Marxism - what is it? The main ideas of Marxism (briefly). The main provisions of Marxist theory

Historical conditions for the emergence of Marxism

Marxism as a system of philosophical, economic and socio-political views arose in the middle of the 19th century, its founders were the German scientists Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).

Marxism is a direction of economic theory, the purpose of which is to study the laws of capitalism and determine its historical place, "the discovery of the economic law of the movement of modern society." The emergence of Marxism as an integral theoretical system that reflects the interests of the proletariat was prepared by the entire course of development of society, preceding the development of capitalism.

The material prerequisite for the formation of Marxism is the development of productive forces and further changes in the system of production relations of capitalism.

The industrial revolution that took place at the beginning of the 19th century, first in England and then in other countries of Western Europe, led to the fact that the basis of the economy was machine production, the rapid growth of factories, plants, a change in the old forms of production relations, the class structure of society. The development of machine production in the early stages caused a deterioration in the position of the working class and an aggravation of the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which manifested itself in the uprising of the Lyon weavers in Germany (1844).

The aggravation of social and economic contradictions predetermined the need to rethink a number of provisions of economic theory that linked social progress and the growth of the well-being of the people with the industrial revolution. The deepening of the contradictions of capitalism and the inability of the old bourgeois economic theories to find ways to resolve them are also prerequisites for the formation of Marxism. In addition, the proletariat entered the arena of historical struggle, and its class struggle against the bourgeoisie in the most developed countries of Europe came to the fore. There was a need for a theoretical substantiation of the economic and political demands of the working class. These tasks were realized by Marxism. The creative legacy of the founders of this doctrine includes several dozen volumes, among which priority belongs to the four-volume Capital by K. Marx. The first volume of Capital was published in 1867. After the death of K. Marx, F. Engels edited volumes II and III, Volume IV was published by the leader of the German Social Democracy K. Kautsky in 1905-1910 and is called The Theory of Surplus Value.

The creative heritage of K. Marx has much in common with the achievements of his predecessors in the "classical" school of economic thought, especially A. Smith and D. Ricardo. K. Marx also belongs to the classics of political economy, who brought the science of wealth production to perfection.

K. Marx, like all the classics, considered the historical study of the problems of the sphere of production to be the subject of political economy. Only the relations of production of people with regard to production, he gives a class character and considers them from the standpoint of the interests of the proletariat, substantiating its historical mission.

5.2. Methodology of K. Marx

According to K. Marx himself, as a scientist, methodologically, he proceeded simultaneously from three scientific sources: the English classical political economy of A. Smith and D. Ricardo, the German classical philosophy of Hegel and Feuerbach, and French utopian socialism.

From other directions and schools of economic theory, the Marxist school differs, first of all, in the peculiarity of its methodology. One of them is the historical approach to the analysis of the studied phenomena and processes.

Marx's historicism lies in the conclusion that capitalism will inevitably be replaced by a more progressive social system. However, in the works of K. Marx and F. Engels, criticism did not turn into a complete denial of the achievements of bourgeois science. On the contrary, the scientific elements of existing theories have been preserved and developed.

The representatives of the classical school of political economy borrowed and creatively developed the labor theory of value, the provisions of the law of the downward trend in the rate of profit, productive labor, etc.

Critical analysis was carried out on the basis of the method of materialistic dialectics.

Materialism, as a direction of philosophy, was known in antiquity and as a method of cognition proceeds from the primacy of the material and the secondary nature of the spiritual.

The dialectical approach, in addition to the principle of historicism, presupposes, according to K. Marx, the clarification of the causes of the emergence, evolution and disappearance of phenomena, the development from simple to complex, from lower to higher, in the study of the transition from concrete to abstract, the presence in them of contradictory principles, which seemed to be class interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

The name of K. Marx is associated with the widespread use of the abstraction method, by means of which the most typical, stable essential features of a phenomenon are singled out, categories and laws of science are formed.

The method of abstraction involves, in the study, a distraction from secondary phenomena, the selection of the main, essential and its analysis. So, when analyzing the structure of class society under capitalism, K. Marx singled out two main classes of this society - the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, abstracting at this stage of the study from the rest of the classes and social groups of society.

In the theory of K. Marx, such an element as a systematic analysis is manifested. Empirical, statistical, mathematical methods play the role of auxiliary tools of knowledge. This set of methodological principles of analysis was used by K. Marx in the development of his economic doctrine.

K. Marx defined the subject of economic economy as a science that studies the production relations of people and the laws of their development. The creative heritage of K. Marx has much in common with the achievements of his predecessors in the "classical school" of economic thought, especially A. Smith and D. Ricardo. K. Marx, like all classics, considered the priority study of production to be the subject of political economy. In his words, political economy, beginning with W. Petty, explores the internal dependencies of bourgeois relations of production.

Thus, political economy, as defined by K. Marx, in the broadest sense is the science of the laws that govern the production and exchange of material, vital goods in human society. The subject of political economy is production relations, that is, certain economic relations between people that arise in the process of production, distribution, exchange and consumption of material goods and services.

History of Economic Doctrines: Marxism. Economic views of K. Marx. Proof of the labor theory of value.

One of the most interesting trends in economic thought in the second half of the nineteenth century is Marxism, which can be seen as a kind of development of classical political economy. This applies both to the problems studied by Marxist theory and to the methodology

The founder of this doctrine is Karl Marx (1818-1883), a German economist, journalist and philosopher. Taking the statements of Smith and Ricardo as the starting point of his research that the cost of all goods is based on the amount of labor spent on their production, K. Marx tried to create a coherent theory describing the laws of functioning and development of the capitalist economic system. However, Karl Marx failed to complete his theory before his death...

Marx outlined his ideas in the widely known work "Capital", which he wrote for 40 years, and only the first volume was published during the author's lifetime (1864), the remaining volumes were edited by Marx's friend and colleague F. Engels.

Let us say in more detail about the method of economic research by K. Marx and the prerequisites he made. First, the basis of Marx's method was abstraction and simplification; i.e., one might say, the construction of an economic model. Other representatives of the classical school also built simplified models, but Marx built the most simplified model of the economy for his theoretical constructions. Secondly, Marx analyzed the resulting model by deducting the structure of the provisions of his theory. Thirdly, Marx's analysis is mainly macroeconomic in nature, and it uses the concept of equilibrium in the economy. In some places, K. Marx uses the mathematical analysis of his models, but his mathematical method is not developed, in particular, Marx does not use the limiting analysis of the economy. In some of his constructions, Marx uses the historical method of economic analysis, i.e. examines the history of the economy in development. This causes him to occasionally apply dynamic model analysis.

