materialism and Idealism in Solving Basic Philosophical Issues on page 48.

In the era of Marx and Engels, the leading philosophical school of materialism was known as empiricism. Empiricism holds that we can only obtain knowledge through human sense perception. Marx and Engels were materialists, but they rejected empiricism (see Engels’ critique of empiricism in Annotation 8, p. 8).

One reason Marx and Engels opposed the strict empiricist view was that it made materialism vulnerable to attack from idealists, because it ignored objective relations and knowledge that went beyond sense data. The empiricist point of view also provided the basis for the subjective idealism of George Berkeley [see Annotation 32, p. 27] and the skepticism of David Hume. Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism is empiricist in that it supports the idea that humans can only discover knowledge through direct sense experience. Therefore, Berkeley argues, individuals are unable to obtain any real knowledge about abstract concepts such as “matter.”

Similarly, David Hume’s radical skepticism, which Engels called “agnosticism,” denied the possibility of possessing any concrete knowledge. As Hume wrote in A Treatise on Human Nature: “I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.” Hume’s radical skepticism lay in his empiricist belief that the only source of knowledge is sense experience; but Hume went a step further, doubting that even sense experience could be reliable, adding: “The essence and composition of external bodies are so obscure, that we must necessarily, in our reasonings, or rather conjectures concerning them, involveourselves {sic} in contradictions and absurdities.”

Later, in the appendix of the same text, Hume argues that conscious reasoning suffers from the same unreliability: “I had entertained some hopes (that) the intellectual world . . . would be free from those contradictions, and absurdities, whichseem to attend every explication, that human reason can give of the material world.”

Engels dismissed radical skepticism as “scientifically a regression and practically merely a shamefaced way of surreptitiously accepting materialism, while denying it before the world.” Engels directly refutes radical skepticism in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:

. . . how do we know that our senses give us correct representations of the objects we perceive through them? . . . whenever we speak of objects, or their qualities, of which (we) cannot know anything for certain, but merely the impressions which they have produced on (our) senses. Now, this line of reasoning seems undoubtedly hard to beat by mere argumentation. But before there was

argumentation, there was action. . . And human action had solved the difficulty long before human ingenuity invented it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. From the moment we turn to our own use these objects, according to the qualities we perceive in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise of our sense-perception.

This concept of determining the truth of knowledge and perception through practical experience is fundamental to dialectical materialist philosophy and the methodology of materialist dialectics, and is discussed in further detail in Chapter 3, p. 204.

Another weakness of empiricism is that it denies the objectiveness of social relations, which cannot be fully and properly analyzed through sensory experience and observation alone. Marx saw that social relations are, indeed, objective in nature and can be understood despite their lack of sensory observability, and that doing so is vital in comprehending subjects such as political economy, as he observes in Capital Volume I:

(The true) reality of the value of commodities contrasts with the gross material reality of these same commodities (the reality of which is perceived by our bodily senses) in that not an atom of matter enters into the reality of value. We may

twist and turn a commodity this way and that - as a thing of value it still remains unappreciable by our bodily senses.

In other words, Marx pointed out that no amount of sense data about a commodity will fully explain its value. One can know the size, weight, hardness, etc., of a commodity, but without analyzing the social relations and other aspects of the commodity which can’t be directly observed with the senses, one can never know or understand the true value of the commodity. The materialism of Marx and Engels acknowledges the physical, material world as the first basis for reality, but Marx and Engels also understood that it was vital to account for other aspects of rational knowledge (such as social relations). Marx and Engels believed that empiricist materialism had roughly the same flaw as idealism: a lack of a connection between the material and consciousness. While the idealists completely dismissed sense data and relied exclusively on reasoning and consciousness, the empiricists dismissed conscious thought to focus solely on what could be sensed.

It is important to note that, while Marx and Engels rejected empiricism, they did not reject empirical knowledge nor empirical data which is collected from scientific observation [see Annotation 216, p. 210]. On the contrary, empirical data was key to the works of Marx and Engels in developing dialectical materialism. As Lenin explained: “(Marx) took one of the economic formations of society – the system of commodity production – and on the basis of a vast mass of data which he studied for not less than twenty-five years gave a most detailed analysis of the laws governing this formation and its development.” And so, the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels served to bridge the gap between idealism and materialism. They believed that our conscious thoughts are derived from material processes, but that consciousness can also influence the material world. This is discussed in more detail in the section “Materialism and Dialectical Materialism” on page 48 {beginning of chapter 1}

Marx and Engels also criticized many limitations of Feuerbach’s methodology and viewpoint* - especially Feuerbach’s prescriptions for how to deal with social problems - but they also highly appreciated the role of Feuerbach’s thought in the fight against idealism and religion to assert that nature comes first, and that nature is permanent and independent from human willpower.