Karl Marx was both a revolutionary thinker and leader of the working class movement. Chris Arthur examines Marx's development of the unity of theory and practice.
In writing to commemorate Marx's death one hundred years ago one must provide an overview of his life, which avoids both [illegible] development this unity achieves ever greater concreteness.
Marx first became radicalised when, as a student in Berlin, he joined the so-called 'Young Hegelians' who attempted to draw on the critical elements in Hegel's philosophy to mount an attack on religion and the state. In his Doctoral Dissertation of 1841 Marx already depicts in an abstract way the contradictions that arise when philosophy 'turns against the world' in an attempt to 'realise itself',¹ On the empirical side, his subsequent experiences as editor of a progressive newspaper in Cologne (1841-43) soon persuaded him of the importance of material interests (such as the struggle between landowners and peasants in the Rhineland). The closure of the paper by the authorities freed Marx to take up the study of political economy. First, however, he wanted to settle accounts with Hegelian idealism. It is in the Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, published in 1844, that for the first time in Marx's thought the proletariat is assigned its revolutionary role. It is worth looking at the way the unity of theory and practice is conceptualised in this text in some detail.
To begin with Marx takes up the materialist critique of the origins of religion in the human condition already developed by Feuerbach (The Essence of Christianity, 1841), but goes beyond the latter in arguing that, if religion is 'the opium of the people' then the condition which makes it necessary must itself be challenged: 'To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.'² For philosophical criticism of religion and politics to be practically effective it must transform the material conditions of their existence. The tasks set by philosophy can be solved only 'through practice'. But how is this to happen? Here Marx embarks on a systematic dualism within which the problem of the relation between theory and practice is posed. However radical philosophical critique becomes, it remains the case, he says, 'that revolutions need a passive element, a material basis'. But 'will the theoretical needs be directly practical needs?' The theoretical revolution brought about within post-Hegelian philosophy cannot complete itself within the domain of theory. But 'theory is realised in a people only in so far as it is a realisation of the people's needs', 'It is not enough that thought should strive to realise itself; reality must strive towards thought'.³ We have the theory — but where is the material agent of emancipation? Marx answers that it must be a class which is forced to revolt under the compulsion of 'material necessity', whose revolt has a universal character 'because of its universal suffering': it must be a class 'which is, in a word, the total loss of humanity and which can therefore redeem itself only through the total redemption of humanity.' There is indeed such a class without any stake in the existing society and thrown into opposition to it; 'the proletariat', concludes Marx.⁴
So the proletariat is nominated as the material agent of [illegible] struggle is related by Marx to 'theoretical needs'. 'Clearly', he says, 'the weapon of criticism cannot replace the criticism of [illegible] the masses'.⁵ He finishes the essay with a whole series of such propositions: 'just as philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its intellectual weapons in philosophy'; 'the head' of the struggle is [illegible] realise itself without ... the proletariat' and the proletariat cannot liberate itself from its chains 'without the realisation of philosophy'. These are the 'inner conditions' of revolution,⁶
It is clear from a reading of this text that Marx has broken with his erstwhile philosophical background in so far as he realises that criticism cannot change reality. But it is equally clear that he is simply mechanically adding the practical needs of the proletariat to this theoretical criticism. It is a marriage of convenience, not a real union. This is because it is not dialectically grounded in a conception of the social totality from which spring both tendencies. Furthermore, in spite of Marx's materialist inversion of the relative priority of state and civil society in Hegel's social philosophy, still in the above formulations it is theory which is the overriding moment. It 'grips the masses': theory is not evolved from the standpoint of the practical struggle of the proletariat. Hence it retains an abstract and moralising character. He speaks of the 'categorical imperative' to 'redeem humanity'. (Let it be said that one recognises a lumpish caricature of this dualism of theory and practice in some contemporary juggling with the 'subjective factor' and the 'objective factor'.)
In 1844 Marx moved to Paris and became explicitly communist as a result of his contacts with the French socialist movement and his first critical engagement with political economy. In the Paris Manuscripts (now justly famous for their elaboration of 'alienated labour'), Marx was able to eliminate the defects of his earlier conceptualisation of theory and practice because for the first time he grasps the central importance of material labour in the production and reproduction of the social totality. This made possible the development of the science of historical materialism. In The German Ideology of 1846 Marx (with Engels) sketched a first version of history based on the idea of a sequence of modes of production with associated class divisions and forms of social consciousness. Thus ideology loses its semblance of independence and is understood in relation to the material conditions and development of society. People, 'developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life'.⁸
If thought imagines itself to be independent, this too can be explained from the contradictions of material life, for example, from the division between mental and manual labour. Thus Marx explains: 'Division of labour only becomes truly such from the moment when a division of material and mental labour appears. From this moment onwards consciousness can really flatter itself that it is something other than consciousness of existing practice, that it really represents something without representing something real; from now on consciousness is in a position to emancipate itself from the world and to proceed to the formation of 'pure' theory, theology, philosophy, ethics, etc'.⁹
At the same time, Marx brings class relations into the picture. 'The ideas of the ruling class are ... the ruling ideas' because 'the class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production',¹⁰ so that its ideas are imposed on the subject classes and all classes share the illusion of the epoch. It follows that 'the existence of revolutionary ideas in a particular period presupposes the existence of a revolutionary class'.¹¹ Their content will reflect the situation of that class in relation to the social totality.