Karl Marx showed how from simple commodity production, the purpose of which is consumption, and where money is only an intermediary in exchange, capitalist production follows quite logically, where the goal is the increase of money, profit. Like the representatives of classical political economy, Marx distinguishes between two aspects of a commodity: use value and exchange value.. The first refers to the ability of a thing to satisfy any human need, regardless of whether it is caused by "stomach or fantasy", the second is the ability of a thing to be exchanged in certain proportions for another commodity. Marx argues that the proportions of exchange are based on labor costs, which determine the value of a commodity. But it is quite obvious that a homogeneous commodity is produced by various commodity producers and each of them spends a different amount of time on the production of a unit of commodity. However, the proportion of the exchange of this product for others in the market will be the same. Marx answers that the value of a commodity will be determined by the costs of the group that produces the bulk of the output. To illustrate this point, the following example can be given. Suppose there are three groups of commodity producers who produce a certain product at different costs:

Group 1 - the cost of producing a unit of goods - 4 hours,

Group 2 - the cost of producing a unit of goods - 6 hours,

Group 3 - the cost of producing a unit of goods - 10 hours.

Suppose that the group that produces the vast majority of products is the second group of commodity producers, whose costs are equal to 6 hours, and it is their costs that will determine the proportions of the exchange of this product for other goods. What will happen to the first and second group of commodity producers? The first will receive in exchange more than they spent, that is, enrich themselves, the second - less, that is, go bankrupt. Next, we need to turn to the logic of A. Smith, to his concept of selfish interest as the main engine of economic development and the condition for the prosperity of the nation. The natural desire to receive additional income will push commodity producers of the second and third groups to reduce labor costs for the production of goods, that is, to increase labor productivity. How? The best organization of labor, the introduction of new processing methods, etc. Let's assume it succeeded. But what's the bottom line? The vast majority of production will be produced at a cost equal to 4 hours, and it is they who will determine the proportions of the exchange. This means nothing more than a reduction in the price of this product relative to others. Could there be a better illustration of Smith's position on the beneficence of self-interest. After all, it is he who makes people improve production, contributes to the development of the productive forces of society. But this is only one side of the coin. The reverse side is the stratification of commodity producers. In our example, the third group of commodity producers, whose costs exceed the socially necessary ones, go bankrupt. Critics of the capitalist mode of production, in particular S. Sismondi, paid attention to this process. However, it should be noted that this is the inevitable price of technological progress. It was Marx who first clearly formulated this position.

Note that Marx himself, having stated the ruin of the second group of producers, did not deduce from this that these producers would leave the market, which would lead to a decrease in production and an increase in the price of goods. As a result, it will turn out that the price is determined by the marginal producer, and not by the average one.

Having pointed out that the value of commodities is equal to the average amount of labor expended on production, Marx thereby proves that in production that does not require tools or an object of labor, value is equal to the amount of labor expended. alive labor. Those. there can be no profit here. After this, Marx argues that the value of the means of production is also equal to the amount of labor expended on them. And in the process of production reified in the means of production, labor is transferred to the product. Since profit cannot arise with such a transfer, profit should not arise under the capitalist mode of production either (i.e., capital should not be a factor of production).

But where does the profit come from then? K. Marx claims that it is a product of exploitation, i.e. robbery of the working class by the capitalist class. The cause of exploitation for Marx is the separation of the direct producer from the means of production. As a result, the direct producer, i.e. the worker is forced to sell his labor power, the value of which is lower than the value created by the worker in the labor process. The cost of labor power is lower than the cost of labor because the first is determined by the cost of reproduction of the worker, and the second is determined by the productivity of labor, which, by the way, increases with the growth of the capital-labor ratio. Those. will increase with the development of capitalism.

Economic theory of K. Marx

One of the greatest philosophers and economists of the 19th century in terms of its influence on social thought. was Karl Marx (1818-1883). He was a lawyer by training, a journalist and a professional revolutionary by occupation. His closest assistant and co-author of a number of his works was Friedrich Engels (1820-1895). A certain milestone in the life of Marx were 1847-1848. By this time, his philosophical theory of historical materialism had already been developed. In 1847, with the participation of Marx and Engels, the International Union of Communists (the forerunner of the First International) was organized, for which Marx and Engels wrote the programmatic work Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848). After the European Revolution of 1848, Marx and Engels moved to England, where they lived until the end of their days. Here Marx finally set about developing his economic theory. In the late 1850s he prepared the first version of his main work Capital and in 1859 published the first short edition of this work under the title On a Critique of Political Economy. But then Marx stopped publication, deciding to finalize the manuscript. Two more draft versions of Capital were written, until finally, in 1867, the first volume appeared, the only one published during Marx's lifetime. The second and third volumes of Capital were published by Engels in 1885 and 1894 based on Marx's drafts. Subject and method The subject of study in the economic theory of Marx, like all representatives of classical political economy, was the sphere of production. Marx attached such paramount importance to it that he called all economic relations production relations. The method was based on his philosophical theory of historical materialism. Marx's materialistic approach to social relations was as follows. Marx calls a certain set of social relations "social formation". The "basis" of these social relations, he considers the economy, which, in turn, is determined by the level of development of technology ("productive forces"). All social relations that are not related to economic (political, cultural, etc.) are a "superstructure" over the "basis". Thus, technology ("productive forces") determines the nature of the economy ("relations of production"), and the economy determines the nature of all other social relations. At the same time, unlike other representatives of classical political economy, who considered certain social (and economic) relations to be “natural” (capitalist, small-scale or socialist), Marx used a historical approach, arguing that social formations naturally replace each other in a revolutionary way. True, the idea of ​​“naturalness” is still present in him latently, since the communist formation is the last and final in his scheme. Marx used his theory of social formations to prove the historically transient nature of the capitalist economy, which, in his opinion, will inevitably have to be replaced by a socialist economy. Basic theoretical provisions Just like Mill, Marx systematized the theoretical provisions developed by previous representatives of classical political economy. The structure of "Capital" was as follows. In the first two volumes, Marx dealt with capitalist industry, with the first volume dealing with the problems of production and the second with the problems of circulation. In the third volume, the spheres of trade, credit and agriculture are connected to the consideration. In addition, in all sections of Marx's economic research there is a "super task" - to show the "unfair", exploitative essence of the capitalist economy as proof of the need to eliminate it. 1. Cost. In his study, Marx resorts to a special methodological device - the consideration of economic categories with varying degrees of abstraction. In particular, in the first two volumes, value is considered in the most general form, as a result of the labor costs of the worker. Marx divides value into three parts: "constant capital" (c), i.e. the cost of material costs, "variable capital" (v), i.e. the cost of labor power, and "surplus value" (m). The division of capital into fixed and variable was new; before Marx, there was only a division into fixed and circulating capital. The appropriation by the capitalist of the "surplus value" created by the workers, Marx calls "exploitation". The ratio of the income of the capitalist to the income of the workers m/v he calls the "rate of surplus value" and an indicator of the degree of exploitation of the workers. In the third volume, Marx introduces a new concept - the "price of production", interpreting it as a converted form of value. It consists of the cost of purchasing means of production and labor and the average profit for all industries. The concept of "price of production" has sparked a debate among economists. Recall that after Smith, the theory of labor value and the theory of value determined by costs were opposed within the framework of classical political economy. Therefore, after the release of the third volume of "Capital", a statement appeared about the contradiction between the first and third volumes of "Capital", since different theories of value are used there - labor theory and cost theory. The Marxists (Marx himself had already died by the time the third volume of Capital was published) responded by repeating that one category is a transformed form of another; the famous German economist W. Sombart argued that labor value is only a logical prerequisite for the real concept of value, determined by costs, but in general the discussion did not have a large scope, since classical political economy had already left the stage. Among other economic categories of "Capital", modern economic science considers Marx's greatest contribution to the theory of social reproduction and the theory of intersectoral competition and the flow of capital. 2. Social reproduction. In his theory of social reproduction, Marx returned to scientific circulation the problem of the redistribution of the gross national product, the study of which was begun in the "Economic Table" by F. Quesnay and lost due to the advent of "Smith's dogma". In contrast to the three-sector model, Quesnay Marx built a two-sector model, dividing the sphere of production into the production of means of production, i.e. elements of constant capital, and the production of consumer goods for workers and capitalists, and derived a formula for the exchange between sectors of that part of the product that goes beyond intra-sector turnover. I(c + v + t) - the cost of the product of sector I. II(c + v + t) - the cost of the product of sector II. In physical terms, the product of sector I is intended for Ic and IIc, therefore, after replenishment of Ic, the remaining product of sector I, equal in value to I(v + m), is sent to sector II to replenish PS. The result is a formula for the exchange of sectors I and II: I(v + m) = IIc. Another difference between Marx's theory and Quesnay's "table" was that Quesnay considered only simple reproduction, while Marx presented both simple and extended reproduction. Marx's schemes of expanded social reproduction are, in fact, the first model of economic growth. 3. Intersectoral competition and capital outflow. Marx introduced the concept of inter-industry competition, which, unlike intra-industry competition, is not competition for the sale of homogeneous goods, but competition for the most profitable investment of capital. Here (in the third volume of "Capital") Marx no longer operates with the concept of "surplus value", but with its "transformed form" - "profit". Since different branches of the national economy have different rates of return, i.e. the ratio of profit to advanced capital (m/c + v), then capital flows from less profitable industries to more profitable ones. This is reflected in the fact that enterprises in less profitable industries are closed, and new ones are built in more profitable ones. As a result, in less profitable industries, supply decreases, while prices and profits rise, while in more profitable industries, the process is reversed. In general, the economy tends to form an average profit for all industries.

