“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but,
on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”
‒Karl Marx
We already know what the dialectical method is.
What is the materialist theory?
Everything in the world changes, everything in life develops, but how do these changes take place and in what form does this development proceed?
We know, for example, that the earth was once an incandescent, fiery mass; then it gradually cooled, plants and animals appeared, the development of the animal kingdom was followed by the appearance of a certain species of ape, and all this was followed by the appearance of man.
This, broadly speaking, is the way nature developed.
We also know that social life did not remain static either. There was a time when men lived on a primitive-communist basis; at that time they gained their livelihood by primitive hunting; they roamed through the forests and procured their food in that way. There came a time when primitive communism was superseded by the matriarchate—at that time men satisfied their needs mainly by means of primitive agriculture. Later the matriarchate was superseded by the patriarchate, under which men gained their livelihood mainly by cattle-breeding. The patriarchate was later superseded by the slave-owning system—at that time men gained their livelihood by means of relatively more developed agriculture. The slave-owning system was followed by feudalism, and then, after all this, came the bourgeois system.
That, broadly speaking, is the way social life developed.
Yes, all this is well known. . . . But how did this development take place; did consciousness call forth the development of “nature” and of “society,” or, on the contrary, did the development of “nature” and “society” call forth the development of consciousness?
This is how the materialist theory presents the question.
Some people say that “nature” and “social life” were preceded by the universal idea, which subsequently served as the basis of their development, so that the development of the phenomena of “nature” and of “social life” is, so to speak, the external form, merely the expression of the development of the universal idea.
Such, for example, was the doctrine of the idealists, who in the course of time split up into several trends.
Others say that from the very beginning there have existed in the world two mutually negating forces—idea and matter, consciousness and being, and that correspondingly, phenomena also fall into two categories—the ideal and the material, which negate each other, and contend against each other, so that the development of nature and society is a constant struggle between ideal and material phenomena.
Such, for example, was the doctrine of the dualists, who in the course of time, like the idealists, split up into several trends.
The materialist theory utterly repudiates both dualism and idealism.
Of course, both ideal and material phenomena exist in the world, but this does not mean that they negate each other. On the contrary, the ideal and the material sides are two different forms of one and the same nature or society, the one cannot be conceived without the other, they exist together, develop together, and, consequently, we have no grounds whatever for thinking that they negate each other.
Thus, so-called dualism proves to be unsound.
A single and indivisible nature expressed in two different forms—material and ideal; a single and indivisible social life expressed in two different forms—material and ideal—that is how we should regard the development of nature and of social life.
Such is the monism of the materialist theory.
At the same time, the materialist theory also repudiates idealism.
It is wrong to think that in its development the ideal side, and consciousness in general, precedes the development of the material side. So-called external “non-living” nature existed before there were any living beings. The first living matter possessed no consciousness, it possessed only irritability and the first rudiments of sensation. Later, animals gradually developed the power of sensation, which slowly passed into consciousness, in conformity with the development of the structure of their organisms and nervous systems. If the ape had always walked on all fours, if it had never stood upright, its descendant—man—would not have been able freely to use his lungs and vocal chords and, therefore, would not have been able to speak; and that would have fundamentally retarded the development of his consciousness. If, furthermore, the ape had not risen up on its hind legs, its descendant—man—would have been compelled always to walk on all fours, to look downwards and obtain his impressions only from there; he would have been unable to look up and around himself and, consequently, his brain would have obtained no more impressions than the brain of a quadruped. All this would have fundamentally retarded the development of human consciousness.
It follows, therefore, that the development of consciousness needs a particular structure of the organism and development of its nervous system.
It follows, therefore, that the development of the ideal side, the development of consciousness, is preceded by the development of the material side, the development of the external conditions: first the external conditions change, first the material side changes, and then consciousness, the ideal side, changes accordingly.
Thus, the history of the development of nature utterly refutes so-called idealism.
The same thing must be said about the history of the development of human society.
History shows that if at different times men were imbued with different ideas and desires, the reason for this is that at different times men fought nature in different ways to satisfy their needs and, accordingly, their economic relations assumed different forms. There was a time when men fought nature collectively, on the basis of primitive communism; at that time their property was communist property and, therefore, at that time they drew scarcely any distinction between “mine” and “thine,” their consciousness was communistic. There came a time when the distinction between “mine” and “thine” penetrated the process of production; at that time property, too, assumed a private, individualist character and, therefore, the consciousness of men became imbued with the sense of private property. Then came the time, the present time, when production is again assuming a social character and, consequently, property, too, will soon assume a social character—and this is precisely why the consciousness of men is gradually becoming imbued with socialism.
