41

p Materialist dialectics is the living soul of Marxism, its theoretical foundation, Lenin said. In his article on the Marx- Engels correspondence, Lenin wrote that a most important, timely and masterly step forward in the history of revolutionary thought was taken when Marx and Engels applied materialist dialectics to all fields of knowledge—to a re-fashioning of political economy, to philosophy, the natural sciences, and the politics and tactics of the working class. Like Marx and Engels, Lenin was a great master of revolutionary dialectics. Such of his works as What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, What Is To Be, Done?, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Philosophical Notebooks and On the Significance of Militant Materialism are models of the application of the dialectical method to the most varied questions of theory and practice, models of its further development.

p The irresistible attraction of Lenin’s works on dialectics comes from many factors: first, their innovatory and exploratory spirit, as well as the anti-dogmatism of Lenin’s thinking, his implacable hostility to conservatism in the field of thought, to routine, and quasi-revolutionary phrase-mongering. Second, in his analysis of the facts, Lenin always tried to grasp them in all their complexity, variety and plentitudc. Anybody familiar with the writings of Lenin is aware of the tremendous importance he attached to dialectics being "living, many-sided knowledge (with the number of sides eternally increasing), with an infinite number of shades of every approach and approximation to reality. . .”.  [41•1  As Academician V. Adoratsky once pointed out, "it stands to the tremendous credit of Lenin that he saved dialectics from the simplification, vulgarisation and conversion into sophistry, which characterise the renegades of the Second International—Kautsky, Vanderveldc, Otto Bauer and the like—and restored it to its condition under Marx."  [41•2 

p Lenin saw the unbreakable link between dialectics and the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle and considered Marxist dialectics a means of precise orientation in the actual historical process. From the outset of his revolutionary activities, he showed a tremendous interest in problems of dialectics, an 42 interest stemming from the fact that the era of revolutionary storms and upheavals, the exacerbation of all the contradictions of capitalism, and the rapid advances in science and social life called, as never before, for flexible and dialectical thinking. Lenin devoted several years (1913-16) to a study of the writings of Aristotle, Hcraclitus, Leibnitz, Hegel and Feuerbach, so as to write a work on dialectics, based on a critical inquiry into the entire history of knowledge. To extract the main content from the history of human thought in the realms of philosophy, natural science and technology; to sum up both the course and the outcome of the development of that thought; to find the way to a creative elaboration of Marxist dialectics—such was the aim pursued by Lenin in his study of the history of dialectics, as well as his behest to all Marxists. He approached the science of thinking as a science of the historical development of human knowledge. "Continuation of the work of Hegel and Marx must consist in the dialectical elaboration of the history of human thought, science and technique."  [42•1 

p Lenin’s development of Marxist dialectics went hand in hand with a criticism of the opponents of dialectical materialism. He wrote Materialism and Empirio-criticism at a time when Marxism was going through a grave crisis in a number of countries. Following in the footsteps of Bernstein, Konrad Schmidt and others like them, the opportunist “theorists” of the working-class movement called for a return to Kant, to the subjective-idealist philosophy of Machism. "Through the medium of Machism,” Lenin pointed out, "downright philosophical reactionaries and preachers of fideism are palmed off on the workers as teachers!”,  [42•2  this by the lackeys of the bourgeoisie. Amazing in the range of problems dealt with, the vast amount of factual material used, and its profound criticism of the philosophical ideas harboured by the enemy, this work of Lenin’s comprised an era in the development of Marxist thought.

p In Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin gave prominence to questions of the theory of knowledge, to cognition as a whole, and to the application of dialectics to the theory of knowledge. To empirio-criticism he contraposed dialectical materialism in the entire range of cpistemological questions, and 43 provided solutions to the major problems of cognition posed by the development of science and the new historical conditions of the life of society.

p On the foundations of the advances in the natural sciences, Lenin gave concrete shape and further development to the basic propositions of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism—cognition as a reflection of the objective material world, the laws of reflection and the forms of the reflection of reality. In his analysis of the facts presented by science and his summing up of the experience gained in the struggle of the working class, he gave exhaustive substantiation to the dialectical-materialist doctrine of absolute and relative objective truth, the role of practice as a criterion of truth, and many other problems of importance to the development of dialectics.

p The Machists, who gave an idealist interpretation to the new discoveries in natural science, tried to use those discoveries in their struggle against Marxist philosophical materialism, especially the doctrine of matter, which is of such fundamental significance to dialectical materialism’s theory of knowledge. Lenin demonstrated the groundlessness of Machist talk about the “obsoleteness” of the concept of matter. He showed that, from the viewpoint of dialectical materialism, the discovery of new forms of the motion and the existence of matter testifies, not to the disappearance of matter, but to the limits of our knowledge of matter up to the present. Lenin’s development of the concept of matter as a philosophical category signifying objective reality as given to man through his sensations, was a major contribution to dialectical materialism’s theory of knowledge.