The history of the 19th century is rich in various philosophical ideas, currents, which subsequently changed the entire social structure up to the present. Among the outstanding philosophical ideas, a separate doctrine (especially for our country) are ideas of Marxism. The influence of the theories and philosophy of Karl Marx on world historiography is undeniable and among many prominent historical figures is considered the most outstanding in the history of society, not only in the 19th and 20th centuries, but throughout the entire period of the existence of civilization.

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Rise of Marxism

The theory of a new economic mode of production arose as a natural phenomenon of production processes and the economic structure of Europe at that time.

The emergence and significant spread of a new class - workers in factories and factories, to a large extent changed the type of social and.

The development of capitalism was expressed in the active exploitation of workers, starting from the 30s of the 19th century. This phenomenon was accompanied not by an improvement in the standard of living of the working class, but by the desire to obtain the greatest possible profit and increase the productivity of production. Capitalism, with the main goal of making a profit, did not take into account the rights and needs operated class.

The social structure itself and the presence of insoluble contradictions between classes required the emergence of a new theory of relationships in society. This is Marxism. Followers of Marx naturally were called Marxists. The most famous followers of this movement were V.I. Lenin, I.V. Stalin, Mao Zedong, F. Castro. All these politicians contributed to the active development of the idea of ​​Marxism in society and the building of socialism in many countries.

Attention! Marxism is the prevalence of economic relations in comparison with all other aspects of the development of social relations - materialism.

Philosophy of Marxism

Marx's ideas were consolidated in the middle of the 19th century. It was an era of rapid development of capitalism, a gigantic leap forward in Germany's industry (Karl Marx was a German) and the complication of social relations between different segments of the population.

As a bright and unsurpassed philosopher, Marx consolidated the main provisions of the theory in his work "Capital".

This work consolidated the basic ideas of materialism and the economic rationale for a new social order that later changed the world - communism. Classical Marxism was characterized by special postulates. Main the provisions of Marxism are concise and clear:

• The thinker's teachings were based on the materialism of society. This theory meant the primacy of matter before consciousness, and is a purely philosophical category of understanding of being. However, not excluding, but supplementing its views with theories of dialectics in the future, the philosophy of Marxism acquired a materialist-dialectical character.
• The division of society not into social groups and estates, as was previously accepted in most sociological teachings, but into strata, that is, classes. It was Karl Marx who was the first to introduce this concept, as a kind of division of the entire social structure. This term is closely related to materialism, and is expressed in a different classification of social relations between various representatives of society. The sociology of Marxism in this doctrine is understood, first of all, two main types - this is the class of workers (exploited) and the class of capitalists (exploiters) and the interaction between them on the basis of commodity-money conditions;
• A new way of understanding economic relations between classes, based on dialectical materialism, as the application of production relations of a new formation (with the direct participation of workers).
• The economy forms society. It is economic (relations of production) are the basis for the whole society, the primary source of human relations. Simply put, commodity-money and production relations between people (manufacturing, distribution, sale) are the most important in relations between different classes and strata of people. This postulate was subsequently consolidated and actively developed in a new doctrine - economic communism.

Division into economic formations

One of the most important postulates in the teachings of Marx was the division of the entire historical period of human development into several basic economic and production formations.

Some historians called them classes, some called stratification.

But the meaning of this did not change - the basis of economic philosophies is the division of people into classes.