Here is a simple illustration. Let us take a shoemaker who owned a tiny workshop, but who, unable to withstand the competition of the big manufacturers, closed his workshop and took a job, say, at Adelkhanov’s shoe factory in Tiflis. He went to work at Adelkhanov’s factory not with the view to becoming a permanent wage-worker, but with the object of saving up some money, of accumulating a little capital to enable him to reopen his workshop. As you see, the position of this shoemaker is already proletarian, but his consciousness is still non-proletarian, it is thoroughly petty-bourgeois. In other words, this shoemaker has already lost his petty-bourgeois position, it has gone, but his petty-bourgeois consciousness has not yet gone, it has lagged behind his actual position.
Clearly, here too, in social life, first the external conditions change, first the conditions of men change and then their consciousness changes accordingly.
But let us return to our shoemaker. As we already know, he intends to save up some money and then reopen his workshop. This proletarianised shoemaker goes on working, but finds that it is a very difficult matter to save money, because what he earns barely suffices to maintain an existence. Moreover, he realises that the opening of a private workshop is after all not so alluring: the rent he will have to pay for the premises, the caprices of customers, shortage of money, the competition of the big manufacturers and similar worries—such are the many troubles that torment the private workshop owner. On the other hand, the proletarian is relatively freer from such cares; he is not troubled by customers, or by having to pay rent for premises. He goes to the factory every morning, “calmly” goes home in the evening, and as calmly pockets his “pay” on Saturdays. Here, for the first time, the wings of our shoemaker’s petty-bourgeois dreams are clipped; here for the first time proletarian strivings awaken in his soul.
Time passes and our shoemaker sees that he has not enough money to satisfy his most essential needs, that what he needs very badly is a rise in wages. At the same time, he hears his fellow-workers talking about unions and strikes. Here our shoemaker realises that in order to improve his conditions he must fight the masters and not open a workshop of his own. He joins the union, enters the strike movement, and soon becomes imbued with socialist ideas. . . .
Thus, in the long run, the change in the shoemaker’s material conditions was followed by a change in his consciousness: first his material conditions changed, and then, after a time, his consciousness changed accordingly.
The same must be said about classes and about society as a whole.
In social life, too, first the external conditions change, first the material conditions change, and then the ideas of men, their habits, customs and their world outlook change accordingly.
That is why Marx says:
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”
If we can call the material side, the external conditions, being, and other phenomena of the same kind, the content, then we can call the ideal side, consciousness and other phenomena of the same kind, the form. Hence arose the well-known materialist proposition: in the process of development content precedes form, form lags behind content.
And as, in Marx’s opinion, economic development is the “material foundation” of social life, its content, while legal-political and religious-philosophical development is the “ideological form” of this content, its “superstructure,” Marx draws the conclusion that: “With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.”
This, of course, does not mean that in Marx’s opinion content is possible without form, as Sh. G. imagines (see Noboati, No. 1. “A Critique of Monism”). Content is impossible without form, but the point is that since a given form lags behind its content, it never fully corresponds to this content; and so the new content is “obliged” to clothe itself for a time in the old form, and this causes a conflict between them. At the present time, for example, the form of appropriation of the product, which is private in character, does not correspond to the social content of production, and this is the basis of the present-day social “conflict.”
On the other hand, the idea that consciousness is a form of being does not mean that by its nature consciousness, too, is matter. That was the opinion held only by the vulgar materialists (for example, Büchner and Moleschott), whose theories fundamentally contradict Marx’s materialism, and whom Engels rightly ridiculed in his Ludwig Feuerbach. According to Marx’s materialism, consciousness and being, idea and matter, are two different forms of the same phenomenon, which, broadly speaking, is called nature, or society. Consequently, they do not negate each other*; nor are they one and the same phenomenon. The only point is that, in the development of nature and society, consciousness, i.e., what takes place in our heads, is preceded by a corresponding material change, i.e., what takes place outside of us; any given material change is, sooner or later, inevitably followed by a corresponding ideal change.
Very well, we shall be told, perhaps this is true as applied to the history of nature and society. But how do different conceptions and ideas arise in our heads at the present time? Do so-called external conditions really exist, or is it only our conceptions of these external conditions that exist? And if external conditions exist, to what degree are they perceptible and cognizable?