p Lenin’s theory of knowledge is grounded in three vital epistemological conclusions: the objective existence of reality, its cognizability, and the dialectical approach to a study of the very process of cognition.

p In developing the philosophical problems of the theory of knowledge, Lenin systcmatisccl his theory of reflection as the kernel of the cpistemology of dialectical materialism. He substantiated the vital proposition that reflection is a universal property of matter, that it is not a mechanical process of mirror- like reflection, but a complex and contradictory process, which begins at the level of sensation and ascends to abstract thinking, reflecting, in terms of concepts, objective reality in all its variety. He showed that the reflection of nature in human thought should be understood, not in a “dead” or “abstract” 44 manner, without motion of contradictions, but as an eternal process of motion, the appearance of contradictions and their resolution.

p Lenin revealed the dialectico-materialist understanding of the interrelation between the object and subject of cognition. This is most noteworthy because, to this day, certain enemies of Marxism assert that the Leninist theory of reflection ascribes to the subject a passive role in cognition. Lenin showed not only man’s dependence on the world about him, but also the essence of his active, creative and transforming attitude to nature and to social life. From this active and creative nature of the mind as a specifically human form of the reflection of objective reality, the conclusion necessarily follows that, in his actions and behaviour, man docs not only depend on external circumstances, but himself actively changes those circumstances. The process of cognition and of man’s transformation of the world is at the same time also a process of his realising the objective necessity to implement his freedom in one measure or another, a freedom which consists, not in man’s abstract possibility of standing above reality and dictating his laws to it, but in concrete activities in accordance with the cognised objective laws of nature and society.

p In Materialism and Empirio-criticisrn, Lenin developed the theory of truth, which is a most important problem in the theory of knowledge. It is common knowledge that the question of whether truth is objective or subjective is a fundamental one, on whose solution there is no agreement among adherents of various trends in philosophy. The Machists asserted that objective truth docs not exist, that truth is subjective and conventional. To the Machists any recognition of the relativity of our knowledge precluded the least acknowledgement of absolute truth. In criticising the pseudo-scientific views held by the Machists on this question, Lenin showed the dialectical relation between absolute and relative objective truth.

p From the viewpoint of present-day materialism, i.e., Marxism, Lenin wrote, the limits of our knowledge’s approach to absolute objective truth are historically conditioned, but the existence of that truth and our approach towards it arc indubitable. The outlines of the picture are historically conditional but what is indubitable is that this picture depicts an objectively existing model.

p "In a word, every ideology is historically conditional, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, 45 for instance, from religious ideology) there corresponds an objective truth, absolute nature."  [45•1 

p By giving a profoundly Marxist interpretation to the dialectics of absolute and relative truth, Lenin dealt a crushing blow, on the one hand, at dogmatism, which regards our mind as something immutable and absolute, and, on the other hand, at scepticism, which has no faith in human knowledge. Human knowledge, according to Lenin, develops from non-knowledge to knowledge, from less complete towards more complete knowledge. Every stage in the development of science, in the individual’s practical activities, and in the development of mankind’s collective knowledge adds more and more new grains to the sum total of knowledge and concepts of the laws of the development of nature and society. Lenin saw the very essence of knowledge in the advance of scientific cognition, in its historicity. He pointed out that a denial of objective truth is the main vice of the epistemology of empirio-criticism, pragmatism and neo-Kantianism. As we know, this is also a characteristic feature of many present-day trends in bourgeois philosophical thinking, in which cognitive activity is regarded as something subjective and taking place outside and independently of objective factors.

p The theory of truth formulated by dialectical materialism, a theory developed by Lenin in all its aspects, is of tremendous importance to present-day science, as it is the theoretical foundation of all its methodological problems. Every step in the development of science bears the correctness of Lenin’s words that "by following the path of Marxian theory we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); but by following any other path we shall arrive at nothing but confusion and lies".  [45•2 

p In advancing the Marxist theory of knowledge, Lenin analysed numerous problems stemming from a deep understanding of the revolution in the natural sciences that began at the turn of the present century. The great discoveries in physics not only affected the empirical data amassed by natural science, but radically posed the problem of the very theoretical foundations of natural science. The crisis in physics created a sharp bifurcation in science between the two hostile currents—materialism and idealism. At the time, idealist philosophy attempted to reply in its own fashion to the philosophical questions raised by the new physics.

