p Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Frederick Engels (1820-1895) were the founders of the new, consistently scientific philosophy-dialectical and historical materialism.

p Initially, Marx and Engels were the followers of Hegel’s idealist philosophy. But later, yielding to the pressure of social practice, particularly that of the class struggle of the working people against 80 their exploiters (which they both witnessed when Marx worked as editor of Rheinische Zeitung and Engels as an employee in the enterprise of which his father was a shareholder), they abandoned their idealist views and took a materialist position. Engels, for instance, wrote at this time: “While I was in Manchester, it was tangibly brought home to me that the economic facts, which have so far played no role or only a contemptible one in the writing of history, are, at least in the modern world, a decisive historical force; that they form the basis of the origination of the present-day class antagonisms. . . .”  [80•1 

p Marx began to lean towards materialism in his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy oi Law (1843). It was here that he drew the conclusion that the key to understanding the process of mankind’s historical development should be sought in “civil society”, i.e. in the material, economic relations between people, rather than in a political field, or the state, as Hegel thought.

p This tendency is especially explicit in The Holy Family, a work written jointly by Marx and Engels in 1845. It contains a thorough criticism of Hegel’s idealism and the views of the Young Hegelians. The latter scorned the common people, regarding them as an “inert mass" incapable of creativeness and obstructing progress. They advanced critically-thinking personalities as the decisive creative force in history. Marx and Engels refuted these ideas and showed that the working 81 people who create material wealth ensuring thereby the existence and development of society, are the decisive force behind historical progress. They stressed especially that the proletariat could and had to liberate itself by abolishing private ownership of the means of production and its corollary, the exploitation of man by man.

p Marx and Engels developed the fundamental principles of dialectical materialism still further m another of their joint works, The German Ideology, written in 1845 and 1846, and Marx in his work, The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). A comprehensive account of the world outlook developed by Marx and Engels is given in the Manifesto of the Communist Party written by them on the instructions of the Communist League and published in 1848. As Lenin put it, this work with the clarity and brilliance of genius outlines consistent materialism which embraces nature, society and dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development.  [81•1 

p After 1848, too, Marx and Engels continued their work on the philosophical aspects of the scientific world outlook and the method of cognising and transforming the existing reality. Most relevant in this respect are Capital and A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy by Marx, and Anti-Duhring, Dialectics of Nature, and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy by Engels. By developing dialectical and historical 82 materialism, Marx and Engels made a revolutionary upheaval in philosophy. Their teaching differs fundamentally from all the philosophy that existed before them.

p Indeed, the pre-Marxian materialist doctrines were predominantly mechanical. This was not fortuitous, since in the 18th century mechanics was the best developed of all the natural sciences. Chemistry, as Engels put it, existed only in its infantile form-the phlogiston theory still reigned supreme. Biology was also still in its infancy-the functioning of organisms was believed to be the result of purely mechanical causes. Man himself was seen through the prism of mechanical laws and considered to be a complex machine.  [82•1  As the most advanced field of knowledge, mechanics left an imprint not only on other sciences, but on philosophy, too. The materialist philosophers of the time tried to explain the world, the reality surrounding them, exclusively on the basis of mechanical laws.

p As distinct from pre-Marxian materialism, dialectical materialism is free from mechanism. In explaining the various phenomena taking place in reality, it does not proceed from the laws of mechanics only, but rather from the totality of laws, holding that mechanical laws make it possible to understand only the mechanical form of the motion of matter. As regards the other forms of motion, their essence is determined by specific laws 83 inherent in each of them, rather than by the laws of mechanics.

p Pre-Marxian materialism was metaphysical. It was unable to conceive of the world as a process, as developing historically. True, the philosophers of the day did recognise motion in the surrounding world, but they believed motion to proceed within a closed circle, repeating the same states. In contrast, dialectical materialism views the world as being in constant motion and development.

p Pre-Marxian materialism was not consistent and comprehensive. The materialist philosophers of that time explained only natural phenomena materialistically. As regards social phenomena, they treated them idealistically and believed them to be dependent upon a certain ideal basis- political or legal consciousness, public opinion, ethics, science, and so forth. The founders of dialectical and historical materialism were the first to apply materialist principles to society and to draw the conclusion that the material conditions of life were primary and decisive in society. Ideal or spiritual phenomena, public consciousness, various views, theories, and the like were secondary, and stemmed from the material conditions of people’s life, from their social being.

p Another major feature of the pre-Marxian materialists was contemplativeness and isolation from people’s revolutionary practical activities. They merely explained the world, whereas it had to be changed. Marxist philosophy is tied up with practice and its task is not merely to explain existing reality, but also to transform it. It is, therefore, not 84 only a method of cognition, but also a method of action, a method for the revolutionary transformation of reality.

p Moreover, as distinct from pre-Marxian materialist and idealist doctrines which in varying degrees distorted the real state of affairs, dialectical and historical materialism is deeply rooted in reality, in the laws governing its functioning and development. The partisanship of Marxist philosophy includes the scientific approach as an indispensable element.

p At a certain stage in history, the interests of any exploiting class inevitably clash with the requirements of social progress, and correspondingly with the operation of particular objective laws. This makes it impossible consistently and scientifically to substantiate the interests of such classes and necessitates the rejection of scientific principles that contradict them and the advancement of principles corresponding to and expressing the interests of the exploiting class, though these principles may not reflect reality and objective laws. The interests of the proletariat, on the other hand, are always in line with the objective trends in history, so the working class has a stake in knowing reality and the laws governing the objective process of development. Without this, the proletariat will be unable to interfere actively in the objective process and purposefully transform the surrounding world. It follows, then, that dialectical and historical materialism can serve as the proletariat’s world outlook and method for the revolutionary remaking of reality only if it is 85 founded on knowledge of the objective laws of motion and development and if its principles are scientific.

All this proves that dialectical and historical materialism constitutes a fundamentally new philosophy radically different from all the preceding philosophical systems, and that its emergence was a true revolution in philosophy.