On this point the materialist theory says that our conceptions, our “self,” exist only in so far as external conditions exist that give rise to impressions in our “self.” Whoever unthinkingly says that nothing exists but our conceptions, is compelled to deny the existence of all external conditions and, consequently, must deny the existence of all other people and admit the existence only of his own “self,” which is absurd, and utterly contradicts the principles of science.
Obviously, external conditions do actually exist; these conditions existed before us, and will exist after us; and the more often and the more strongly they affect our consciousness, the more easily perceptible and cognizable do they become.
As regards the question as to how different conceptions and ideas arise in our heads at the present time, we must observe that here we have a repetition in brief of what takes place in the history of nature and society. In this case, too, the object outside of us preceded our conception of it; in this case, too, our conception, the form, lags behind the object—behind its content. When I look at a tree and see it—that only shows that this tree existed even before the conception of a tree arose in my head, that it was this tree that aroused the corresponding conception in my head. . . .
Such, in brief, is the content of Marx’s materialist theory.
The importance of the materialist theory for the practical activities of mankind can be readily understood.
If the economic conditions change first and the consciousness of men undergoes a corresponding change later, it is clear that we must seek the grounds for a given ideal not in the minds of men, not in their imaginations, but in the development of their economic conditions. Only that ideal is good and acceptable which is based on a study of economic conditions. All those ideals which ignore economic conditions and are not based upon their development are useless and unacceptable.
Such is the first practical conclusion to be drawn from the materialist theory.
If the consciousness of men, their habits and customs, are determined by external conditions, if the unsuitability of legal and political forms rests on an economic content, it is clear that we must help to bring about a radical change in economic relations in order, with this change, to bring about a radical change in the habits and customs of the people, and in their political system.
Here is what Karl Marx says on that score:
“No great acumen is required to perceive the necessary interconnection of materialism with . . . socialism. If man constructs all his knowledge, perceptions, etc., from the world of sense . . . then it follows that it is a question of so arranging the empirical world that he experiences the truly human in it, that he becomes accustomed to experiencing himself as a human being. . . . If man is unfree in the materialist sense—that is, is free not by reason of the negative force of being able to avoid this or that, but by reason of the positive power to assert his true individuality, then one should not punish individuals for crimes, but rather destroy the anti-social breeding places of crime. . . . If man is moulded circumstances, then the circumstances must be moulded humanly” (see Ludwig Feuerbach, Appendix: “Karl Marx on the History of French Materialism of the XVIII Century”).5
Such is the second practical conclusion to be drawn from the materialist theory.
* *
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What is the anarchist view of the materialist theory of Marx and Engels?
While the dialectical method originated with Hegel, the materialist theory is a further development of the materialism of Feuerbach. The Anarchists know this very well, and they try to take advantage of the defects of Hegel and Feuerbach to discredit the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels. We have already shown with reference to Hegel and the dialectical method that these tricks of the Anarchists prove nothing but their own ignorance. The same must be said with reference to their attacks on Feuerbach and the materialist theory.
For example. The Anarchists tell us with great aplomb that “Feuerbach was a pantheist . . .” that he “deified man . . .” (see Nobati, No. 7. D. Delendi), that “in Feuerbach’s opinion man is what he eats . . .” alleging that from this Marx drew the following conclusion: “Consequently, the main and primary thing is economic conditions . . .” (see Nobati, No. 6, Sh. G.).
True, nobody has any doubts about Feuerbach’s pantheism, his deification of man, and other errors of his of the same kind. On the contrary, Marx and Engels were the first to reveal Feuerbach’s errors. Nevertheless, the Anarchists deem it necessary once again to “expose” the already exposed errors. Why? Probably because, in reviling Feuerbach, they want indirectly to discredit the materialist theory of Marx and Engels. Of course, if we examine the subject impartially we shall certainly find that in addition to erroneous ideas, Feuerbach gave utterance to correct ideas, as has been the case with many scholars in history. Nevertheless, the Anarchists go on “exposing.” . . .
We say again that by tricks of this kind they prove nothing but their own ignorance.
It is interesting to note (as we shall see later on) that the Anarchists took it into their heads to criticise the materialist theory from hearsay, without any acquaintance with it. As a consequence, they often contradict and refute each other, which, of course, makes our “critics” look ridiculous. If, for example, we listen to what Mr. Cherkezishvili has to say, it would appear that Marx and Engels detested monistic materialism, that their materialism was vulgar and not monistic materialism:
“The great science of the naturalists, with its system of evolution, transformism and monistic materialism, which Engels so heartily detested . . . avoided dialectics,” etc. (see Nobati, No. 4. V. Cherkezishvili).