46

p In Malcr’ialhin and fciiipirio-criticism, Lenin summarised, in the spirit of materialism, all the major and basic advances made in science, primarily in natural science in the late igth and early 2oth centuries. He characterised as a new revolution in science the tremendous discoveries made in the sphere of natural science. The discovery of the electron, Roentgen rays, the radioactivity of disintegration, and the complex structure of the atom led to a collapse of the mechanistic viewpoint, which saw matter as consisting of absolutely immutable atoms possessing an invariable mass and moving according to the laws of mechanics.

p Lenin showed that the new discoveries in physics in no way contradict Marxist philosophy. On the contrary, they confirm most convincingly the correctness of the Marxist doctrine of the unity of matter and motion, the infinite complexity of the structure of matter and the absence of any limit to its divisibility. The Machists’ attempts to prove the "disappearance of matter”, Lenin said, stemmed from their ignorance of dialectical materialism. Captives of the dominant ideology and politics, bourgeois physicists proved unable to understand and explain, in terms of materialism, the new discoveries in physics.

p The new discoveries in natural science, Lenin wrote, signified, not an "all-round rout of the principles" of physics, as the idealist physicists were proclaiming from the roof-tops, but a smashing of the metaphysical conceptions which many natural scientists had held eternal and immutable. In his analysis of "the latest revolution in natural science" Lenin arrived at the well-known conclusion that "modern physics is in travail; it is giving birth to dialectical materialism".  [46•1 

p Lenin gave a profound analysis of the causes engendering the “physical” idealism that had led the natural sciences into a dead end. The overall social cause was the "reaction all along the line"—in the economy, politics and ideology—characteristic of the capitalist states in the epoch of imperialism. But “physical” idealism also had epistemological roots—causes which derive from certain specific features in the process of cognition, and in the development of science itself. The first cause lay in an erroneous interpretation by idealist philosophers of the mounting role of mathematics in the study of nature. The second cause was their failure to grasp the compatibility of the relativity of scientific knowledge “(the principle of relativism”) witli 47 recognition of the objective truth that relative knowledge contains elements of absolute truth.

p In revealing the contradiction between the new discoveries in physics and the old theoretical conceptions, Lenin showed that the fundamental question can be formulated as follows: is the electron an objective reality? Docs it exist outside and independently of human consciousness?

p "The scientists,” Lenin wrote, "will also have to answer this question unhesitatingly; and they do invariably answer it in the alfir/nativc, just as they unhesitatingly recognise that nature existed prior to man and prior to organic matter. Thus, the question is decided in favour of materialism. . . ."  [47•1 

p Lenin also replied to another fundamental question of natural science: does there exist "a finite and immutable essence of things" to which all phenomena in nature should be reduced? He showed that, far from the electron being the finite and immutable essence, that kind of essence does not exist in nature in general. "The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom, nature is infinite. . . ."  [47•2 

p This proposition is of tremendous methodological importance in the resolution of fundamental problems in present-day science, and has been convincingly confirmed by the ever greater penetration of physics into the microworld.

p In his consideration of the general development of natural science, Lenin arrived at a conclusion of tremendous theoretical and practical importance: not only docs natural science fortify materialism but it is unswervingly advancing to an immeasurably higher and more consistent form of materialism-dialectical materialism. Already in the conditions of bourgeois society, he pointed out, natural science had made the first steps from metaphysical materialism to dialectical materialism. At the same time Lenin said, science in bourgeois society "...is advancing towards the only true method and the only true philosophy of natural science not directly, but by zigzags, not consciously but instinctively, not clearly perceiving its ’final goal’, but drawing closer to it gropingly, unsteadily, and sometimes even with its back turned to it".  [47•3 

p Despite every kind of idealist speculation, the very experience of natural science has convincingly shown that science finds in 48 dialectical materialism replies to the most complex questions of philosophy. Any nonchalance shown by natural scientists towards philosophical problems, any ignoring of overall problems ot world outlook, contradicts the interests of present-day science, since natural science is developing so impetuously and is witnessing such a revolutionary smashing of the old concepts in all spheres that it cannot do without philosophical conclusions. For the correct conclusions to be arrived at and to avoid any yielding to bourgeois ideology, it is not enough to stand on materialist positions, without attending to their philosophical foundations. As Lenin pointed out, "no natural science and no materialism can hold its own in the struggle against the onslaught of bourgeois ideas and the restoration of the bourgeois world outlook unless it stands on solid philosophical ground. In order to hold his own in this struggle and carry it to a victorious finish, the natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical materialist."  [48•1 

