Dialectical and Historical Materialism - Joseph Stalin (Audiobook)

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
3:57 - Marxist Dialectical Method
19:26 - Marxist Philosophical Materialism
37:27 - Historical Materialism

[CommunistASMR]

Summary of the text, some brief relevant history, misc expounding on things not discussed in the text:

Marxists subscribe to dialectical materialism. We uphold materialism and use dialectics to analyze the world. Historical materialism is the application of the dialectical materialism to the study of human history.

Dialectics is often attributed to Hegel, and Marx and Engels were students of Hegelian philosophy. However, they were part of the Young Hegelians, which was the left-wing of the Hegelian school of thought. This meant that they held the dialectical method (which engenders a revolutionary way of thinking) as the important aspect of Hegel's philosophy, whereas the more conservative wing emphasized the Hegelian system.

Dialectics was considered revolutionary because it goes against metaphysics, which was the dominant method of reasoning in philosophy and the sciences (in other words, generally, how most of us see and interpret the world).

Around the late 1830s and early 1940s, this ideological split in the Hegelian school between the Young Hegelians and the Old Hegelians became more apparent. The Young Hegelians eventually gravitated towards materialism but found that this materialism they were embracing contrasted with Hegel's idealism, which made them hit a sort of ideological wall.

Hegel was an "idealist philosopher", meaning that he considered the spirit (or "thinking", aka ideas) as primary. In other words, that it is our ideas which create the world and that the world does not exist outside of our thoughts. In contrast, materialists were those that considered nature, or "being, " as the primary answer to to the basic question of all philosophy.

Ludwig Feuerbach, also a Hegelian, was a philosopher who wrote "Essence of Christianity" in 1841. This book, although riddled with its own shortcomings that Marx and Engels would later critique, brought materialism back into the German mainstream consciousness and effectively resolved the ideological contradiction that the Young Hegelians were dealing with.

Thus, taking both the dialectical method from Hegel and the materialism proposed by Feuerbach, Marx and Engels further developed and transformed these concepts into something new: dialectical materialism.

So, we have Idealism versus Materialism, and Metaphysics versus Dialectics.

(For further reading, I suggest "Elementary Principles of Philosophy" by Georges Politzer and "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy" by Engels.)




1) Marxist Dialectical Method:

Dialectics contrasts Metaphysics.

a) Nature Connected and Determined - Reciprocal action. Everything in nature, science, and society is an interconnected whole, and an action or a change in a thing influences its surrounding phenomena. Things cannot be understood in isolation, and studying them in isolation does not give us the full-picture. The world is a complex of processes, rather than a series of fixed objects.

b) Nature is a State of Continuous Motion and Change - Dialectical change. For dialectics, there is nothing final. Nature is always in a state of continuous movement and change, continuous growth and death. Nothing stays where it is and nothing remains what it is. There is always something arising and developing, whilst something else is disintegrating and dying away. Thus, things are not fixed and permanent, but rather always evolving and changing. History is to be seen as a spiral development (as opposed to circular, ie: "history repeats itself").

c) Natural Quantitative Change Leads to Qualitative Change - Transformation of quantity into quality. Small, gradual imperceptible changes (quantitative changes) eventually accumulate to the point where a sudden change occurs-- a leap into a perceptible change (qualitative change). These changes are not accidental but naturally as a result of an accumulation of quantitative changes. For example, increasing the temperature of water is a quantitative change. Each increase in temperature is a small change until suddenly, the temperature hits the boiling point of water, and we have a qualitative change from water into steam. Another example is that of revolutions in history. These revolutions are not accidental occurrences, as random events that just pop up with no rhyme or reason, but rather the result of gradual changes in the social/political/economic fabric of life which then cause an abrupt change.

d) Contradictions Inherent in Nature - Contradictions. Everything contains within itself opposing forces (aka "contradictions") and it is this struggle between opposite forces which create change. It is the struggle between the old and the new, that which is being born and that which is dying away (see B, nature is a state of continuous motion and change). Dialectics is the study of the contradiction within things.


