p Language, articulate speech, was of great importance in forming man’s consciousness. Language, which arose together with consciousness on the basis of labour, played a very great part in enabling man to emerge from the animal kingdom, to develop his thinking and organise material production. Labour has always been social. From the first days of their existence people had to unite to fight the mighty 69 forces of nature, to wrest the means of livelihood from it. That is why in the process of labour there arose the need for communication between people, the need to tell each other something. Through this pressing need the undeveloped larynx of the ape was transformed into an organ capable of uttering articulate sounds. That was how articulate speech or language came into existence.

p Marx called language the direct reality of thought. And he did so because thought can exist only in the material shell of the word, or a substitute sign, or symbol. Whether a man thinks to himself, voices his thoughts aloud, or puts them down in writing, the thought is always vested in words. Thanks to language thoughts are not only formed, but also transmitted and perceived. In words and combinations of words man fixes the results of reflection of the objective world in his consciousness, which not only enables people to exchange thoughts, but also to pass them on from one generation to another. Without speech and written language, the priceless experience of many generations would be lost and each new generation would be compelled to begin anew the very hard process of studying the world.

p Language is not connected with reality directly, but through thought. Hence, at times it is not easy to establish the direct connection of a given word with a specific material object. In different languages and even in one language frequently the same word denotes various objects, or various words denote the same object. All this creates the illusion that language is independent of reality.

p This illusion is pursued by the semantic idealists, proponents of a trend in contemporary bourgeois philosophy. They sever language from thought and thought from reality, maintaining that words are coined by man arbitrarily and do not designate anything real, that words are mere combinations of sounds. From this premise some seek to prove’that contemporary capitalism, exploitation, aggression, etc., are merely empty words or sounds. People, they claim, only have to replace these words by others for all sources of social conflict to vanish, for all vices of contemporary capitalism to disappear.

p Words are not coined by people arbitrarily, however; they are attached to definite objects and phenomena in the process of knowledge and practical activity. These objective 70 processes are neither altered nor eliminated by the replacement of words. The apologists of capitalism, for example, have coined dozens of sweet-sounding words for describing contemporary capitalist society: “people”s capitalism”, “affluent society”, “industrial society”, etc. But these words have not abolished capitalism and its exploitation, unemployment and class antagonisms, national oppression and wars. Capitalism will disappear only as a result of the proletariat’s struggle against the bourgeoisie, as a result of socialist revolution.

p Consciousness is, thus, a product of the evolution of matter. But, having arisen on the basis of matter, it actively influences the latter’s development.

p In an effort to discredit materialism, idealists claim that since materialists take matter as the basis of everything existing and maintain that things exist objectively, independent of consciousness, they underestimate the role of consciousness, and regard it only as a passive reflection of being.

p Dialectical materialism, however, does not in the least underestimate the role of consciousness in the development of matter, of being. As a product of matter and as its reflection, consciousness does not remain passive, but actively influences the world. It is in this sense that Lenin wrote that “man”s consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but creates it”.  [70•* 

p This does not mean, of course, that consciousness directly influences being, or that it creates the world; by itself, thought is incapable of moving even the tiniest blade of grass. What is meant is that consciousness, if it reflects the. world correctly, can serve as a guide in man’s creative work in transforming life.

The active role of consciousness, particularly in the life of society, will be examined in greater detail in later chapters.