Dear all
Just been of for a few days (using up the sick leave!) and your all
back to Dialectical Materialism. It clear must be a significant
issue. I haven't read all the messages but Chris' substantial reply
of 7/12/99 (23:24) seemed to sum up my position most clearly.
It is NOT possible to suggest that Marx denied the existence of
dialectics operating in nature. It is possible to suggest that he
did not think that dialectical materialism existed except as an
analogy to social life, but that is difficult.
Engels clearly did think dialectics operated in nature as did their
joint advisor and close friend, Karl Schorlemmer (Jollymeier, who
worked in the building across the road from me here.) If Marx did
agree then he is unlikely to have gone out of his way to proclaim it
as he was busy with other tasks and had left Engels to deal with the
issue. If he was opposed then the heated arguments this would of
caused (as can be seen by its reappearence even on this list) would
certainly have been recorded somewhere in the correspondence.
Instead, on 22 June 1867, we find him saying: 'Hegel's discovery -
the law of merely quantitive changes turning into qualiative changes
- [holds] good alike in history and natural science.' How do you
explain this? Is he scared of upsetting his two friends, is he
intimidated by their scientific knowledge or had he forgot that 'only
the former can be found in the works of Marx' ????
Also when Engels wrote (and presumeably while he was writing)
Anti-During - as a manifesto of their joint position within the
German Socialist Workers Party - we would have to believe he neither
read it or knew what it contained (we do know Marx had a copy.) It is
hard to prove he read it (harder to prove he didn't!), he did provide
a chapter and provided the preface to the abbreviated French edition,
Socialism Utopian and Scientific, descibing Engels as 'one of the
most eminent representatives of contemorary socialism'. He did know
that it would include much on the sciences in general and he would
have known the sort of theories it was attacking.
So was Marx stupid, neglegent or had he given up caring about this
important issue. Hardly a good way to ask someone to write a defence
of your position within the communist movement who you disagreed so
fundamentally.
So Simon et al, your 'Hero' Marx looks less and less like the Great
Man you need to cling to for fear of Leninism - or worst still
Engelsianism! - if he did oppose dialectical materialism but was too
shy to say so.
Regards,
John
(An Engelsianist Leninist)
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