Thus given the marxist dialectical method, we can see that nothing in history (or science) is the result of accidental, random chance, but rather the result of interconnected conditions. If everything is interconnected, then every social system and social movement in history must be evaluated from the material conditions that gave rise to this system or that movement.

We can then see that the capitalist system was not alway so, but that it developed as a replacement to feudalism, which in turn was the replacement of the slave system, which in turn had replaced primative, tribal communism. We can study each system and see why it developed as it did, figure out the internal contradictions in the previous system and the material conditions surrounding it which led to the subsequent system being formed.

And, since the world is in a constant state of movement and development, we can say that the capitalist system can be replaced by the socialist system, which in turn will be replaced by communism. The contradictions inherent in capitalist system will lead to its downfall-- will lead to its change.

We see that this change from capitalism to socialism cannot be achieved by mere quantitative changes (reforms) but will, at some point, culminate in a qualitative leap, a revolution.




2) Marxist Philosophical Materialism:

Materialism contrasts Idealism.

a) Materialist - the world is material, that is, comprising of matter.

b) Objective Reality - The world exists regardless of our ability to perceive or interpret it. Reality exists outside and independent of our consciousness. Matter exists outside of any spirit and does not need spirit to exist. It is not ideas that create things (eg: "You're just a figment of my imagination, no one else is real but me, everyone else is a robot and I'm the only real person.") but rather things that give us our ideas (eg: "I will invent 'the table' because I have used a rock or flat surface in the function of a table before.")

c) The World and Its Laws Are Knowable - We are fully capable of knowing the world, the laws of nature. There is nothing in the world that is unknowable, only things that we have not yet learned. With science and practice, we can develop a more and more correct knowledge of the world. If our understanding of something is false, then it will eventually reveal itself to be false through practice, and we can then adjust our understanding based on our findings in order to be more correct.



Thus given materialism, we can say that the development of society is not a random agglomeration of accidents but rather a development according to laws which we can study and learn. The study of history then becomes a science (a social science. Hence, marxism is a science).

If the world and the laws of nature are knowable, then the laws of development of society are also knowable. The knowledge we learn becomes more and more correct and the data we extrapolate through this knowledge is valid data which can be applied to studying these laws further (and studying the development of society).

The party of the proletariat must be driven, not by empty platitudes of "being good" or "the law of reason" or "universal morals, " but rather on the concrete material conditions of society, based on the study of the laws of the development of society.

It is the material conditions of a society that create that society's ideas, culture, politics, theories, etc, rather than the other way around. A society's culture, ideas, politics, religion, etc are all just a reflection of the conditions of the material life of society.

For example, a society that developed strictly in a landlocked, mountainous area far away from the ocean would not have a sea-faring culture. Its culture (ideas, arts, politics, etc; the "superstructure") would be based on the things around it (the means of production; the "base"), the natural resources it has access to, the environment, the climate, the flora and fauna around it, population, etc.

The base is the primary influencer upon which the superstructure builds. So, the economic structure (means of production) is the base, the foundation of society, and the ideological superstructure (which contains ideas, culture, politics etc) sits on top of this base and is largely influenced by it.

This relationship is not one way however. Instead, it is reciprocal. While the base shapes the superstructure, the superstructure maintains and legitimizes the base.

[CommunistASMR]

Summary of text, cont:

3) Historical Materialism:

Geographic features heavily influence the development of society but it is not the chief force that determines the shape and character of society. After all, natural changes in geography take millions on years and human society can develop and change many times within that time period.

Neither is population/growth of population/density, the chief determining force. Although population growth does influence the development of society, by itself, it does not answer the question of why a given social system is replaced precisely by a specific system and not another. That is, why primitive communism was replaced by the slave system, why the slave system was replaced by feudalism, and why feudalism was replaced by capitalism.


a) What Is the Chief Determinant Force [of the development of society]?

This force is the method of procuring the means of life necessary for human existence. Aka, the mode of production of material values: food, clothing, footwear, houses, fuel, instruments of production such as tools, etc.

In order to live, people need these things. In order to have these things, people must be able to produce them. In order to produce them, people need to have the means to produce these items (raw materials, tools, factories/space to craft, ability to distribute produced good, knowledge of craft, etc).