It is also noteworthy that formations are based on the principle of production of goods, devices on the basis of which society developed. It is customary to allocate 6 such formations:

• Primitive communal system. The very first historical period in the development of human society. With the formation of the initial period of accumulation, there is no division into any classes or estates. All property of the community (collective) is universal, and does not have a specific owner. At the same time, taking into account only the initial stage of the development of human society, the tools of extraction and production were at a purely primitive level and did not allow the production or collection of enough products, except for those necessary only for survival. This formation is called primitive communism precisely because the property was in the hands of the community and there was no exploitation of the population, the whole society participated in the gathering.
• Asian formation. Also such a period in history sometimes called the state-communal system, since later, with the development of mining tools and the improvement of production methods, people managed to obtain a surplus product, that is, hoarding took place in society and surpluses of values ​​\u200b\u200bbegan to appear. In order to distribute products and exercise centralized control in society, a managerial class began to stand out, which carried out only managerial functions and was not directly involved in the production of products. Subsequently, he (to know, priests, part of the army) formed the elite of the state. This formation also differs from the previous one by the presence and emergence of such a concept as private property, later it was with this formation that centralized states and the apparatus of control and coercion began to appear. This meant the economic and subsequently political consolidation of the stratification of the population and the emergence of inequality, which served as prerequisites for the emergence of a new formation.
• slave system. Characterized strong social stratification and further improvement of mining tools. The accumulation of initial capital ended, and the size of the additional product increased, which led to the emergence of a new class of people - slaves. In various states, the position of slaves was different, but the common thing was complete lack of rights. It was in this era that the idea of ​​the exploited class was formed as dumb instruments for fulfilling the will of the masters. Despite the fact that it was the slaves who were engaged in production in that era, they did not have any property and did not receive any privileges or dividends from the work performed.
• Feudalism. The period in history that characterized by the appearance of various classes, however, the division was also mainly no longer into slaves and masters, but into dependent peasants and representatives of the nobility and clergy. During this period, the dependence of the peasants was legislatively consolidated, however, during this era, the peasants had a minimum set of rights and received a small part of the product they produced.
• - characterized by a significant development of the means of production and the development of social relations. At that time there is a significant stratification of society and distributed goods in the social structure. A new class appears - workers who, having social consciousness, will and self-perception, do not have social rights and are alienated from the distribution and use of basic public goods. The capitalist class is small, but it dictates its will and enjoys the absolute majority of the additional product. Power is being reformed and transformed from the power of the monarchy, as in the period of feudalism, to various forms of election. Also, the position of the workers was distinguished by the impossibility of accumulating initial capital without forced labor;
• Communism is the highest form of social development. The essence of this formation was that the means of production must reach a level at which all property, regardless of its value, becomes public, however, the level of production can meet the needs of all citizens. Classes with such a formation disappear, all people have the same rights and social status, while performing their function. These were the main features of the communist system.

Important! No one has succeeded in achieving communism in history, despite numerous attempts by various states, which is why it is often called a utopia.

What is Marxism, briefly

Philosophy and approaches of Marxism

Conclusion

The emergence and subsequent development of Marxism served as one of the clear causes of global social changes in the life of mankind. With the advent of the USSR, Marx's theories received their applied significance, which were improved and over the course of 70 years our the country was moving towards building communism, however, such attempts were unsuccessful. On the whole, Marx's ideas had a positive impact on the position of workers all over the world, despite the social system, and forced the capitalists, albeit to a slight extent, to improve their social status.

Unlike his predecessors, who defined political economy as the science of wealth, or the science of the national economy, K. Marx showed that political economy is a science that studies the production relations of people, the laws of development of social production and the distribution of material wealth at various levels of human society .

Using as a theoretical basis the legacy of the great classics V. Petty, F. Quesnay, A. Smith, D. Ricardo, as well as other economists, K. Marx and F. Engels substantiated economic doctrine, in the center of which was the theory of the exploitation of labor by capital. Taking into account the growing socio-economic contradictions of that time, a conclusion was made about the historical limitations of the private enterprise system, i.e. capitalism as a socio-economic formation.

The Marxist approach is based on the characterization of the economic system as a mode of production - the unity of two components: the productive forces and the production relations corresponding to them. Productive forces - reflect the relationship of man to nature and are a complex of the main factors of production: material and personal. Productive forces include means of labor, objects of labor and labor power. Production relations are objective relations that arise between people regarding material goods and services in the process of their production, distribution, exchange and consumption. The basis of these relations is formed by the relations of appropriation - alienation, i.e. property relations that determine the way in which labor power and the means of production are combined as the main factors of production.

According to the Marxist interpretation, the totality of production relations forms the basis of society. It is served by an appropriate superstructure in the form of political, religious, legal, etc. relations. The mode of production and the superstructure corresponding to it, which are in close interaction, form a socio-economic formation.

From these positions, 5 historical socio-economic formations stand out:

• primitive communal
• slaveholding
• feudal
• capitalist
• communist (socialist)

The positive moment of the formational approach is the recognition of the decisive role of the economy or material production in ensuring social development, the allocation of dominant forms of ownership and its implementation through the appropriation of a part of the created product. But the significant shortcomings of the formational approach include the dominance of ideological moments, underestimation of non-material production, evolutionary forms of development of society and overestimation of violent factors in its dynamics (military coups, revolutions). Historical development is presented as discontinuous, discrete, regularities of development of mixed economic systems are ignored. As a result, the formational approach greatly simplified the understanding of the evolution of society.

The main thing in the scientific heritage of K. Marx is his economic doctrine. K. Marx devoted his main work “Capital” to the disclosure of the basic economic law of the movement of capitalist society. In it, the analysis of the system of economic relations begins with the commodity as an "elementary cell" of capitalism. In the product, according to K. Marx, all the contradictions of the system under study are in the bud. The product has a dual nature:

• Firstly, the product is able to satisfy the needs of people, i.e. it has a use value
• secondly, it is produced for exchange and is capable of being exchanged for other goods, i.e. has value

The theory of value is the foundation of the grand edifice of Marxist political economy. Its essence is that the exchange of goods in society occurs in accordance with the amount of abstract labor that is spent on their production. Continuing the Ricardian tradition of understanding value, K. Marx introduced a fundamentally new moment into its analysis - the doctrine of the dual nature of labor.

The dual nature of labor means that labor in commodity production is both concrete and abstract. Concrete labor is labor that is distinguished by a specific purpose, skills, organization, professional skill, aimed at creating a specific product. The result of concrete labor is use value. Abstract labor is social labor (the expenditure of muscles, energy, brain), abstracted from its concrete form. Abstract labor is a measure of various specific particular types of labor. Its result is the value of the commodity, which manifests itself in exchange value, i.e. proportion of the exchange of one commodity for another.

The magnitude of the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time expended for its manufacture. Socially necessary labor time is the time that is required for the production of some value under socially normal conditions of production and at the average level of skill and intensity of labor in a given society. With the help of these concepts, the law of value is formulated: in the process of exchange, goods are exchanged at their cost as an equivalent for an equivalent. This is the law of equilibrium in the market, the law of commodity exchange.

