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The Dialectical Materialism of Lenin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
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Whether Marx and Engels jointly or Engels alone originated dialectical materialism, there can be no doubt that only Engels should be credited with its codification. This was recognized implicitly by both Plekhanov and Lenin, for they based their accounts of what they regarded as the Marxian philosophy on the works of Engels, above all, Anti-Dühring and Ludwig Feuerbach. They adopted this course because they believed—and impressed this belief upon the world—that there was a complete identity of views between Marx and Engels on all philosophical matters. As far as the conception of materialism is concerned, this meant in fact the substitution of Engels’ views for those of Marx.
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References
1 The term “materialism” may have different senses, and it has actually been understood in many different ways, of which two are important in the present context. It may mean (1) that matter is the ultimate constituent of the universe and that there is nothing else in the world or (2) that mind originates from matter. I call materialism in the first sense “absolute materialism” and in the second sense “genetic materialism.” Both kinds of materialism can be found in Engels, who does not seem to have been fully aware of the difference between them. It is clear that absolute materialism involves genetic materialism as its special thesis, but one can support genetic materialism without endorsing absolute materialism. Genetic materialism should be distinguished from epiphenomenalism (bodily events are the sole cause of mental events) and other forms of materialism which reduce mental processes to physical processes.
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30 Ibid., pp. 83-84. Lenin asserted that to subscribe to this view is only to agree with Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels that nature exists prior to man. See Georgii V. Plekhanov, Foreword to the First Edition (from the Translator) and Plekhanov's Notes to Engels's Book Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,” in Selected Philosophical Works (Moscow, n.d.), I, 519.
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63 Ibid„ p. 339; “Karl Marx,” ibid., XXI, 52.
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70 Ibid., p. 359.
71 Ibid„ pp. 253-54.
72 Ibid., pp. 97, 109, 221-22, 260.
73 Lenin, “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party Towards Religion,” ibid., XV, 406.
74 Lenin, “Philosophical Notebooks,” ibid., XXXVIII, 284.
75 Ibid., p. 280.
76 Ibid., pp. 359-60.
77 Ibid., pp. 141, 143.
78 Ibid., p. 141.
79 Ibid., p. 360.
80 Lenin, “Differences in the European Labour Movement,” ibid., XVI, 348.
81 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 261-62; “Philosophical Notebooks,” ibid., XXXVIII, 97, 109, 221, 283, 360.
82 Lenin, “Karl Marx,” ibid., XXI, 54.
83 Lenin, “Materialism,” ibid., XIV, 129-30.
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87 Ibid., p. 17.
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89 Engels, , “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,” in Marx, and Engels, , Selected Works in Two Volumes (Moscow, 1951), II, 328 Google Scholar. A similar statement by Marx, formulated in even stronger terms, is to be found in Capital (Moscow, 1957), I, 20.
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93 Trotsky, , Lenin (New York, 1962), p. 1962 Google Scholar. A striking and very similar portrait of Lenin is to be found in Nicolas Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism (Ann Arbor, 1962), pp. 114-29. That writers as different as Trotsky and Berdiaev should see Lenin in very much the same way is persuasive evidence of the accuracy of their portraits from memory.
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