Since the problems faced by the proletariat spring ultimately from the world market, and since communism requires for its material basis the development of the productive forces on a world scale, Marx concludes that the proletariat exists on a 'world-historical' plane, that each nation is dependent on the revolutions of others, and that communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples 'simultaneously',¹² Thus, for the first time Marx lays the ground theoretically for the internationalist practice of the proletarian party.
Nor did he leave it there. Throughout 1846 he energetically set about establishing a network of 'Communist correspondence committees', contacting for the purpose such people as Harney, the Chartist leader, and Proudhon. In a letter to Proudhon he explained that the point was to put German, French, and English socialists in touch so as 'impartial criticism' could take place. 'It will be a step made by the social movement and its literary manifestation to rid itself of the barriers of nationality. And when the moment for action arrives, it will clearly be much to everyone's advantage to be acquainted with the state of affairs abroad as well as at home.'¹³ It is noteworthy that Marx's first attempt at communist organisation started from the need for it to be international — and this before hardly any national organisations existed! The same internationalist spirit presided over the foundation of the Communist League in 1847. It requested Marx and Engels to prepare for it a Manifesto.
The crucial question to be sorted out in this period was the relationship of communism to the class struggle. Everywhere advanced workers were attracted by communist ideas, but communism itself was understood as an ideal to be preached to the world at large in a propagandistic fashion. Marx and Engels' theoretical heritage enabled them to grasp the necessity to unify theory and practice. In such texts as The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) and the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) Marx took issue with 'Utopian Socialism' on this front.
St Simon, Fourier and Robert Owen were all excellent critics of the capitalist system and its iniquities: they counterposed to it the ideal of socialism. However, their activity took the form of preaching the idea to humanity at large, or of setting up small-scale experimental communities. They could not relate themselves to any socio-historical practice grounded in tendencies immanent in capitalist reality itself. This is explicable in the case of these original founders of Utopian Socialism who were working at a time when the proletariat had not organised itself as a class: hence its struggle had not assumed a political character. Thus the Utopians viewed the proletariat only as the most suffering class, who would benefit most from socialism; but not as the agent of social transformation. However, the persistence of the Owenite sects in standing apart from the new class struggle, eg Chartism, became objectively reactionary, as well as theoretically incoherent. When the class struggle becomes a visible reality, science, a product of the historical movement, must cease to be doctrinaire and 'become revolutionary' in consciously associating itself with it.¹⁴ As Marx says: 'Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things'.¹⁵ This movement is the class struggle of the proletariat. The communism of the proletariat is 'the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transition point to the abolition of class distinctions generally'.¹⁶
Marx's theory is inconceivable except as the product of specific historical conditions, and experience, which allowed him to relate socialism to the developing class struggle. He did not view socialism as an eternal truth discovered by his own genius. Rather, his theoretical conclusions 'merely express, in general terms, actual relationships springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes'.¹⁷ Communist workers, therefore, 'do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement'; they are simply the most advanced section who understand theoretically the line of march and ultimate destiny of the existing struggle.¹⁸
It is important to point out that this relation to practice makes Marx's materialism a very different materialism from that which preceded it. If one simply counterposes to the idealist claim that all reality is essentially spiritual the materialist standpoint, all one has provided is a different interpretation of the world: but, says Marx, 'the point is — to change it.'¹⁹ Furthermore, it is perfectly possible to be a materialist and a [illegible] point from which 'to change it'. This was the case with Robert Owen just as much as with Ludwig Feuerbach. These tendencies were materialist enough to see that it was ridiculous to blame people for being as they were (eg selfish, competitive, etc) when their circumstances and upbringing had conditioned this. The solution, clearly enough, was to provide a decent education and better circumstances to promote better qualities in people (eg egalitarianism, co-operation, etc). This leaves the transition unexplained — because if people are nothing but the product of their circumstances whence come the educators who will effect this transformation in people? The educator himself needs education.²⁰
Reality now broke in on the debate. Revolution in 1848, first in France and then in Germany, sent Marx back to Cologne to re-establish his newspaper, which was now called the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. He had used up all his resources on it when, following the triumph of the counter-revolution in 1849 he received a government expulsion order. On 18 May, the last issue of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung appeared printed in red.