K. Marx introduced the concept of surplus value into economics. The doctrine of the dual nature of labor allowed K. Marx to reveal the "secret" of surplus value. The classical school failed to explain the origin of profit on the basis of the labor theory of value: for if wealth is created by labor and labor is exchanged at an equivalent price, then there must be no profit. The principles of labor value and the equivalence of exchange turned out to be in mutual contradiction. K. Marx solves the problem by introducing a new concept - "commodity labor power". Labor power, according to Marx, has a use value and value. The value of this commodity corresponds to the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the reproduction of labor power, and the use value is determined by the capacity of the labor power to work. The capitalist does not buy labor on the market, but labor power, i.e. ability to work. Marx calls the difference between the value of labor power and the value it can create surplus value. Surplus value is the source of profit for the capitalist. Labor power is thus a special commodity capable of creating a value greater than the value of labor power.

Surplus value is created by abstract social labor and acts as the unpaid labor of the worker. During the working day, the worker must first produce a value equivalent to the value of his labor power. The labor expended on this Marx called necessary labor. The rest of the working day the worker is engaged in surplus labor, creating surplus value. The ratio of surplus and necessary labor and the corresponding working time expended by the worker characterizes the degree of exploitation of workers by the capitalists. Consequently, labor power, bought on the labor market for wages, not only pays for itself, but also serves as a source of surplus value, which the capitalist appropriates free of charge, owning the means of production.

K. Marx, having created the doctrine of surplus value, showed capitalist exploitation as a process of appropriation by capitalists of surplus value created by workers. K. Marx sees two ways to increase the degree of exploitation:

1. direct increase in surplus labor by lengthening the working day
2. change in the ratio of surplus and necessary labor within a fixed working day

He calls the first way the acquisition of absolute surplus value, the second, the acquisition of relative surplus value.

The first is characteristic of early capitalism, the second - for its mature forms. The reduction of the necessary time can be achieved by making the means of subsistence of the workers cheaper, by increasing the productivity of labour.

Marx singles out another way to increase surplus value: obtaining excess surplus value by reducing individual production costs compared to socially necessary ones. But this kind of surplus value cannot be appropriated by all capitalists, and even for individual capitalists it is temporary, associated with the application of innovations until they become public property. Therefore, surplus value always appears as the result of the exploitation of a worker who works for free for a capitalist.

On the basis of the theory of surplus value, K. Marx revealed the category of “capital” as a self-increasing value expressing relations of exploitation and introduced the division of capital according to the principle of participation in value creation: into constant capital, presented in the form of means of production, and variable capital invested in labor. Constant capital (c) is capital that does not change its value in the process of production. By the concrete work of the worker, it is preserved and transferred to the finished product. Variable capital (v) in the process of production increases due to the abstract labor of the worker, which not only reproduces the value of labor power, but also creates surplus value (m). The division of capital into fixed and variable reveals the dual nature of the value of a commodity. The latter consists of the transferred value (c) and the new value (v + m). As a result, the value of the created product is expressed as:

Capital in its movement constantly increases at the expense of surplus value. The increase in capital due to surplus value K. Marx calls the accumulation of capital. The accumulation of capital is accompanied by a change in its structure, which is represented by the organic composition of capital, expressed as the ratio of constant to variable capital.

Since the organic composition of capital rises as a result of technological progress, the demand for labor grows more slowly than the amount of capital. Hence, according to K. Marx, the inevitability of the growth of the army of the unemployed, and consequently, the deterioration of the position of the working class as capitalist production develops. K. Marx formulated the "universal law of capitalist accumulation": the accumulation of wealth at one pole, among the capitalist class, is accompanied by the accumulation of poverty, the deterioration of the position of the working class at the other pole.

The growth of the organic composition of capital is due to the fact that in the pursuit of profit, in the fight against competitors, the capitalist is forced to use new technologies and machines, replacing them with living human labor. This strategy of economic behavior has far-reaching consequences:

• Firstly, it leads to an increasing concentration of production and capital in the hands of a small elite of society, which is rapidly enriching itself against the background of the impoverishment of the vast majority of the population.
• secondly, the need for human labor is decreasing, which means that the number of unemployed who have no means of subsistence is growing
• thirdly, the rate of profit on the applied capital is gradually decreasing, since, according to Marx, new value is created only by living labor, and less and less is required

The main conclusion that Marx comes to is that the position and interests of capitalists and wage workers are diametrically opposed, irreconcilable within the framework of the capitalist system, which incessantly divides society into two poles: the owners of the means of production, who buy and exploit the labor of others, and the proletarians. who have nothing but labor power, which they are forced to constantly sell in order not to starve to death. Thus, the doctrine of the internal laws of the development of capitalism turned into the doctrine of the historical inevitability of its death and the rationale for the revolutionary transition to socialism. In the depths of capitalism, objective and subjective conditions are created for its destruction, prerequisites for the replacement of capitalism by a new society devoid of exploitation. The solution to this problem is taking place in a revolutionary way. The study of the historical trend of capitalist accumulation concludes the first volume of Capital.

The second volume of Capital was published in 1885. It is devoted to the study of the production process as a unity of production and circulation, first in relation to individual, and then to social capital. K. Marx analyzes the circulation of three functional forms of capital, monetary, productive and commodity. This volume introduces the categories of fixed and working capital, distribution costs. The problems of reproduction are considered.

K. Marx built schemes of simple (invariable in scale) and extended reproduction. He divides all social reproduction into two divisions: the production of means of production and the production of consumer goods. Their relationship is represented by an equation in which constant and variable capital and surplus value appear. The conclusion from the model boils down to the following: with simple reproduction, the sum of the variable capital and the surplus value of the first subdivision must be equal to the constant capital of the second subdivision, and with extended reproduction it must be greater than this constant capital. Schemes of simple and expanded reproduction showed how the exchange between two divisions is carried out, economic relations are reproduced. Considering the problems of reproduction, K. Marx develops the theory of the cycle. Rejecting Say's concept of the impossibility of general production crises, he argued their inevitability due to the anarchy of production. Capitalist production moves through the phases of crisis, depression, revival, upsurge - to a new crisis. The internal logic of the development of the economic crisis is revealed through the following provisions:

• dependence of investment activity on the rate of return
• inverse relationship between the level of wages and the rate of profit
• the presence of a "reserve army of labor", i.e. constant excess of supply over demand in the labor market

The period of economic recovery is characterized by the presence of incentives for the accumulation of capital, a growing demand for labor, a reduction in unemployment, an increase in wages and, consequently, a decrease in the rate of profit. The fall in the rate of profit reaches such a point that incentives to accumulate capital cease to operate and investment ceases, unemployment rises, wages fall, prices fall, stockpiles depreciate. These processes, in turn, cause an increase in the rate of profit, which restores incentives for the accumulation of capital, a revival begins, and then an upsurge in the economy.