p Of tremendous importance to the development of Marxist dialectics were such works by Lenin as "The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism" and "Karl Marx”. In them Lenin showed that Marxism was the lawful successor to everything that had been created by all previous philosophy, and that the Hegelian dialectics as the most universal, profound and rich doctrine of development were considered by Marx and Engels the greatest advance in classical German philosophy. "They thought that any other formulation of the principle of development, of evolution, was one-sided and poor in content, and could only distort and mutilate the actual course of development (which often proceeds by leaps, and via catastrophes and revolutions) in nature and in society."  [48•2 

p In these works Lenin laid special emphasis on dialectics as a science of the general laws of motion both in the world about us and in human thinking, on the unity of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge. These works pay special attention to a system of categories in dialectics. In his article, "Karl Marx”, in which he gave a most clearcut formulation of some features of dialectics, Lenin wrote: "A development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a different way, on a higher basis (’the negation of negation’), a 49 development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; ’breaks in continuity’; the transformation of quantity into quality; inner impulses towards development, imparted by the contradiction and conflict of the various forces and tendencies acting on a given body, or within a given phenomenon, or within a given society; the interdependence and the closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon (history constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection that provides a uniform, and universal process of motion, one that follows definite laws."  [49•1 

p The variety of features, aspects, elements and categories of dialectics as the most profound doctrine of development forms the main content of Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks,  [49•2  which were an organic sequel to his main work on phi[osophy-Alaterialis/» and K/npirio-criticism. Lenin convincingly showed that schematism and dogmatism are alien to dialectics. Expressing the most general laws of any development, it calls for a concrete analysis of the boundless wealth of forms in which concrete reality manifests itself.

p He formulated and substantiated in every aspect the fundamental proposition that the doctrine of the unity of opposites is the essence, the kernel, of dialectics.

p In determining the law of the unity and struggle of opposites as the fundamental law of the development of the objective world and its cognition, Lenin studied and characterised the new types of contradictions in the epoch of imperialism, and the new types of the transformation of opposites into each other, of transitions of some phenomena into others. The struggle of opposites, the appearance and resolution of contradictions, as Lenin pointed out, are the source of the continuous development of the material world and a condition of its progress.

p Lenin came out resolutely against the attempts made by the Second International’s opportunist leaders to “purge” life of contradictions and struggle. He showed that there exist two mutually opposed concepts of development—the metaphysical and the dialectical. In his Philosophical Notebooks he wrote: 50
"The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) arc: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).

p "In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external-God, subject, etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of ‘self’-movement.

p "The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the ‘self-movement’ of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the ’leaps’, to the ’break in continuity’, to the ‘transformation into the opposite’, to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new."  [50•1 

p Of major significance to the development of the very essence of dialectics is that section in Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks which deals with sixteen elements of dialectics, and reveals in laconic but most profound terms all the wealth and the many- sidedness of the relations between things and processes. The process of cognition, as Lenin shows, comprises a vast range of shades and a boundless wealth of content. The wealth and the complexity of the cognition of the world call for a creative development of a system of categories of dialectics that will make it possible in the greatest degree to reflect, in the dialectic of concepts, the dialectic of things.

p Lenin’s interest in the development of dialectical materialism was maintained after the October Revolution. The new period of history that set in after the triumph of the October Socialist Revolution confronted Marxist-Leninist philosophy with a number of practical and theoretical problems whose solution was of vast significance for the transition from capitalism to socialism. In the new conditions, special importance attached to a concrete analysis of social contradictions and to the problem of their specific nature, types and forms, of fundamental and non- fundamental, internal and external, antagonistic and non- antagonistic contradictions. Lenin devoted particular attention to the distinction between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, emphasising the historically transient character of antagonism as a type of contradiction. Lenin was the author of 51 the celebrated formula that "antagonism and contradiction arc not one and the same thing. The former will disappear, while the latter will remain under socialism.”  [51•1 

p A correct theoretical solution of this problem was of vital importance for an understanding of the alignment of class forces during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. As is common knowledge, both antagonistic and non- antagonistic contradictions existed in the country at the time. The former contradictions were connected with the relations between the working class and other working people, on the one hand, and, on the other, the bourgeoisie, including the kulaks. It was a question of one side or the other gaining the victory. The non-antagonistic contradictions between the working class and the peasantry were of a quite different nature. Here there was no irreconcilable hostility, and joint interests were predominant. Such contradictions are resolved, not by taking them to extremes but, as Lenin pointed out, through a struggle of a specific kind, the gradual resolution of contradictions.

