[introduction.]

p The material world exists eternally. But this eternal life of matter is made up of a constant change of its various forms. They come into being, exist and disappear, being replaced by other forms.

p Stars come into being and perish in the infinite expanse of the universe. Geological epochs succeed one another in the history of the earth. Species of plants and animals come into being and disappear in a countless succession of new-born and dying generations. Forms of social life are not eternal cither. They arise, develop, strengthen, and later grow old and are replaced by others. Thus, before our eyes capitalism is being replaced by the socialist system of society.

It is in the continual birth of new forms, the incessant replacement of obsolete forms by new ones, that the eternal motion and development of matter is manifested.

Dialectical Negation

p In elaborating his idealist dialectics, Hegel introduced the concept of “negation”. He asserted that in the logical development of the absolute idea one category “negates” another, although preserving all that was valuable in it. By negation Marxist dialectics understands the law-governed replacement in the process of development of an old quality by a new one, which arises out of the old one. Often this replacement of an old quality by a new one in the process of development takes the form of the transformation of a thing into its opposite.

p Marx wrote that "no development that does not negate its previous forms of existence can occur in any sphere".^^85^^ The negation of an old quality by a new one in the process of development is (ho natural result of the operation of the law of the unity and struggle of opposites. For a struggle of mutually exclusive aspects and tendencies occurs in each object, phenomenon or process, and this struggle leads ultimately to the “negation” of the old and the appearance of the new. But development does not cease when one phenomenon is “negated” by another that comes to replace it. The new phenomenon that, has come into being contains new contradictions. At first these maybe unnoticeable, but in (ho course of time they are bound to show themselves. The "struggle of opposites" then begins on a new basis and in the long run leads inevitably to a new “negation”. As a whole, the objective world is eternal and infinite, but all the things that comprise it are limited in space and time, transient and subject to “negation”. No “negation” is the last. Development continues and every successive “negation” is itself, in turn, “negated”.

p Materialist dialectics does not concern itself with every kind of negation, but with dialectical “negation”, that is, with negation which involves (he further development of a thing, object or phenomenon.

p Such “negation” must be distinguished from mechanical “ negation”, in which the object “negated” is destroyed as a result of outside intervention. If we crush an insect or grind a grain of wheat, that will be mechanical “negation”. It may not be purposeless in itself (in this case, the destruction of harmful insects and the conversion of wheat into flour), but it terminates the development of the object.

“Negation in dialectics,” Engels says, "does not mean simply saying no, or declaring that something does not exist, or destroying it in any way one likes.”^^84^^

Continuity in Development

p Dialectical “negation” presupposes not only the destruction of the old, but also the preservation of the viable elements of former stages of development; it presupposes a certain connection between the outgoing old and the new that is coming to replace it.

p When the socialist social system is built upon the ruins of capitalist society, the “negation” of capitalism does not imply complete destruction of everything created by mankind under capitalism. The productive forces and the valuable achievements of science and culture are preserved and continue to develop. Far from being destroyed by the proletarian revolution, everything of value that was created by capitalism serves as a basis for further progress, for the building of socialism.

p Speaking against people who denied the importance for socialism of the old culture created under the bourgeois system, Lenin said that a new, socialist culture could not be created out of nothing, that "it is not something that has sprung nobody knows whence,” and that it "must he the result of a natural development of the stores of knowledge which mankind has accumulated under the yoke of capitalist society.”^^87^^

p Nihilism, empty negation, failure to sec the successive connection that exists between the new and the old and the need carefully to preserve the positive content acquired in the preceding stages of development, are not only theoretically wrong, hut lead to gross errors in practice.

p “It is not negation for the sake of negation, not blank negation, not sceptical negation,” Lenin wrote, "that is typical and essential in dialectics, which unquestionably contains an element of negation and, what is more, as its most important element. No, it is negation as a factor of connection, as a factor of development, with a retention of the positive.”^^38^^

“Negation" by a new quality of the old quality is a universal law of reality. As to how “negation” occurs concretely, what forms it assumes, and what character, these are extremely diverse and depend on the nature of the object negated, the character of its contradictions, and also on the conditions in which the object develops. Thus, for example, in the development of unicellular organisms which multiply by division into two new organisms, “negation” proceeds differently from negation in the development of multicellular organisms, which die upon giving birth to new organisms. The inorganic world, as well as the history of human society at different stages of its development, also furnish distinct forms of “negation”.

The Progressive Nature of Development

p Since only what has become obsolete is “negated” in the process of development, while all that is sound and viable is preserved, development is a progressive movement, an ascent from lower stages to higher stages, from the simple to the complex. In other words, development is progress.

p Often, something like the return to stages previously passed through occurs during this development, when certain features of 86 outlived and replaced forms are repeated, as it were, in the new forms. Engels illustrates this proposition with a widely known example. "Let us,” he writes in Anti-Diihring, "take a grain of barley. Billions of such grains of barley are milled, boiled and brewed and then consumed. But if such a grain of barley meets with conditions which are normal for it, if it falls on suitable soil, then under the influence of heat and moisture it undergoes a specific change, it germinates; the grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilised and finally once more produces grains of barley, and as soon as these have ripened the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation of the negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten-, twenty- or thirtyfold.” "

p True, strains of cereals change slowly and, as a rule, the grain of a new harvest differs but little from the sown seed. However, it is possible to create conditions of development in which change occurs much more rapidly and the result of the "negation of the negation" will differ qualitatively from the point of departure and will, for instance, constitute a new plant variety.

p Processes in which a return to the old seems to occur may be observed in the history of society, as well as in the field of cognition.

p For example, the primitive-communal tribal system, in which there was no exploitation, was replaced in the course of history by an exploiting society (slave, feudal, or capitalist). With the transition to socialism, however, the exploitation of man by man is abolished, and in this respect socialist society resembles primitive communal society. But this resemblance conceals a vast, fundamental difference, conceals the history of the progressive development of society through many thousands of years.

p Thus, social development did not proceed in a circular course, nor a straight line, but a spiral. It reproduced some features of the past, but it reproduced them at an immeasurably higher level. Lenin described this essential feature of the dialectical conception of development as follows: "A development that seemingly repeats the stages already passed, but repeats them otherwise, on a higher basis (’ negation of negation’), a development, so to speak, in spirals, not in a straight line.”^^10^^

p In the process of development, deviations from the progressive line can and do happen. There may be zigzags, or regression, and there may be periods of temporary stagnation. Yet history demonstrates that in the long run progressive movement overcomes all these temporary deviations and obstacles, and makes headway. Any natural or social form now in existence has a long history that recedes far into the past and represents the result of a long process of 87 development, of progressive movement from the simple to the complex, of ascent from the lower to the higher.

p The solar system materialised out of cosmic dust. Modern plants and animal organisms developed out of initially extremely simple organisms. Society has travelled a long way from the primitive tribe to the contemporary forms of social life. Technology has unceasingly progressed from the original primitive tools to the most complex mechanisms of our time. From the conjectures of the ancient philosophers, which were blended with fantasy, human knowledge has arrived at the present complex and ramified system of the sciences embracing all spheres of reality.

By tracing this progressive development of nature, society and human thought, materialist dialectics gives people a scientificallybased historical optimism, helping them in their struggle for new, higher forms of life and social organisation.