Finally settled in London, Marx spent the next years in dire poverty, quarrelling with fellow exiles. Nonetheless he also gathered the materials for his great work Capital (1867) through endless days in the British Museum reading room, and nights labouring to solve the immense theoretical problems involved. (As he wryly observed — never had anyone spent so much time writing about money while seeing so little of it.) By no means should we think of these years of study as unrelated to practice. It is impossible to conceive of Capital except as the product of an intransigent adversary of the capitalist system. Its theoretical achievement is to establish scientifically the contradictory, crisis-ridden, character of capitalist production, its ultimate limits, and the dialectical necessity for its overthrow by the proletariat. Although it is a strictly scientific work in which landlords and capitalists are viewed as 'bearers of particular class-relations'²¹ rather than as individually morally responsible for these relations, Capital nonetheless represents a critique of those same relations and their ideological legitimation. 'In so far as such a critique represents the standpoint of a class', says Marx, 'it can only represent the class whose historical task is the overthrow of the capitalist mode of production and the final abolition of all classes — the proletariat'.²²
Earlier, in 1864, Marx had participated in the founding of the International Working Men's Association whose rules note 'that the emancipation of labour is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries'.²³ In a letter to Engels [illegible] Marx says: 'Apart from the work for my book, the International Association takes up an enormous amount of my time, for I am in fact the head of this affair'.²⁸
In spite of the fact that all members of the International supported the Paris Commune of 1871, it began to disintegrate soon after, largely as a result of the growing struggle between Marx and Bakunin. Marx's last important political intervention came in 1875 with his polemic against the programme adopted at its Gotha Congress by the newly unified German Workers' Party, bringing together Marxists and Lasalleans. Once again we see the questions of theoretical clarity and practical effectivity given trenchant treatment. On the one hand Marx protested in the most vigorous way that his followers had allowed theoretical fundamentals to be compromised in the new programme, and that it was a mistake to allow this in the name of the desire for unity amongst the workers. On the other hand, Marx pointed out that, since 'every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes' an agreement for action against the common enemy should have been concluded, while the question of drawing up a programme of principles was postponed until it had been prepared for by a considerable period of common activity.
After Marx's death the influence of positivism became strongly felt within the Second International. Science, it was held, is a detached and impartial activity — pure theory with no practical implications. Hilferding in his Finanz Kapital drew out the logical consequences by arguing that the sole aim of Marxism is to discover causal relationships, including those determining the will of classes. But acceptance of the validity of Marxism, including a recognition of the historical necessity of socialism, has no practical import! 'For it is one thing to acknowledge a necessity, and quite another thing to work for that necessity'.²⁴ If Marxism as science has no practical implications it follows that socialism requires some other ground for the legitimation of its struggle. This must be ethical in character. Hence a whole tendency of neo-Kantian character emerged which tried to base socialism on Kant's categorical imperative to respect persons.
Today this duality is replayed, except that the double aspect is now instantiated in two parties: the 'scientistic' Marxists versus the 'humanists', and the latter draw not now on Kant but on the early Marx.
Others believe that 'scientific socialism' is a contradiction in terms; that what Marx provides is at most 'a science of socialism, an analysis of an existing socialist movement and of the conditions in which it develops' — thus Bottomore and Rubel — for, after all, socialism is just 'a social and political movement striving to bring about a new, and better, system of human relations'.²⁶ They go on to distinguish 'Marx the scientist' from Marx the revolutionary, introducing the latter with the anodyne platitude: 'The combination of scientific analysis with moral judgements is by no means uncommon in the field of social studies'²⁷ — as if Marx was some run of the mill eclectic.
One thing is for sure — Marx, both 'early' and 'late', would have refused the antithesis between theoretical work and practical engagement. For Marx 'science becomes revolutionary' when it becomes adequate to reality because reality is in a constant process of development and change, of which consciousness (including a theoretically informed class consciousness) is a moment. Marxist theory stands in an essential relationship to practice because objective knowledge arises from the standpoint of 'the class that holds the future in its hands'²⁵, the international working class. Since 'the real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth of his real connections',²⁹ no less than for practical effectivity, theoretical clarity and comprehensiveness (freed from local prejudice and national particularism) requires an international organisation of revolutionaries. Hence there is an intimate connection between Marx's two great legacies — Das Kapital, and the struggle for the International.
CHRIS ARTHUR is a lecturer in Philosophy at Sussex University and editor of the English edition of Marx's The German Ideology.
References
1 Collected Works Vol 1 (London 1975) p85
2 Marx Early Writings (Penguin/NLR 1975) p244
3 EW p252
4 EW p256
5 EW p251
6 [illegible]
7 [illegible]
8 [Marx and] Engels The German Ideology part 1 (English ed London [illegible])
9 GI pp51-52
10 GI p64
11 GI p65
12 GI p56
13 Collected Works Vol 38 (London 1982) p39
14 [The Poverty of] Philosophy: Collected Works Vol 6 (London 1976) p78
15 [illegible]
16 [Class] Struggles in France, Collected Works Vol 10 (London [illegible])
17 Communist Manifesto CW6 p498
18 Manifesto CW6 p497
19 Thesis XI On Feuerbach (1845) (in GI)
20 See thesis III On Feuerbach
21 Capital Vol 1 (Penguin trans 1976) Preface p92
22 Capital p98
23 [illegible] p386
24 [Introduction] to Finance Capital by Rudolf Hilferding (English [illegible])
25 [illegible]
26 Karl Marx Selected Writings ed TB Bottomore & M Rubel (Penguin ed 1963) p31
27 ibid p40
28 Marx: Report to the Brussels Congress 1868; Marx: Life and Works pp82-83
29 GI p55