Political Thought

Russian Marxism. When a Marxian socialist party was first organized in Russia, early in the 1880’s, it followed a native socialism with a generally agrarian and humanitarian philosophy. The main principle of this philosophy was the idea that a socialist society might be developed from the primitive communism of the Russian village and thus might … Read more

The philosophy of communism is a revised version of Marxism, largely the work of Lenin and therefore often called “Marxism-Leninism.” Trotsky’s part in it, which was in fact considerable, is systematically denied or obscured by communist writers because of his later expulsion from the party. The official definition of Lenin’s relation to Marx, stated by … Read more

The Strategy of the Social Revolution. Marx always regarded his philosophy as the guide to a successful proletarian revolution, and his career was divided between scholarship and socialist leadership. It would be hard to name any form of political, radicalism in Western Europe after Marx that was not in some way affected by his thought. … Read more

The Collapse of Capitalism.The major purpose of Capital, therefore, was to show that capitalism in destroying itself must give rise to socialism, its antithesis. The plan of Marx’s argument was to accept the labor theory of value, which Ricardo had made the central principle of classical economics and which Mar regarded as an authentically scientific … Read more

Capitalism as an Institution.The thought of Marx’s early writings was heavily influenced by his early Hegelian training. The reasoning by which he constructed its framework was largely deductive, but like Hegel he tended to fit into the framework a great mass of data drawn from his historical studies. It aimed to be a philosophy of … Read more

Dialectical Materialism and Politics.The concepts of ideology, economic determinism, and the class struggle complete the theoretical parts of Marx’s social philosophy. They were to provide the stimulus to a working-class revolution and also a guide to the strategy of revolutionary parties, for the purpose of a philosophy, as Mar said, is not to interpret the … Read more

Engels on Dialectic in Economic Determinism. The theory of dialectical materialism was completed by Marx about 1850. From that time forward it was presumed in all that he wrote but even in Capital it was nowhere stated; the treatment of socialism in that work turned discussion toward intrinsically less important economic theories such as surplus … Read more

Marx’s Summary In Dialectical materialism. The fragmentary manner in which Marx worked out the theory of dialectical materialism justifies the quotation at some length of his only summary statement of it, which was not written, however, until several years after the theory took shape. In the social production which men carry on they enter into … Read more

Ideology and the Class Struggle of Dialectical Materialism. It was characteristic of Marx that he was interested less in perfecting dialectical materialism as a philosophy of history than in applying it to concrete situations, especially with the purpose of finding a program of action for a consciously revolutionary proletariat. Thus in 1848 he and Engels … Read more

Economic Determinism of Dialectical Materialism. Feuerbach’s claim that the motive forces in social history are material meant for Marx that these forces are economic. The economic, moreover, meant for him the method of economic production, for he was convinced that any system of production carries with it a corresponding way of distributing the social product, … Read more