Marx drew attention to the fact that the cycle acquires a repetitive, regular character, since it receives a material basis in the form of a cycle of renewal of fixed capital. The crisis synchronizes the disposal of equipment, the beginning of the recovery phase creates conditions for new mass purchases and, accordingly, synchronization of the processes of its obsolescence, subsequent disposal and mass purchases. The identification of the material basis of 10-year cycles of development of production under capitalism is an important theoretical achievement of Marx. During each cycle, the economy is restructured, accompanied by an increase in investment and the creation of jobs for the sake of maximizing profits, until the downward trend in the rate of profit prevails in the process of accumulation, entailing a reduction in production, employment, income, as a result of which a new crisis situation occurs. . The ultimate cause of crises, according to K. Marx, is the poverty of the population and limited demand, which indicates the need to change the economic system.

K. Marx and F. Engels believed that the communist society would go through two stages in its development (“socialism” and “communism”). At the first stage, private property disappears, planning will break the anarchy of production, distribution will be carried out according to work, commodity-money relations will gradually die out. At the second stage, the principle "from each according to his ability - to each according to his need" is implemented.

The merits of Marxism in the development of economic theory are enormous. First, a number of the most important features of the market economic system were identified, associated with the growing concentration of production and capital, the intensification of crisis phenomena, and the exploitation of hired workers. Secondly, a new language of economic science has been created, connected with the doctrine of surplus value.

The scientific legacy left by K. Marx is read in different ways and remains the subject of ongoing discussions, discussions, and disputes.

Some try to refute the theory of K. Marx, others defend its validity, and sometimes the inviolability of its main provisions and conclusions.

Not all the ideas of Marxism have found confirmation in life. Such assumptions as the propositions about a continuous decline in real wages and the standard of living of workers, about the impoverishment of the proletariat and class polarization, and the inevitability of a socialist revolution, did not materialize.

K. Marx and F. Engels underestimated the potential forces of the market system, its ability to self-develop and change.

A more balanced, objective assessment of the Marxist heritage is the desire to clarify and rethink the ideas contained in his works, from the standpoint of ongoing changes, the conclusions of economic science, and the achievements of universal culture.

The indisputable contribution of Marxism to the development of theory is recognized by all scholars without exception. Marxism was a coherent scientific theory, which reflected the realities of its time and numerous factual data. The scientific development of many topical problems allows it to be used along with other economic theories to develop a modern scientific concept of social development.

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Marx's teaching. Marxist theory

Karl Marx (1818-1883) is the founder of international communism.

Karl Heinrich Marx (German Karl Heinrich Marx; May 5, 1818, Trier - March 14, 1883, London) - German philosopher, sociologist, economist, writer, political journalist, public figure. His works formed dialectical and historical materialism in philosophy, the theory of surplus value in economics, and the theory of class struggle in politics. These directions became the basis of the communist and socialist movement and ideology, having received the name "Marxism". Author of such works as "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (first published in 1848), "Capital" (first published in 1867). Some of his works were written in collaboration with like-minded Friedrich Engels.

The main economic work is the four-volume Capital.

Marx created the theory of labor value. Introduced the concept of "surplus value". He believed that it was the costs of social labor that determined the value of a commodity.

Surplus value is the value created by the unpaid labor of a wage worker in excess of the value of his labor power and appropriated by the capitalist free of charge.

The prerequisite for the production of surplus value is the transformation of labor power into a commodity. Marx derived the formula for capital:

D - T - D'

D - money; T - goods; D' = D + d.

The purchase of goods is carried out for its sale in order to increase capital. The increase in value (d) over the originally advanced amount of money put into circulation is called surplus value.

The increase in the original amount of money by adding surplus value makes it capital. Capital cannot arise from commodity circulation; on the other hand, if the owner of money did not put it into circulation, then there could be no increase. Consequently, surplus value cannot arise outside circulation.

The capitalist buys the use value of the commodity "labor power", which has the property of being a source of value. It is realized at the 2nd stage of the exchange between labor and capital - in the process of production, when a new value is created, containing surplus value. In reality, surplus value appears in the form of profit, which, in the process of realization and distribution, takes the following forms: entrepreneurial income, interest, land rent.

With the development of capitalism, labor productivity grows, surplus value and the degree of exploitation increase, as the necessary labor time (the value of labor power) decreases more and more.

K. Marx studied capitalist cycles. The cycle includes 4 phases: crisis, depression, revival and recovery. He derives crises from the main contradiction of capitalism: production is carried out for the sake of profit, and not for the sake of consumption, the accumulation of capital exceeds the consumer possibilities of the population, and overproduction occurs.

Source - T.A. Frolova History of economic doctrines: lecture notes Taganrog: TRTU, 2004
http://ru.wikipedia.org/

1. Biography of Karl Marx

2. Stages in the development of Marxism

3. Marxism and communism

4. Marxism how

5. The concept of Marxist sociology

Dialectical materialism and sociology

Sociology of classes and civil war

Sociology of revolution

6. Philosophy of Marxism

General concept of Marxist philosophy

Prerequisites for the emergence of Marxism and Marxist philosophy

Sources of Marxist Philosophy

Dialectical and historical materialism are the main directions of Marxist philosophy.

materialistic understanding of history. Socio-economic formations

Economic direction of Marxist philosophy

Dialectical materialism

7. Philosophical schools of Marxism

Marxism is philosophical doctrine (dialectical and historical materialism);

Marxism- this is a doctrine that has influenced scientific concepts in economics, sociology, political science and other sciences;

Marxism is a political trend that affirms the inevitability civil war and the social revolution, as well as the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution, which will lead to the destruction of commodity production and private property, which form the basis of capitalist society, and the establishment of a communist society on the basis of public ownership of the means of production, aimed at the comprehensive development of each member of society;

Marxism arose at the end of the 19th century in Europe. This materialistic doctrine was developed in England by the German scientists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

The basis of Marxism is the multi-volume work of Karl Marx "", the core of which is the doctrine of surplus value. According to Marx's theory, material production is reduced to the exploitation of labor capital, during which the labor of workers is applied to the means of production owned by the capitalists, as a result of which products are formed, price which is higher than the amount of depreciation of the means of production and cost paid by the workers of their labor force.

According to Marxism, the capitalist pays the worker only the amount that is minimally necessary for the physical survival of the worker and his family members (the principle of labor reproduction). The surplus value appropriated by the capitalist by right of ownership of the means of production arises because during a shift the worker is able to produce such a quantity of products that its value exceeds the cost of the labor power expended (the amount that is minimally necessary for the reproduction of labor power).