It follows, therefore, that natural-scientific materialism, which Cherkezishvili approves of and which Engels “detested,” was monistic materialism and, therefore, deserves approval, whereas the materialism of Marx and Engels is not monistic and, of course, does not deserve recognition.
Another Anarchist, however, says that the materialism of Marx and Engels is monistic and therefore should be rejected.
“Marx’s conception of history is a throwback to Hegel. The monistic materialism of absolute objectivism in general, and Marx’s economic monism in particular, are impossible in nature and fallacious in theory. . . . Monistic materialism is poorly disguised dualism and a compromise between metaphysics and science. . . .” (see Nobati, No. 6. Sh. G.).
It would follow, therefore, that monistic materialism is unacceptable, that Marx and Engels do not detest it, but, on the contrary, are themselves monistic materialists—and therefore, monistic materialism must be rejected.
They are all at sixes and sevens. Try and make out which of them is right, the former or the latter! They have not yet agreed among themselves about the merits and demerits of Marx’s materialism, they have not yet understood whether it is monistic or not, and have not yet made up their minds themselves as to which is the more acceptable, vulgar or monistic materialism—but they already deafen us with their boastful claims to have shattered Marxism!
Well, well, if Messieurs the Anarchists continue to shatter each other’s views as zealously as they are doing now, we need say no more, the future belongs to the Anarchists. . . .
No less ridiculous is the fact that certain “celeblated” Anarchists, notwithstanding their “celebrity,” have not yet made themselves familiar with the different trends in science. It appears that they are ignorant of the fact that there are various kinds of materialism in science which differ a great deal from each other: there is, for example, vulgar materialism, which denies the importance of the ideal side and the effect it has upon the material side; but there is also so-called monistic materialism—the materialist theory of Marx—which scientifically examines the interrelation between the ideal and the material sides. But the Anarchists confuse these different kinds of materialism, fail to see even the obvious differences between them, and at the same time affirm with great aplomb that they are regenerating science!
P. Kropotkin, for example, smugly asserts in his “philosophical” works that anarcho-communism rests on “contemporary materialist philosophy,” but he does not utter a single word to explain on which “materialist philosophy” anarcho-communism rests: on vulgar, monistic, or some other. Evidently he is ignorant of the fact that there are fundamental contradictions between the different trends of materialism, and he fails to understand that to confuse these trends means not “regenerating science,” but displaying one’s own downright ignorance (see Kropotkin, Science and Anarchism, and also Anarchy and Its Philosophy).
The same thing must be said about Kropotkin’s Georgian disciples. Listen to this:
“In the opinion of Engels, and also of Kautsky, Marx rendered mankind a great service in that he . . .” among other things, discovered the “materialist conception. Is this true? We do not think so, for we know . . that all the historians, scientists and philosophers who adhere to the view that the social mechanism is set in motion by geographic, climatic and telluric, cosmic, anthropological and biological conditions—are all materialists” (see Nobati, No. 2).
It follows, therefore, that there is no difference whatever between the “materialism” of Aristotle and Holbach, or between the “materialism” of Marx and Moleschott! This is criticism if you like! And people whose knowledge is on such a level have taken it into their heads to renovate science! Indeed, it is an apt saying: “It’s a bad lookout when a cobbler begins to bake pies! . . .”
To proceed. Our “celebrated” Anarchists heard somewhere that Marx’s materialism was a “belly theory,” and so they rebuke us, Marxists, saying:
“In the opinion of Feuerbach, man is what he eats. This formula had a magic effect on Marx and Engels,” and, as a consequence, Marx drew the conclusion that “the main and primary thing is economic conditions, relations of production. . . .” And then the Anarchists proceed to instruct us in a philosophical tone: “It would be a mistake to say that the sole means of achieving this object of social life) is eating and economic production. . . . If ideology were determined mainly, monistically, by eating and economic conditions—then some gluttons would be geniuses” (see Nobati, No. 6. Sh. G.).
You see how easy it is to refute the materialism of Marx and Engels! It is sufficient to hear some gossip in the street from some schoolgirl about Marx and Engels, it is sufficient to repeat that street gossip with philosophical aplomb in the columns of a paper like Nobati, to leap into fame as a “critic” of Marxism!
