Contradiction

The core of materialist dialectics. In opposition to metaphysics, dialectics bases itself on the fact that the objects and phenomena of nature are characterized by internal contradictions which are the source of change and development. When we examine things at rest, each in isolation, in their relatively static aspect, our attention is not directed to their internal contradictions. It is only when we begin to investigate things in terms of their interconnections, movements, changes, and evolution that we are led to take adequate account of contradictions. Everything that exists comes into being, evolves, and finally dies away. The struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying and that which is being born, between that which has lived out its time and that which has developmental perspectives before it, is what supplies the dynamics of the evolutionary process. Lenin called the principle of unity and conflict of opposites the essence of dialectics inasmuch as it reveals the source of the self motion and evolution of matter. By studying the contradictory elements within things and the pattern of development manifested by these contradictory elements, we are enabled to understand phenomena dialectically, that is, in terms of their growing and dying. Lenin pointed out that the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary, and relative, whereas the conflict of opposites, like motion and evolution, is absolute, continuous. Opposites at one and the same time mutually exclude and mutually penetrate one another. As Engels puts it, “…Two poles of an antithesis, like positive and negative, are just as inseparable from each other as they are opposed, and… despite all their opposition they mutually penetrate each other.” (Anti-Dühring, pp. 28-29.) The proletariat and bourgeoisie were both generated by the capitalist mode of production. Within the framework of this system of production they are connected with each other in such a way that without either one of these classes the capitalist mode of production would be impossible; but at the same time they exclude each other and are engaged in an irreconcilable conflict. The atom, as it is shown by modern physics, is a unity of particles of positive and negative electricity. It is by means of their interpenetration that the physical and chemical properties of the atom are defined. Life is likewise a contradictory process, characterized by the constant dying out and renewal of cells, by the incessant emerging and resolving of contradictions. In the study of social phenomena, the law of the unity and conflict of opposites possesses great scientific significance. It was Marxism which first showed scientifically that the source of the struggles and antagonistic tendencies in class society is the differences of classes in relation to the conditions of life. It showed that the class struggle is the moving force of history in all class societies. Marxism-Leninism teaches that “it is possible to overcome contradictions only through a struggle for one or another set of principles” (Stalin, On the Opposition, p. 439, Russian ed.) and not by an attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. From the law of the unity and conflict of opposites flow very important implications for the policies and tactics of the proletarian party. If the struggle of opposites is decisive in the resolving of contradictions, it follows also that subjective factors such as consciousness, will, and discipline also possess great significance. Contradictions are to be overcome, not feared. If evolution works itself out in terms of the struggle of opposites and the resolution of this struggle, then “we must not cover up the contradictions of the capitalist system, but disclose and unravel them; we must not try to check the class struggle but carry it to its conclusion. Hence, in order not to err in policy, one must pursue an uncompromising proletarian class policy….” (Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, p. 14.)