The productive forces of society are then: the instruments of production with which material values are produced, the people who operate these instruments and have a certain production experience and labor skill relevant to the material value being produced.

Another aspect of production is the social relation between men, their relations of production. Men must get into mutual relations of some kind with one another in order to produce material values. This may be a relation of mutual help and cooperation; it may be that of domination and subordination.

The mode of production embraces both the productive forces of society (means of production and the people who have the relevant skills/experience) and men's social relations of production (social relation to one another).


b) The First Feature of Production

The first feature of production is that it never stays at one point for a long time and is always in a state of change and development. Changes in the mode of production will inevitably change the whole social and political order of society.

At different stages of development, people use different modes of production (or lead different manners of life). And, since the mode of production of a society is the chief determining force of the development of society, we can say that the history of development of society is the history of the development of production, the history of the modes of production.

The history of social development is thus the history of the producers of material values (the workers), rather than the actions of "important" individuals, like kings or conquerers.

The clue to the study of the laws of history of society is not inside men's minds (idealism, spirit creates matter) or the superstructure of society, but in the mode of production practiced by society at any given historical period. It must be sought in the economic life of society (the base).


c) The Second Feature of Production

The second feature of production is that its changes and development always begin with changes and development of the productive forces. Specifically, first with the changes and development of the instruments of production.

First, productive forces of society change and develop. Then, men's relations of production, their economic relations, change depending on and in conformity with the changes that occur with the productive forces. The relations of production in turn react upon the development of the productive forces. These two things are connected and influence each other.

The relations of production might lag a little behind the productive forces (eg: technological advances or advances in efficiency in production but ppl havent caught up yet) but it will eventually catch up with the level of development of the productive forces.

The productive forces are the most mobile and revolutionary element in production.

The state of the productive forces answers the question: "with what instruments of production do men produce the material values they need?"

The state of the relations of production answers the question: "who owns the means of production?" (that is, is it all of society that owns it? an individual person, a specific group, or a class? are other people, groups, classes being exploited by this ownership?)

The Five main types of relations of production are known to history:
- primitive communal
- slave
- feudal
- capitalist
- socialist

Primitive communal: means of production are socially owned. Men had to work in common in order to survive. There was no private ownership of the means of production, only personal property of certain implements of production which were at the same time a means of defense (eg: an axe which can be used to work raw materials like wood, or as a defensive weapon to fight against wolves). This form of society had no classes, no systematic exploitation.

Slave system: the slave-owner owns the means of production and also the worker in production (the slave), whom he can buy and sell and kill like livestock. Private property has replaced the common ownership of the means of production or the fruits of production. Classes exist.

Feudal system: the feudal lord owns the means of production but does not fully own the worker in production (the serf). There exists individual ownership by the peasant and the handicraftsman of his implements of production and his private enterprise, based on his own personal labor. Private ownership still exists, exploitation still exists, it is only slightly mitigated. There still exists a class struggle between exploiter and exploited.

Capitalist system: the capitalist owns the means of production but not the worker (the wage laborer). The wage laborer, although technically "free" as he is neither slave nor serf to be bought and sold, is forced to sell his labor power (aka the capacity to perform labor) to the capitalist for wages (to secure food and shelter) because he does not have access to the means of production. The process of production is social-- collective work by workers in factories and mills. Capitalist relations of production have a contradiction with the state of productive forces in society.

Socialist system: social ownership of the means of production. The social character of the process of production is reinforced by the social ownership of the means of production.


d) The Third Feature of Production

The rise of new productive forces and of the relations of production corresponding to them occur spontaneously and independently of the will of man. It appears within the old system, not after the old system falls, and it is not the result of deliberate actions of man.

This is because men are not free to choose one mode of production over another, and because men do not realize or do not understand exactly what social results (or consequences) these improvements to an instrument of production will produce. They are simply focused on improving their day to day lives.

This change in the relations of production is not without its own struggles, without conflict or upheaval. Usually such a transition takes place by means of a revolutionary overthrow of the old relations and establishment of new relations of production.



(the historical materialism summary is kind of weak, will re-visit and re-write sometime in the future when not lazy)

[EsatBargan]

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