When most people think of the word ‘philosophy’, what do they think of? They think of academics sitting in seminar rooms, stroking their chins and trying to outsmart one another through argument. This introduction explains how the philosophy of Marxism, better known as ‘dialectical materialism’ is completely unlike this. Unlike academic philosophy, it is a practical philosophy, and one that only makes sense when used as a practical guide to action.
Some people might ask, why do we even need a philosophy? What’s the point in Marxist theory? ‘Can’t we just get rid of all that rubbish and go with common sense? Can’t we just go with what seems practical at the moment?’ Of course, using our common sense on a daily basis is very necessary, but it is completely insufficient for understanding how to take on and overthrow a system like capitalism. In fact, the people who say ‘get rid of that nonsense and just use your common sense’ are more often than not simply repeating the philosophy of the ruling class. That is why we say the working-class and socialist movement needs its own philosophy.
The origins of dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a fusion of two schools of philosophy: materialism and dialectics. When most people hear the word ‘materialist’ in everyday language, they usually take it to mean somebody who is obsessed with material possessions. But when we talk about materialism in philosophy we mean something completely different. Materialism in philosophy is instead concerned with what comes first in the world: matter, or ideas?
A materialist would say that what comes first is matter. Matter is primary in the world, that our ideas and the mind come from material things, and material processes. Most materialists would say that thinking is a product of the brain. A materialist would say that a material world exists independent of us thinking about it or perceiving it, which can be studied and understood using science.
Materialism’s opposing theory — idealism — turns all that around. Idealism in its purest and most untainted form would say the world exists because we think it exists. That the world stems from our thoughts and ideas. It puts emphasis on the subjective and subjective experience over and above the objective world and material reality.
These outlooks have a political significance to them. An idealist may for example view history in religious terms, seeing change in history as guided by God or some kind of higher power. Other idealists would have what we call the ‘great man’ view of history, which views history almost solely in terms of powerful individuals and their ideas.
Marxists would completely reject this theory. Of course, individuals often play an important role in history, but we certainly can’t reduce history to that. Where do important individuals come from Did the historical Jesus just come from nowhere? No. He came from the socioeconomic conditions existing in ancient Palestine. His ideas represented in the Bible are ultimately a reflection of material processes in society at his time. Likewise, did fascism come to power in Germany just because of the evil personality of a man called Hitler? No. Marxists would say that fascism came about because of the material conditions prevailing in Europe at the time.
Dialectics
Dialectics — or the dialectical method – has a long basis in the history of philosophy. While it has been understood differently over centuries, how Marxists understand it is the study of developments in society and nature through studying contradictions.
While the dialectical method is as old as ancient Athens, the philosopher who Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels took the most inspiration from was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Although not a socialist, or even a materialist, he still acted as a huge influence on Marxism.
Hegel saw the unfolding of history as a dialectical process. He saw all ideas as emerging out of a particular point in history, as part of a wider chain of contradiction, through which things would develop. By borrowing this element from Hegel and ‘turning him on his head’ towards a materialist position, Marx and Engels devised a new theory, a new outlook, a new philosophy, which was based around three basic laws about how change and transformation takes place in the material world. These are:
• The law of the negation of the negation
• The law of the interpenetration of opposites
• The law of transformation of quantity to quality
Sounds difficult? Don’t worry. Let’s go through them.
Negation of the negation
In the most basic terms, this law simply states that nothing is permanent. There is nothing eternal in this world; everything is temporary. Everything in the universe has both a beginning and an end. And this is because things are never fixed or settled, but are instead transforming from one thing into another thing.
Marxists apply this understanding to history. The conservative and un-Marxist view of history is that everything is static — that this is the way it has always been and always will be. Under feudalism (the system before capitalism), there was the idea of the divine right of kings and queens. The prevailing idea was that royal elites were in power because God appointed them to rule.
That same static view is today used to justify capitalism, whether that be ‘this is human nature!’, ‘they’re rich because they work hard!’, or simply ‘this is just the way things are’. Marxists use dialectical materialism to understand that none of this is true. The kings and queens, and today the capitalist class, aren’t eternal. They’re only one link in the chain of history.
If every other social system before it came and went, capitalism will ultimately give way to something different. It is just another stage of historical development. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, which in turn replaced ancient slave society, capitalism has now reached a point where it’s no longer capable of taking humanity forward. However whether this system is replaced by something better — socialism — is completely down to the working-class majority in overthrowing it and replacing it with a system which meets the needs of people and the planet.
Interpenetration of opposites
In formalistic thinking, there is no space for contradiction in the world. Things have to fit in neat, uniform categories and boxes. Contradictions are seen in formal logic as something to be avoided and resolved. Dialectical materialists turn this around, arguing that the world is made up of contradictions and opposing tendencies, and that all things contain their opposites in some form.
Understanding this law and applying it is how we can avoid falling into a dogmatic and schematic analysis. Leon Trotsky, who was one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution in 1917, often explained his indebtedness to dialectical materialism in helping him to understand how things would develop. Fifteen years before the 1917 revolution, Trotsky used this particular law to predict the Russian revolution with striking accuracy.