p Lenin’s works provided a profound analysis of the nature and forms of the transition from the old qualitative condition to a new one. He did not link this transition with any monovalence. On the contrary, Lenin showed that the transition from the old to the new could take place in various ways and in different forms, this depending on the concrete conditions of development. "It is the type of problem that general formulas, the general provisions of a programme, and general communist principles cannot cope with, but which requires that the specific features of the transition from capitalism to communism be taken into consideration. . . ."  [51•2 

p Lenin’s propositions on the interrelation between reforms and revolution in various historical conditions are a vivid example of creative and flexible application and development of Marxist dialectics. Until the revolution is victorious, he pointed out, reforms are a by-product of the proletariat’s class struggle. The proletariat’s attitude towards reforms must change following its victory even in a single country. Lenin taught the Party to soberly verify in which conditions revolutionary action must be taken, and at what moment the method of "cautious evasion" should be used in fundamental questions of economic construction. In 52 his article "The Importance of Gold Now and After the Complete Victory of Socialism" Lenin showed that the concept of “reforms” after the victory of the revolution acquires a different quality, distinct from its content under capitalism.

p A keen insight into the complex and contradictors process is characteristic of Lenin’s analysis of the new economic policy, and of the existence of many economic sectors in the country at the time, the role of trade and the trade unions, and many other major problems, on whose correct solution the fate of the Soviets depended. Lenin came out strongly against those who by momentum continued to use many concepts and categories of dialectics without due account of the new situation. In his article "Once Again on the Trade LInions”, he contrasted to the dogmatically abstract and eclectic arguments of Trotsky and Bukharin concrete dialectical solutions of the problem of the place and role of the trade unions under capitalism and in the system of proletarian dictatorship.

p The discussion on the trade unions which the Trotskyitcs imposed upon the Party and which took place between November 1920 and March 1921 turned into a discussion on many vital problems of dialectics and logic, and the operation of the laws of dialectics in the new conditions. In his annihilating criticism of the eclecticism and sophistry of Trotsky and Bukharin, Lenin elaborated, in a creative spirit, the most vital principles of Marxist dialectics, gave a classical definition of the latter, and showed the distinction between dialectical and formal logic.

p "Formal logic, which is as far as schools go (and should go, with suitable abridgements for the lower forms), deals with formal definitions, draws on what is most common, or glaring, and stops there. When two or more different definitions are taken and combined at random . . . the result is an eclectic definition which is indicative of different facets of the object, and nothing more.

p "Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly, if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and ’mediacies’. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in ‘self-movement’. . . . Thirdly, a full ’definition’ of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical 53 logic holds that ’truth is always concrete, never abstract’. . . .”  [53•1  These most important propositions became the foundation of the further elaboration of Marxist dialectical logic.

p In his programmatic article "On the Significance of Militant Materialism”, Lenin developed dialectical materialism in a most thorough way, again giving consideration to the question he had previously raised in his Philosophical Notebooks regarding the necessity of a materialistic re-appraisal of Hegel’s dialectics. Marxist philosophers, he wrote, should organise a systematic study of the Hegelian dialectics from the materialist viewpoint, i.e., the dialectics so successfully applied in practice by Marx in Capital and his historical and political writings. Pointing out that the dialectical method is a most important instrument in the cognition and changing of the world, Lenin called upon philosophers to elaborate dialectics from all angles, and to comment on it, using facts taken from economic and political relations and from the practice of the revolution, recent history and the like.

p In their struggle against the present-day enemies of Marxism, against revisionist and Leftist trends, the Communist and Workers’ Parties have based themselves on the great heritage of Lenin. The Declaration of the Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties of 1957 pointed out that dialectical materialism is the theoretical foundation of Marxism-Leninism. This world.outlook reflects the universal law of the development of nature, society and human thought; it is applicable to the past, the present, and the future.

Why is it that only dialectical materialism can be the philosophical foundation of the Communist and Workers’ Parties? It is because the working class can change the world only if it grounds itself on a knowledge and due account of the laws of social development. An idealist philosophy cannot express the essence of the world. Idealism disorientates people; it cannot show the working people the real roads of change in the existing position in the capitalist countries. Dialectical materialism is indeed the integral scientific world outlook of our times. All branches of knowledge and all scientific achievements in the study of nature and society are theoretically generalised in dialectical materialism, in Marxist-Leninist philosophy as the advanced philosophy of our times. Dialectical materialism helps the party of the proletariat to set the tasks and determine the strategy and tactics of the class struggle on the foundation of a 54 sober and all-round appraisal of the concrete historical conditions. "The fundamental task of proletarian tactics was defined by Marx in strict conformity with all the postulates of his materialist-dialectical Weltanschauung."  [54•1