Marx's teaching was used in Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with great popularity due to the conflict relations between labor and capital that prevailed at that time (at the initial stage of development of capitalism). Since the middle of the 20th century, Marxism has lost its appeal, since it went to cooperation (social partnership) with the working class. In our time, Marxism is successful only in the Russian Federation, North Korea and a number of other underdeveloped countries. countries peace.

Biography of Karl Marx

Marx, Karl Heinrich (1818 - 1883)

German economist and statesman. theory of scientific socialism, the founder of Marxism. Karl Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in the city of Trier, in the family of a Jew, Heinrich Marx, who converted to Protestantism, a legal adviser who served as a lawyer at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Trier. Karl Marx's father was born in April 1777 in Saarlouis (died May 10, 1838 in Trier) in the family of a rabbi. Protestantism adopted to remove obstacles in legal activity. He was the foreman of the corporation of lawyers in Trier and, as a lawyer, enjoyed great prestige.

In the autumn of 1835, Karl Marx entered the University of Bonn, in October 1836 he transferred to the University of Berlin, where he studied law, history, philosophy, and art theory. Since 1837, Marx became an adherent of Hegel's philosophy and became close to the Young Hegelians. In April 1841, Karl Marx was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy; the theme of the dissertation is "The difference between the natural philosophy of Democritus and the natural philosophy of Epicurus." From May 1842 he was published in the Rhine Gazette (Rheinische Zeitung), published in Cologne by the opposition circles of the Prussian bourgeoisie, and from October 15 he became one of the editors of the newspaper. April 1, 1843, according to the decree, the newspaper was closed. On June 19, 1843, Karl Marx married Jenny von Westphalen, the daughter of adviser Ludwig von Westphalen, who was friends with Karl's father.

From May to October 1843, Marx spent in Kreuznach, and in October he moved to Paris, where he intended to publish a socio-political journal. The only issue of the German-French Yearbook (Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher), which marked Marx's final transition from idealism to materialism and from revolutionary democracy to communism, was published in February 1844. Marx began studying political economy and the French Revolution. Published on the pages of the German émigré newspaper "Vorverts!" (Vorwarts!); in the publishing house of the newspaper at the end of August 1844, a full-time acquaintance of K. Marx with F . Engels. In February 1845, the first joint work of K. Marx and F. Engels was published - "The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism". In January 1845, at the request of the Prussian government, the French authorities ordered the expulsion of the editors and employees of Vorverts!. On February 3, 1845, Marx left for Brussels, and Engels arrived there in April. In early 1846, Marx created the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee. At the beginning of 1847, the leaders of the "Union of the Just" turned to Marx and Engels with a proposal to reorganize union. In June 1847 in London, with the participation of Engels, the 1st took place, which laid the foundation for union communists. Karl Marx headed the Brussels District Committee of the Union, and for the open propaganda of communist ideas he founded the legal German Workers' Society. In late November - early December 1847, at the 2nd Congress of the Communist League in London, Marx and Engels were instructed to draw up a program for the union. In February 1848, the Manifesto of the Communist Political Party, written by Marx and Engels, went out of print. On March 4, 1848, Marx was expelled from Belgium and moved again to Paris, where he formed a new Central Committee of the Communist Union and founded a club of German workers with the aim of repatriating German emigrants to their homeland. In early April, he left for the Republic of Germany and on May 11 arrived in Cologne, where from June 1, 1848 to May 19, 1849 he was the editor of the daily New Rhine newspaper, was a member of the leadership of the Cologne Democratic Society, the Rhine Regional Committee of Democrats, from October 1848 to February 1849 was chairman of the Cologne Workers' Union. During this time, Marx was twice brought to trial by jury and was acquitted both times. In May 1849, the Prussian government succeeded in ending the issue of the New Rhine newspaper, and Karl Marx, who had left Prussian citizenship during his stay in Brussels, was expelled from Germany.

In early June, he moved to Paris, and on August 24, 1849 - to London, where he engaged in the reorganization of the Communist Union, recreated the Central Committee. In 1850, Marx and Engels began publishing the journal Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-Okonomische Revue. In the autumn of 1850, disagreements with the Willich-Schapper faction led to a split in the union of communists, and on November 17, 1852, on the initiative of Karl Marx, the union was actually dissolved. September 28, 1864 Marx was a member of the founding meeting of the International Association of Workers (1st International), actually heading its governing body. In the General Council, he permanently held the post of Corresponding Secretary for Germany, in 1870, at the request of the Russian Section formed in Geneva, he became Corresponding Secretary of the General Council for Russian Federation. At the end of 1873, the activity of the International actually ceased (it was officially dissolved in 1876). While in London, Marx collaborated with a number of proletarian and bourgeois newspapers: People's Paper, Reform (an émigré newspaper in the United States), New York Daily Tribune (New York Daily Tribune; was a correspondent with August 1851 to March 1862), "Press" (Presse; Viennese liberal newspaper). In September 1867, the first volume of "Capital" was published. Parallel to work on the 2nd and 3rd volumes of "Capital" K. Marx worked on translations of the first volume into other languages: G.A. Lopatin and N.F. Marx helped Danielson to prepare a Russian edition, published in 1872 (he studied Russian in 1869). He paid considerable attention to world history, chemistry, agrochemistry, geology, and biology. From the beginning of the 1980s, Marx's health deteriorated. In December 1881 his wife died, and in January 1883 his eldest daughter Jenny died. In January 1883, Karl Marx fell ill with bronchitis, which led to a number of complications, and on March 14, 1883 he died. He was buried on March 17, 1883 at Highgate Cemetery in London.

Of the seven children of Karl Marx, only three daughters survived - Jenny, Laura and Eleanor. Eleanor, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, who was born on January 16, 1855 in London (died on March 31, 1898 in London), followed in her father's footsteps, becoming one of the leaders of the English and international labor movement. In 1884 she married E. Aveling (Aveling). Was among founders Socialist League (founded in 1884) and the Independent Labor political party(founded in 1893). The Marx family was saved from poverty by the help of Engels, who worked in the office of a textile company in Manchester.