He looked at the contradictions between the Russian economy, culture and state. He looked at the mixture of an ultra-reactionary monarchy — the Tsarist system — the early development of capitalist agriculture, the intensity of repression and an underdeveloped modern capitalist class. He made the point that there were so many opposing and competing tendencies existing side by side together in Russia that it made the country ripe for revolutionary explosions, and also that it would mean the Russian working class, which was only just emerging in Russian society, would play a major role in the coming revolution.
Class contradictions
We use dialectical materialism to understand that every strike comes from a contradiction, between the material interests of the working class and the capitalist class. The material need of a capitalist is to keep their profits up. But the worker needs a wage on which they can survive. So the capitalist keeps the workers wages down so they “cut costs”. Those two interests are in contradiction, they’re opposing interests which can only be addressed and resolved through class struggle.
But those aren’t the only dialectical contradictions we see in a strike. There can also be contradictions within the classes. Some of the capitalists might be more inclined to want to give a pay rise to bring an end to the strike, but others want to dig their heels in and give workers nothing, because they know that it’ll give other workers an example to follow.
Likewise some workers will be ready to strike from the beginning, more bold and prepared to take on the boss in a workplace while others might not be confident that winning is possible. And those categories are always changing, whether in small quantitative ways, but sometimes qualitatively.
If something happens in society, for instance a mass protest movement or the discrediting of a hated government, then there will be a qualitative change. The number of workers in the “ready to fight” camp will grow, and have an easier time dragging with them the wider layer of workers.
A Marxist trained in dialectical materialism understands these types of contradictions and changes, partly by studying history, studying the class struggle and involving ourselves in that struggle, so we can take part as the best fighters alongside other workers and win working-class people to our ideas.
Quantity into quality
We’ve already touched on the fundamental point that everything changes. This last law is more specifically about the nature of change. How do changes in the world take place?
The basic point here is that there are extended periods where only small changes happen, sometimes they can feel like they’re not changes at all. But those small, incremental changes lay the basis for a revolutionary change, a rapid change, a transformation of quantity into quality.
One key example is the development of human society. Society didn’t gradually evolve from slave societies, to feudalism and to capitalism today in some sort of slow, gradual even way. It took place through breaks in previous systems, out of which new systems emerged.
Here in Britain, capitalism was a product of the English revolution in the 1640s, which was a bourgeois revolution that broke the power of the old feudal system and laid the basis for modern society.
The history of capitalism is a history of class struggle. This history is also made up of periods of small, incremental changes. Small changes within the consciousness of the working class, small changes in the policies of the ruling class, which then explode into periods of heightened struggle, conflict and ultimately revolutions.
Applying to concepts: A case study
To illustrate how these ideas can be applied to real life, let’s look at a specific example.
Nurses were at the forefront of the strike wave of 2022- 23. Their main union, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), underwent rapid shifts in the years running up to the strikes.
Until the year before, the RCN’s official policy was to not strike. But tensions and contradictions were building up underneath the surface. The sense on the hospital wards was that real pay was constantly going down, understaffing was constantly getting worse and nothing was improving. Then a pandemic hit, which disrupted everything in society These were the material factors that led to a rising anger among nursing staff. Then the union voted at its conference to drop its no strike pledge, and they went out.
This is the transformation of quantity into quality in action: a concentrated, quantitative shift over a short period of time due to the accumulation of contradictions.
But there is also the second law, the interpenetration of opposites at play in the unions. While the union was made up of nurses who were ready to take the fight to the Tory government, their leadership was quite the opposite.
In early 2023, the RCN leadership around Pat Cullen tried to get the nurses to accept a poor deal offered by the Tories. However, sharp opposing forces were existing side by side. Nurses who had been on strike and tasted their own power said no. They organised through a rank-andfile health workers’ network, NHS Workers Say NO, and voted their own leadership down, rejecting the Tory offer.
Those tensions have gone beneath the surface again for the time being, but we use dialectical materialism to understand how they’re still there — the dialectical tension still exists. This is why we are always active in the trade union movement, calling on our unions to take a fighting approach, with a militant strategy of strike action and trade union democracy.
A guide to understanding change and how we can change things
In short, dialectical materialism is about understanding how everything is always in a process of change. The driving force of these changes are contradictions – opposing forces. Because of that, changes in the material world, whether that be society or nature, are almost never just gradual. Changes take place through rapid shifts, shocks and revolutions.
Under capitalism, we’re seeing in an extremely short space of time all sorts of meltdowns, extreme weather events, recessions, riots, political crises and shocks, like with the election of Trump in the US.
The ideas of dialectical materialism can help us find general approximation of things by understanding the general laws of development: how things generally change. On that basis, Marxists develop a programme, formulate fighting demands and a strategy which can arm workers and youth with an understanding of how to change society towards socialism.