But tell me, gentlemen: Where, when, on which planet, and which Marx did you hear say that “eating determines ideology”? Why did you not cite a single sentence, a single word from the works of Marx to back your assertion? True, Marx said that the economic conditions of men determine their consciousness, their ideology, but who told you that eating and economic conditions are the same thing? Don’t you really know that physiological phenomena, such as eating, for example, differ fundamentally from sociological phenomena, such as the economic conditions of men, for example? One can forgive a schoolgirl, say, for confusing these two different phenomena; but how is it that you, the “vanquishers of Social-Democracy,” “regenerators of science,” so carelessly repeat the mistake of a schoolgirl?
How, indeed, can eating determine social ideology? Ponder over what you yourselves have said: eating, the form of eating, does not change; in ancient times people ate, masticated and digested their food in the same way as they do now, but ideology changes all the time. Ancient, feudal, bourgeois and proletarian—such are the forms of ideology. Is it conceivable that that which does not change can determine that which is constantly changing?
To proceed further. In the opinion of the Anarchists, Marx’s materialism “is parallelism. . . .” Or again: “monistic materialism is poorly disguised dualism and a compromise between metaphysics and science. . . .” “Marx drops into dualism because he depicts relations of production as material, and human striving and will as an illusion and a utopia, which, even though it exists, is of no importance” (see Nobati, No. 6. Sh. G.).
Firstly, Marx’s monistic materialism has nothing in common with silly parallelism. From the standpoint of this materialism, the material side, content, necessarily precedes the ideal side, form. Parallelism, however, repudiates this view and emphatically affirms that neither the material nor the ideal comes first, that both develop together, side by side.
Secondly, even if Marx had in fact “depicted relations of production as material, and human striving and will as an illusion and a utopia having no importance,” does that mean that Marx was a dualist? The dualist, as is well known, ascribes equal importance to the ideal and material sides as two opposite principles. But if, as you say, Marx attaches higher importance to the material side and no importance to the ideal side because it is a “utopia,” how do you make out that Marx was a dualist, Messieurs “Critics”?
Thirdly, what connection can there be between materialist monism and dualism, when even a child knows that monism springs from one principle—nature, or being, which has a material and an ideal form, whereas dualism springs from two principles—the material and the ideal, which, according to dualism, negate each other?
Fourthly, when did Marx depict “human striving and will as a utopia and an illusion”? True, Marx explained “human striving and will” by economic development, and when the strivings of certain armchair philosophers failed to harmonise with economic conditions he called them utopian. But does this mean that Marx believed that human striving in general is utopian? Does this, too, really need explanation? Have you really not read Marx’s statement that: “mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve” (see Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy), i.e., that, generally speaking, mankind does not pursue utopian aims? Clearly, either our “critic” does not know what he is talking about, or he is deliberately distorting the facts.
Fifthly, who told you that in the opinion of Marx and Engels “human striving and will are of no importance”? Why do you not point to the place where they say that? Does not Marx speak of the importance of “striving and will” in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in his Class Struggles in France, in his Civil War in France, and in other pamphlets of the same kind? Why then did Marx try to develop the proletarians’ “will and striving” in the socialist spirit, why did he conduct propaganda among them if he attached no importance to “striving and will”? Or, what did Engels talk about in his well-known articles of 1891-94 if not the “importance of will and striving”? True, in Marx’s opinion human “will and striving” acquire their content from economic conditions, but does that mean that they themselves exert no influence on the development of economic relations? Is it really so difficult for the Anarchists to understand such a simple idea?
Here is another “accusation” Messieurs the Anarchists make: “form is inconceivable without content . . .” therefore, one cannot say that “form comes after content (lags behind content. K.) . . . they ‘co-exist.’. . . Otherwise, monism would be an absurdity” (see Nobati, No. 1. Sh. G.).
Our “scholar” is somewhat confused again. It is quite true that content is inconceivable without form. But it is also true that the existing form never fully corresponds to the existing content: the former lags behind the latter, to a certain extent the new content is always clothed in the old form and, as a consequence, there is always a conflict between the old form and the new content. It is precisely on this ground that revolutions occur, and this, among other things, expresses the revolutionary spirit of Marx’s materialism. The “celebrated” Anarchists, however, have failed to understand this, and for this they themselves and not the materialist theory are to blame, of course.
Such are the views of the Anarchists on the materialist theory of Marx and Engels, that is, if they can be called views at all.