Stalin (Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili)
DIALECTICAL AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM
September 1938
Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist
party. It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to
the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending
them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of
nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is
materialistic.
Historical materialism is the extension of the principles of
dialectical materialism to the study of social life, an application
of the principles of dialectical materialism to the phenomena of the
life of society, to the study of society and of its history.
When describing their dialectical method, Marx and Engels usually
refer to Hegel as the philosopher who formulated the main features
of dialectics. This, however, does not mean that the dialectics of
Marx and Engels is identical with the dialectics of Hegel. As a
matter of fact, Marx and Engels took from the Hegelian dialectics
only its "rational kernel," casting aside its Hegelian idealistic
shell, and developed dialectics further so as to lend it a modern
scientific form.
"My dialectic method," says Marx, "is not only different from
the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, ... the
process of thinking which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even
transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos
(creator) of the real world, and the real world is only the
external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the
contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world
reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of
thought." (Marx, Afterword to the Second German Edition of
Volume I of Capital.)
When describing their materialism, Marx and Engels usually refer to
Feuerbach as the philosopher who restored materialism to its rights.
This, however, does not mean that the materialism of Marx and Engels
is identical with Feuerbach's materialism. As a matter of fact, Marx
and Engels took from Feuerbach's materialism its "inner kernel,"
developed it into a scientific-philosophical theory of materialism
and cast aside its idealistic and religious-ethical encumbrances. We
know that Feuerbach, although he was fundamentally a materialist,
objected to the name materialism. Engels more than once declared
that "in spite of" the materialist "foundation," Feuerbach
"remained... bound by the traditional idealist fetters," and that
"the real idealism of Feuerbach becomes evident as soon as we come
to his philosophy of religion and ethics." (Marx and Engels, Vol.
XIV, pp. 652-54.)
Dialectics comes from the Greek dialego, to discourse, to debate.
In ancient times dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by
disclosing the contradictions in the argument of an opponent and
overcoming these contradictions. There were philosophers in ancient
times who believed that the disclosure of contradictions in thought
and the clash of opposite opinions was the best method of arriving
at the truth. This dialectical method of thought, later extended to
the phenomena of nature, developed into the dialectical method of
apprehending nature, which regards the phenomena of nature as being
in constant movement and undergoing constant change, and the
development of nature as the result of the development of the
contradictions in nature, as the result of the interaction of
opposed forces in nature.
In its essence, dialectics is the direct opposite of metaphysics.
1) Marxist Dialectical Method
The principal features of the Marxist dialectical method are as
follows:
a) Nature Connected and Determined
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard nature as an
accidental agglomeration of things, of phenomena, unconnected with,
isolated from, and independent of, each other, but as a connected
and integral whole, in which things, phenomena are organically
connected with, dependent on, and determined by, each other.
The dialectical method therefore holds that no phenomenon in nature
can be understood if taken by itself, isolated from surrounding
phenomena, inasmuch as any phenomenon in any realm of nature may
become meaningless to us if it is not considered in connection with
the surrounding conditions, but divorced from them; and that, vice
versa, any phenomenon can be understood and explained if considered
in its inseparable connection with surrounding phenomena, as one
conditioned by surrounding phenomena.
b) Nature is a State of Continuous Motion and Change
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not a state
of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of
continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and
development, where something is always arising and developing, and
something always disintegrating and dying away.
The dialectical method therefore requires that phenomena should be
considered not only from the standpoint of their interconnection and
interdependence, but also from the standpoint of their movement,
their change, their development, their coming into being and going
out of being.
The dialectical method regards as important primarily not that
which at the given moment seems to be durable and yet is already
beginning to die away, but that which is arising and developing,
even though at the given moment it may appear to be not durable, for
the dialectical method considers invincible only that which is
arising and developing.
"All nature," says Engels, "from the smallest thing to the
biggest. from grains of sand to suns, from protista (the primary
living cells -- J. St.) to man, has its existence in eternal
coming into being and going out of being, in a ceaseless flux,
in unresting motion and change (Ibid., p. 484.)
Therefore, dialectics, Engels says, "takes things and their
perceptual images essentially in their interconnection, in their
concatenation, in their movement, in their rise and disappearance."
(Marx and Engels, Vol. XIV,' p. 23.)
c) Natural Quantitative Change Leads to Qualitative Change
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of
development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative
changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development
which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative
changes to open' fundamental changes' to qualitative changes; a
development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually,
but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state
to another; they occur not accidentally but as the natural result of
an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes.
The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of
development should be understood not as movement in a circle, not as
a simple repetition of what has already occurred, but as an onward
and upward movement, as a transition from an old qualitative state
to a new qualitative state, as a development from the simple to the
complex, from the lower to the higher:
"Nature," says Engels, "is the test of dialectics. and it must
be said for modern natural science that it has furnished
extremely rich and daily increasing materials for this test, and
has thus proved that in the last analysis nature's process is
dialectical and not metaphysical, that it does not move in an
eternally uniform and constantly repeated circle. but passes
through a real history. Here prime mention should be made of
Darwin, who dealt a severe blow to the metaphysical conception
of nature by proving that the organic world of today, plants and
animals, and consequently man too, is all a product of a process
of development that has been in progress for millions of years."
(Ibid., p. 23.)
Describing dialectical development as a transition from quantitative
changes to qualitative changes, Engels says:
"In physics ... every change is a passing of quantity into
quality, as a result of a quantitative change of some form of
movement either inherent in a body or imparted to it. For
example, the temperature of water has at first no effect on its
liquid state; but as the temperature of liquid water rises or
falls, a moment arrives when this state of cohesion changes and
the water is converted in one case into steam and in the other
into ice.... A definite minimum current is required to make a
platinum wire glow; every metal has its melting temperature;
every liquid has a definite freezing point and boiling point at
a given pressure, as far as we are able with the means at our
disposal to attain the required temperatures; finally, every gas
has its critical point at which, by proper pressure and cooling,
it can be converted into a liquid state.... What are known as
the constants of physics (the point at which one state passes
into another -- J. St.) are in most cases nothing but
designations for the nodal points at which a quantitative
(change) increase or decrease of movement causes a qualitative
change in the state of the given body, and at which,
consequently, quantity is transformed into quality." (Ibid., pp.
527-28.)
Passing to chemistry, Engels continues:
"Chemistry may be called the science of the qualitative changes
which take place in bodies as the effect of changes of
quantitative composition. his was already known to Hegel....
Take oxygen: if the molecule contains three atoms instead of the
customary two, we get ozone, a body definitely distinct in odor
and reaction ...
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