Tag: dialectical materialism

Study Circle 21 of 2019 – What Drives History?

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Dear comrades and friends,

DYFI CUC organised the twenty first study circle of this year yesterday. We completed reading Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism by J. Stalin.

In the second half of the essay, Stalin talks about what the chief determining forces of the development of society are. He considers and dismisses the idea that geography or population growth determine societal development. He then shows that the mode of production of material values – food, clothing, footwear, houses, fuel, instruments of production, etc. – which are indispensable for the life and development of society – is the chief determining force of societal development. 


The mode of production includes the means of production as well as the relations of production: the technology and apparatus used for producing, as well as the relations of people to this technology and apparatus, and consequently to each other.


He then elaborates on two features of production: the constance of change, and the fact that change always begins with changes in the productive forces. From the essay:

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, and that, furthermore, changes in the mode of production inevitably call forth changes in the whole social system, social ideas, political views and political institutions – they call forth a reconstruction of the whole social and political order. 
The second feature of production is that its changes and development always begin with changes and development of the productive forces, and in the first place, with changes and development of the instruments of production.

We talked about what this means for philosophical determinism; whether socialism is inevitable because of the development of productive forces, or whether barbarism is a possibility; and the relationship between changes in religion and changes in the mode of production in Rome, the USSR and in India.


Next week, we will likely continue reading on Marxist philosophy.


Revolutionary Greetings,

Central Unit Committee,

Democratic Youth Federation of India – Delhi

Study Circle 20 of 2019: Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism

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DYFI CUC organised the twentieth study circle of this year on Sunday, July 21. In this session, we studied half of the text, ‘Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism’, authored by J. Stalin in 1938.

The text is a simple and basic introduction to Dialectical Materialism, which can be described as a method of studying a system on a material basis, by understanding the various contradictions within it. The changes that arise in, or the evolution of, the system in question is a result of opposing forces exerted by these contradictions within it.

The etymology of the word ‘Dialectics’ goes back to the Greek word ‘Dialego’, which, Stalin wrote, “was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions.”

While Marx learnt about Dialectics from Hegel, Marxist Dialectics is different from the latter’s in that it is Materialist. Hegel, who was an idealist, believed that consciousness has the original or objective existence, while what the consciousness perceives – namely matter – exists only in the consciousness.  

Contrary to Idealism, Materialism is the understanding that the matter exists in the objective world, independent of the consciousness which perceives it, and that consciousness itself is a product of matter. 

As Marx points out, “Our consciousness and thinking, however supra-sensuous they may seem, are the product of a material, bodily organ, the brain. Matter is not a product of mind, but mind itself is merely the highest product of matter.”

While Marx closely studied Ludwig Feuerbach who led the charge against Hegel’s idealism and sides with him in the materialist camp in opposition to the idealists, he nevertheless pointed out that Feuerbach’s approach to materialism had a serious flaw. Along with discarding the idealism of the Hegelian method, Feuerbach also discarded the dialectics in it.

This leads to a kind of materialism that tends to assume the forces which govern a system under observation to be a given or static, without questioning what the tussle between which contradictions gave rise to these forces in the first place, or, for that matter, the resolution of which of the contradictions can bring about what kind of changes to these governing forces themselves.          

Thus, Feuerbach, despite being a fierce advocate of materialism, “remained… bound by the traditional idealist fetters.” Freeing materialist thought from these fetters, Marx and Engels reaffirmed the objective existence of the material world, and established that the changes that occur in it, or to it, are a result of the opposing forces exerted by the contradictions that exist within. 

This applies not only to the physical world, not only to the evolution of humankind, but also to the development of human societies – to its evolution from one form of organisation to another (primitive communism to slave society to feudalism to capitalism).

In the next session of the study circle, we will be completing reading and discussing the remaining half of the essay in which, by drawing on the development of tools from stone age onwards, Stalin seeks to demonstrate the relationship between the productive forces of a given society relations and “relations of production”, i.e the relationships that emerge between humans as a result of their relation to the means of production. For example, slave and slave-owner, lord and serf, worker and capitalist.

Study Circle 8 of 2019 – Marxism and Science

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In the weekly study circle organised by DYFI-CUC today, we studied and discussed Chapter 7 of ‘What is Marxism’ by Emile Burns, titled ‘The Marxist View of Nature’.
This chapter is of relevance to social science and political economy because Marxism is a theoretical approach based not on abstract moral principles about what a society ought to be, but one borne out of a careful study of the actually existing societies and their evolution. And actual societies, and the human beings in it, do not exist as entities independent of nature but as a part of it, and governed very much by its laws.


In opposition to the philosophy of idealism – which operates on the assumption that the material world exists only inside a human consciousness and has no independent existence outside of it – Marxism is deeply rooted in the materialist philosophy, which sees matter (the material word) as existing independently and prior to human conscious, which in itself is a product of the evolution of the former.    

And this evolution is not a linear process, but one which has a ‘dialectical’ nature, where the existence of a complex set of interrelations generate contradictions when quantitative changes occur to different variables. These contradictions are then resolved with a radical qualitative change – i.e a revolutionary transformation. Thus, “dialectical materialism” forms the central root of the marxist approach.  


Citing a scientific example, Burns says, “while the temperature is being raised the water remains water, with all the general characteristics of water, but the amount of heat in it is increasing. Similarly, while the temperature is being reduced the water remains water, but the amount of heat in it is decreasing. However, at a certain point in this process of change.. it is no longer water, but steam or ice. This feature of reality is particularly evident in chemistry.”     


Drawing a parallel to make the point that such is the nature of development in human societies also, Burns adds: “In human society, gradual changes take place over a long period without any fundamental changes in the character of society; then a break takes pace, there is a revolution, the old form of society is destroyed and a new form comes into existence and begins its own process of development. Thus within feudal society, which was production for local consumption, the buying and selling of surplus products led to the production of things for the market and so on to the beginnings of capitalist production. All of this was a gradual process of development; but at a certain point the rising capitalist class came into conflict with the feudal order, overthrew it, and transformed the whole character of production; capitalist society took the place of feudalism and began a more tempestuous development.”


This development, which created the working class, has reached a phase where the contradiction has been generated between this new class the capitalist system created and the bourgeoisie, whose revolution instated the capitalist system in place of the overthrown feudalism. The irresolvable nature of this contradiction is what throws open the road to socialist revolution, which brings about a radical transformation by demolishing capitalism and replacing it will a socialist set up.


For a more through understanding about the relationship between the laws governing nature (the material world) and the working and evolution of human societies, consult the ‘Dialectics of Nature’ by Friedrich Engels.


In the next study circle, we will read the final and the most important chapter, titled “A Guide to Action”, and finally summarise our reading of the book. Anyone interested in joining us in our studies is warmly welcome.


Revolutionary Greetings,

Central Unit Committee

Democratic Youth Federation of India – Delhi