Материал: Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

ownership, feudal or estate ownership. Marx and Engels summarised their conclusions so far as follows:

The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the State are continually evolving out of the lifeprocess of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they may appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they operate, produce materially, and hence as they work under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will.32

Marx and Engels then reiterated their general approach, stating that 'consciousness does not determine life, but life determines consciousness',33 and showed how the division of labour, leading to private property, created social inequality, class struggle and the erection of political structures:

Out of this very contradiction between the interest of the individual and that of the community the latter takes an independent form as the State, divorced from the real interests of individuals and community, and at the same time as an illusory communal life, always based, however, on the real ties existing in every family and tribal conglomeration - such as flesh and blood, language, division of labour on a larger scale, and other interests - and especially, as we shall enlarge upon later, on the classes, already determined by the division of labour, which in every such mass of men separate out, and of which one dominates all the others. It follows from this that the struggles within the State, the struggle between democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, the struggle for the franchise, etc., are merely the illusory forms in which the real struggles of the different classes are fought out among one another.34

Marx and Engels then took up the question of 'premises' and repeated their criticism of the Young Hegelians who considered that philosophical ideas were themselves productive of revolutions. On the contrary:

These conditions of life, which different generations find in existence, decide also whether or not the periodically recurring revolutionary convulsion will be strong enough to overthrow the basis of the entire existing system. And if these material elements of a complete revolution are not present (namely on the one hand the existing productive forces, on the other the formulation of a revolutionary mass, which revolts not only against separate conditions of society up till then, but against the very 'production of life' till then, the 'total activity' on which it was

based), then, as far as practical development is concerned, it is absolutely immaterial whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already, as the history of communism proves.35

Elaborating on Marx's Theses, the text continued with a passage specifically devoted to Feuerbach. Taking as an example the cherry tree (imported into Europe for commercial reasons) Marx and Engels pointed out that an increasing number of objects could not be grasped by mere 'observation' but had to be understood as a result of social development, industry and commerce. With Feuerbach, however, 'in as far as he is a materialist he does not deal with history and in as far as he considers history he is not a materialist'.36 For no ideas could claim an eternal, objective validity. They changed in accordance with changing socioeconomic relationships and it would be found that 'the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas'.37

There followed a lengthy section on the division of labour, particularly in the Middle Ages, and the transition to capitalism; then a section on the influence of the division of labour on the evolving forms of the state, the legal system and property relations. The final section was on communism. 'Communism', it had already been stated, 'is not for us a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.'38 This 'real movement' differed from all previous movements in that

it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independendy of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.3'

The key factor in the establishment of communism was the abolition of the division of labour. But the only example that Marx gave of this here was drawn from a rural community:

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner,

just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, cowboy or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calcu-

lations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.40

At least the means to the end was clear. T h e section finished with the words:

If the proletarians are to assert themselves as individuals, they will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. Thus they find themselves direcdy opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals of which society consists have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order therefore to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State 41

T h e section of The German Ideology dealing with Bruno Bauer is very short: Marx had already dealt with Bauer's ideas at length in The Holy Family and restricted himself here to reiterating in a few pages the complete barrenness of 'critical criticism' and refuting Bauer's attacks on Feuerbach.

T h e section on Stirner, on the other hand, is much longer than all the other parts of The German Ideology put together. When Stirner's book first appeared Engels considered that it contained several positive elements that could serve as a basis for communist ideas, but Marx soon disabused him of any such notion.42 Marx's plans in December 1844 to write an article criticising Stirner had been upset by his expulsion from Paris and the banning of Vorwiirts. In The German Ideology he and Engels certainly spared no effort: their onslaught on 'Saint Max' as they called him equals in length and easily surpasses in tedium Stirner's own book.43 There is the occasional flash of brilliance, but the (quite correct) portrayal of Stirner as the final product of the Young Hegelian school who carried to its logical extreme the subjective side of the Hegelian dialectic too often degenerates into pages of mere word-play and hair-splitting. T h e central criticism made by Marx and Engels is that Stirner's fundamental opposition of egoism to altruism is itself a superficial view:

Communist theoreticians, the only ones who have time to devote to the study of history, are distinguished precisely because they alone have discovered that throughout history the 'general interest' is created by individuals who are defined as 'private persons'. They know that this contradiction is only a seeming one because one side of it, the so-called 'general', is constandy being produced by the other side, private

interest, and by no means opposes the latter as an independent force with an independent history - so that this contradiction is in practice always being destroyed and reproduced. Hence it is not a question of the Hegelian 'negative unity' of two sides of a contradiction, but of the materially-determined destruction, of the preceding materiallydetermined mode of life of individuals, with the disappearance of which this contradiction together with its unity also disappears.44

Equally, Stirner's view of might as right was not sufficient:

If one regards power as the basis of right, as Hobbes and others do, then right, law, etc., are merely the symptoms - the expression - of other relations upon which State power rests. The material life of individuals, which by no means depends merely on their 'will', their mode of production and form of intercourse, which mutually determine each other - these are the real basis of the State and remain so at all the stages at which division of labour and private property are still necessary, quite independendy of the will of individuals. These actual relations are in no way created by the State power; on the contrary they are the power creating it. The individuals who rule in these conditions, besides having to constitute their power in the form of the State, have to give their will, which is determined by these definite conditions, a universal expression as the will of the State, as law - an expression whose content is always determined by the relations of this

class, as the civil and criminal law demonstrates in the clearest possible way.45

Towards the end of the book there were also some remarks on the organisation of labour which Stirner attacked as being authoritarian in proposals for a communist society, as true abolition of the division of labour implied that everyone would have to do everything. Marx and Engels replied that it was not their view 'that each should do the work of Raphael, but that anyone in whom there is a potential Raphael should be able to develop without hindrance'.44

With a communist organisation of society [they continued] there disappears the subordination of the artist to local and national narrowness, which arises entirely from division of labour, and also the subordination of the artist to some definite art, thanks to which he is exclusively a painter, sculptor, etc., the very name of his activity adequately expressing the narrowness of his professional development and his dependence on division of labour. In a communist society there are no painters but, at most, people who engage in painting among other activities.47

But such passages are brief intervals of interest in an otherwise extremely turgid polemic.

T h e second volume of The German Ideology had a much more topical

126 K A R L M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y

subject, Utopian German socialism - which Marx and Engels termed 'true' socialism and which at that time informed almost all socialist thinking in Germany. This section was a practical application of the discussion on Feuerbach - as most of the 'true' socialists were strongly influenced by his thinking as well as sharing in the anarchism of Stirner. On to elements of French socialism was grafted the Feuerbachian idea of a 'true', genuine human essence which consisted in the adoption of an altruistic attitude towards one's fellow men. The 'true' socialists considered that liberal ideas were already out of date and demanded the immediate realisation of 'true' human essence. Thus they rejected any participation in the struggle for 'bourgeois' rights. Their meetings contained a lot of moralising and sentiment - to the detriment, according to Marx and Engels, of sound historical analysis. 'True socialism', they said, 'is nothing but the transfiguration of proletarian communism, and of its kindred parties and sects in France and England, within the heaven of the German mind and . . . of true German sentiment.'48 Inevitably in so stagnant a country as Germany, they replaced revolutionary enthusiasm with the universal love of mankind and relied mainly on the petty bourgeoisie. The comments of Marx and Engels on the 'true' socialists were contained in three review articles. The first attacked an anonymous essay which advocated the German philosophical socialism of Feuerbach and Hess as opposed to the crudeness of French communism and regarded humanism as the synthesis of both. The second review attacked Karl Grim, a close disciple of Feuerbach and friend of Marx in his earliest university days, whom Marx referred to later as 'a teacher of German philosophy who had over me the advantage that he understood nothing about it himself.49 Griin had failed to grasp the essential points of French socialists (even when he plagiarised them) and concentrated on vague notions of 'human' consumption as opposed to studying real relationships of production. The third short essay dealt with a Dr Kiihlmann, who was not a true socialist at all but a bogus Swiss preacher of messianic communism.

The section of The German Ideology on Feuerbach was one of the most central of Marx's works. It was a tremendous achievement in view of the low level of socialist writing and thought prevalent at the time. Marx never subsequently stated his materialist conception of history at such length and in detail. It remains a masterpiece today for the cogency and clarity of its presentation. Yet it remained unknown for almost a century.

From the beginning of 1846 Marx and Engels made great efforts to find a publisher for The German Ideology. Weydemeyer and Hess conducted lengthy negotiations with Rempel and Meyer, two Westphalian businessmen who sympathised with true socialism and had agreed to put up the