Science of the class C s - struggle BA C K
work within rather than change the existing so- For socialists committed to the overthrow of existing social relations, a more sophisticated, accurate and coherent understanding of the world is necessary. To build the hasis of a revolutionary movement - beginning in a non- ship in a revolutionary situation - requires a method of analysis that can not only grasp the tions, the hidden conflicts which are the source. of future political and social change. This is The term 'dialectical" is used by Marx in a way not explained in most dictionaries, It refers revolutionary situation, but able to give leader- to the movement of matter through internal origin and development of complex political phenomena but also detect the inner contradic- where the marxist conception of dialectical cial order and structures of society. materialism is essential. (reflecting the social class and immediate cir- For the materialist, the explanation of all changes and developments in the world must be sought not in the supposed intervention of any external God or spiritual force, but through the internal, natural laws of motion of the material cumstances of the thinking individual). - T 0 fundamentalists and bigots, the marxist, materialist world view offers a breath of At a time when the world seems to be fresh air. While religious fanatics wax hysterical in opposition to anything seek to persecute those who dare to question their prejudices, the marxist historical experience and by the most view. This is nothing necessarily to do with "ideal' values or morality: it simply means that religious more modern than the 13th century, and strengthened by successive scientific discoveries, by All religions and almost all bourgeois philosophies are based on the idealist world decisive test of all - that of practice. with view has been overflowing
tionless imprints of a reality which consists of contradiction amd conflict. As Lenin put it: *The condition for the knowledge of all proces- ses in the world in their "self movement", in geois common sense": dialcctical materialism understands that things are not simple as they As Troisky argued against American marxists *The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with mo- eternal motion. Dialectical thinking gives to their spontaneous development, in their real posites. Development is the "struggle" of opposites'. (On the Question of Dialectics, CW This approach in the very opposite of the su- perficial, empirical view taught to us as bour- who had abandoned dialectical materialsm: life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of op seem, and are in a continual process of change. Vol 38) warld itself, about which science continually learns more. Our world and the universe as a whole consists of nothing more than matter in Matter - the almost infinite numbers of particles - is itself in constant movement and sun dies, others are bom. Movement is nothing other than the movement of matter. Energy is simply a spocialised form of the movement of matter. We may not yet know or understand all of the laws in such a world view for a God (benevolent or molecules, atoms and simple and complex sub- of this movement, but there is no need, no room Material laws and material processes drive for- ward the changes we see - and store up less visibie changes beneath the surface that - like volcanoes - may suddenly take us by surprise. Marx and Engels, developing the historical otherwise), a Satan or a super-human spirit'. change, decay and rebirth. As one primary, and the material, natural world is of God, or somehow an inferior realm in which the 'spirit" is confined. Thus the Bible tells us "spirit", "morality' or 'thought") is seen as somehow secondary - a creation or reflection "In the beginning was the Word: and the philosopher Descarles wrote 'Ethink, therefore Materialist philosophy, however, of which Marxism is the most consistent, begins from the opposite point of view. Matter, the material universe, and the natural world which gave rise idea that there could he such a heing - is the ning was the world, and 'Tam, therefore 1 can some non-material cotity or force ("God', to mankind, is primary: and thought - includ- ing all thoughts of God or gods, and the very product of the human brain, itself a material en- rity, The materialist believes that 'in the hegin- think*. Being' precedes thinking. Humanity it- 1 am?.
concepts, by means of closer approximations. culence which to a certain extent brings them close to living phenomena. Not capitalism in general, but a given capitalism at a given stage of development. Not a workers' state in general, thinking in the same way that a motion picture combinera series of them according to the laws ture does not outlaw the still photograph, but corrections, concretisations, a richness of con- state in a hackward *Dialectical thinking is related to vulgar is related to a still photograph. The motion pic- tent and flexibility; I would even say a suc- SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 14 April 1989 For those who believe that any such discus- of motion'. (In Defence of Marzim, pp50 1). country in an imperialist encirclement, etc. but a given workers* look 6) showed the material driving forces of history, at the core of which are the developing means of production. Each advance in science and lechnology has also further developed ideology and philosophy, and helped refute the notion that mankind cannot know or understand For the scientific establishment, the most primitive elements of a materialist view can be enough to lay the basis for some progress. Em- servation and experiment and not on any more coherent philosophical theory, or pragmatism - "doing what works' - can he sufficient to guide the day-to-day lives of all those who sock to pirical methods, based simply on external ob- materialist view of history (see Socialist Out the real world. self emerged from non thinking and primitive life-forms, developing in the proceas a brain capable of consciously assessing and -through All of the thoughts generated by the human brain arise from our interaction as material, things, the product of complex chemical and electrical processes in the millions of cells that modes of production, and socially determined labour - deliberately changing the world from natural beings with the extemal material world. Thoughts themselves may appear completely detached from that world, or, like dreams, en- tirely abstract. Nevertheless they are material make up the brain. They are thus historically determined, reflecting changing economic which it came. Page 26
elements of the old, will never roturn to that the new sita- tion or quality that but represent a negation of the previous stage, and Ayatollah success- fully contained any anti-capitalist un - В А С к sion of philosophical method is abstract mumbo-jumbo, it is useful to remember that Trotsky was writing to develop his analysis of the degenerated Russian philosophical writing laid the basis for the state: and Lenin's turn to workers'
there is no prospect of a restoration of update and develop these ideas is through a do not want to change the basic framewort of the working class to overthrow the capitalists be developed on the basis of the material needs popularised as an alternative to the defeatism of cidental or undesirable: it is the very essence of The marxist method demands that analysis perience of the class struggle, developing a ing agitational demands, slogans and tactics for rectness and effectiveness of its slogans by a of the overall situation, improve and advance its tactics, and strengthen its links with the forces