Historical materialism

Marxist teachings concerning the laws of development of human society; the application of the basic principles of dialectical materialism to the field of social phenomena. Before Marx’s epoch-making researches, the idealistic conception of history was practically unchallenged.

“Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history; he discovered the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat and drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, religion, art, etc.; and that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistence, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundations upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, the art and even the religious ideas of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which these things must therefore be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.” (Engels, “Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx,” See Marx, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 16.)

In the basic changes which take place in the methods of producing the material goods necessary for the existence of man, historical materialism sees the main determinant of the path of social life and of the transition from one social system to another. No society can exist without engaging in material production. With the help of tools, technique, man in the process of production acts on nature and obtains the necessities of life. The progress of society depends on the evolution of the means of material production. The history of human society begins from the time that man mastered the use of tools and himself became “a living, active tool.” The evolution of productive forces is clearly marked by the growth of man’s control over nature.

This evolution is also accompanied by changes in the relations among people in respect to productive forces, that is, by changes in the prevailing socio-economic system. Fundamental changes in the social-economic structure—from the primitive communal to the slave system, from the slave to the feudal, the feudal to the bourgeois-capitalist, the capitalist to the socialist, are first of all changes from a certain set of production relations to another and more progressive set. Such a change is always a necessary consequence of the operation of definite laws of the evolution of the productive forces.

A great service of the theory of historical materialism, accordingly, consists in the fact that it was the first to call attention to the significance of the objective conditions of material production, to the economic laws of society which underlie human action on an historical scale. Thanks to the theory of Marx “The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously reigned in the views on history and politics gave way to a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in consequence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social life another and higher system develops—how capitalism, for instance, grows out of feudalism.” (Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. XI, p. 5.)

The discovery of the development of material production as the underlying dynamic of social evolution permitted for the first time the formation of an adequate conception of the great, creative role of the people, the toiling masses, in the unfolding story of mankind. The history of society was for the first time understood as “the history of the producers of material values themselves, the history of the laboring masses who are the chief force in the process of production and who carry on the production of material values necessary for the existence of society.

“Hence if historical science is to be a real science, it can no longer reduce the history of social development to the actions of kings and generals, to the action of ‘conquerors’ and ‘subjugators’ of states, but must above all devote itself to the history of the producers of material values, the history of the laboring masses, the history of the peoples.” (Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, p. 30.) Conditioned by the existing system of production, by the material life of society, the whole social structure of political institutions, forms of thought, ideas, theories, takes on a definite historical character.

Social existence determines social consciousness. It is impossible to understand adequately the nature of political institutions, of ideas and theories, if we forget the material precondition of their origin—the underlying economic movements which affect them and by which they are also affected. It is impossible to understand why in one epoch certain institutions and ideas arise, while others arise in a different epoch, unless we relate them to the actual way of life in question, in which the system of material production is of basic significance. For example, the different forms of the state in a society characterized by exploitation have always depended on the division of society into classes: slave owners and slaves, land owners and serfs, bourgeoisie and proletariat. The forms of social consciousness (political views, philosophies, sciences, religions, and the like) also depend in the last analysis on the prevailing production relations among people, and suffer radical change in accordance with fundamental changes in the system of production, in the economic order.

Approaching political ideas, theories and institutions in terms of their dependence on the system of production, historical materialism by no means denies their significant influence on the life of society. They may hold back the movement of social evolution, by serving backward groups or classes; or, on the other hand, they may help to carry forward this movement by serving progressive, revolutionary classes. The discovery of the theory of historical materialism enabled the study of society for the first time to become a genuine science of the laws of development of human society.

This theory is by no means to be identified with, and takes particular pains to differentiate itself from, the vulgarized “economic determinism” which holds that economics is the only factor which influences the course of social evolution. Economic determinism denies the active role of politics and political institutions as well as of ideas and theories in the determination of the course of the historical process