Among works Karl Marx - articles, pamphlets, international reviews, reviews, books: "The difference between the natural philosophy of Democritus and the natural philosophy of Epicurus" (1841), "Notes on the latest Prussian censorship instruction" (February 1842; criticism of the Prussian government system and police measures against the opposition press) , "Debates of the Sixth Rhine Landtag", "Justification of the Mosel Correspondent", "Communism and the Augsburg "Allgemeine Zeitung", "On the Jewish Question" (February 1844), "Toward a Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Law. Introduction "(February 1844), "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts" (1844; criticism of the classics of English political economy A. Smith and D. Ricardo), "The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism" (Die Heilige Familie oder Kritik der Kritischen Kritik; February 1845; the first joint work of K. Marx and F. Engels; directed against the Young Hegelians), "Theses on Feuerbach" (Ludwig Feuerbach), "German ideology(1846; 2 vols.), "Circular against Krige", " wretchedness philosophy. Reply to Philosophy wretchedness"M. Proudhon" (Misere de la philosophic, reponse a la philosophic de la misere de M. Proudhon; 1847; in French), "Manifesto of the Communist political party"(February 1848; together with F. Engels), "The June Revolution" (1848; article on the June uprising of 1848 in Paris), " Civil War in France from 1848 to 1850" (1850), "Great Men of Emigration" (1852, publication in 1930; pamphlet directed against petty-bourgeois democrats), "Louis Bonaparte's Eighteenth Brumaire" (Der 18-te Brumaire des Napoleon Bonaparte; 1852 ; about the Bonapartist coup of December 2, 1851 in France), "Revelations about Cologne process Communists" (December 1852), "Lord Palmerston" (pamphlet), "Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century" (pamphlet), "Mr. 1858; first version of "Capital"), "Economic Manuscript 1861-63" (rough draft of all three volumes of "Capital"; over 200 printed sheets), ", Price and" (1865), "Capital" (Das Kapital. Kritik d. politischen Oekonomie; publication of the 1st volume - September 1867; 2nd and 3rd volumes published by F. Engels after the death of K. Marx: 2nd volume in 1885, 3rd volume in 1894), “class wrestling in France"(1871), "Imaginary splits in the International" (March 1872), "Criticism of the Gotha program" (1875), "Mathematical manuscripts" (studies in the field of differential calculus)

Stages of development of Marxism

Marxism develops in qualitatively definite stages, and its genuine creative renewal is combined with the struggle against open and secretive, veiled revision, revision of Marxism.

We distinguish three main qualitative stages in the development of Marxism from the middle of the 19th century to the present. until the end of the 20th century. The next stages are forthcoming, already in the 21st century - this is the fourth and subsequent ones.

The first stage is the stage of the formation and development of Marxism by K. Marx and F. Engels in the second half of the 19th century. This is the actual Marxist stage, the stage of classical Marxism, the original one, associated with the selfless, outstanding scientific and practical activities of his founders, "classics", as they are often called - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as their associates, entourage, friends. Following the developed method, they treated their own scientific, theoretical positions as developing and requiring development, critically and self-critically, often with a great deal of irony. Having created great creative developments, they treated them creatively.

The second stage is the stage of development of Marxism, primarily by V.I. Lenin from the 90s. XIX century theoretically and especially in the unity of theory and practice in the conditions of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russian Federation 1917, the first practical steps of movement along the path of creation socialism, the creative application of Marxist theory to the peculiarities of Russian practice, the first real, most difficult and complex, dialectical experience in building a new socialist society. This is the Leninist stage in the development of Marxism. This stage covers approximately the last decade of the 19th century. - the first half of the 20th century. It also includes the crisis years of Stalin's forced simplification and distortion of Marxism, Leninism, Marxism-Leninism, the replacement of the creative living spirit of Marxism with primitive scholasticism and dogmatism.

The revolution of 1917, headed by V.I. Lenin, made it possible to apply theoretical Marxism to real practice, to test it with revolutionary, creative practice, to correct and further creatively develop in the course of real socialist construction. This is exactly what V.I. Lenin did and did with the vast totality of his creative, innovative, outstanding works. The theoretical and practical genius of K. Marx and F. Engels was continued by the brilliant theoretical and practical activities of V. I. Lenin. Marxism in the second half of the 19th century. found his outstanding, great successor in the first two and a half decades of the twentieth century. in the person of V.I. Lenin.

V.I. Lenin, by his concrete example, showed the vitality, inexhaustible potential and enormous scientific, theoretical and practical possibilities of Marxism, developing it in the organic unity of continuity and innovation. Marxism took on a form corresponding to the epoch of the 20th century.

This creative stage in the development of Marxism was called Leninism. V.I. Lenin himself considered himself simply a follower of K. Marx and F. Engels, a Marxist who creatively applied Marxism in practice, creatively developing Marxism on the basis of real and concrete practice, as K. Marx and F. Engels demanded.

They justifiably talk about Marxism, which manifested itself in Leninism, because V.I. Lenin contributed an enormous amount of creative, innovative, complementary, expanding and deepening Marxism in accordance with the requirements of the time and on the basis of a theoretical generalization of a new, enormous revolutionary and socialist practical experience. During this general, true scientific propositions were actually manifested in a concrete and living dialectic of the general, particular and singular, and required a new scientific understanding and advancement. That is why V.I. Lenin wrote: “It would be the greatest mistake if we began to place the complex, urgent, rapidly developing practical tasks of the revolution in the Procrustean bed of a narrowly understood “theory” instead of seeing theory first of all and most of all guide to action".

With his creative, innovative attitude to Marxism, V.I. Lenin confirmed that Marxism develops following the changing real conditions of being and consciousness and ahead of them, that in the new objective and subjective global, concretely regional, concretely national situation, Marxism itself must always be new , modern, and at the same time reasonably prognostic looking ahead, foreseeing the future. V.I. Lenin emphasized: “Ignoring the conditions that have changed since then, defending the old decisions of Marxism means being true to the letter, and not the spirit of the doctrine, means repeating the previous conclusions from memory, not being able to use the methods of Marxist research to analyze the new political situation."

Consequently, the decisions and conclusions of Marxism, correct for the old, old conditions and circumstances, old times, in new situations must be creatively renewed, raised to a qualitatively new, modern level.

Such a creative, critical and self-critical attitude both to theory and practice, V.I. Lenin, as a true Marxist, extended to himself, to his own theoretical and practical activity, not at all considering it an ideal, a complete model, absolute truth, which must be unquestioningly followed in any circumstances, in any conditions, at any time. So after the proclamation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, V.I. Lenin warned Bela Kunu in a radio telegram: “It is absolutely undoubted that the bare imitation of our Russian tactics in all details under the peculiar conditions of the Hungarian revolution would be a mistake. I must warn against this error ... ". This is what it means in practice to be a true dialectician, a true Marxist, a self-critical theorist and practitioner.

It should be noted that the Leninist stage in the development of Marxism, genuine Leninism, is not at all identical and does not correspond to that “Leninism” (as well as “Marxism”), which was presented by I.V. Stalin in a truncated, incomplete, non-dialectical, one-sided form, starting from 1924 (On the Foundations of Leninism, Questions of Leninism), in a form to his advantage. These are precisely the most dogmatized, Talmudic, simplified, primitive versions of “Marxism” and “Leninism”, which have been established in party propaganda and social sciences for many decades.

The same should be said about Marxism-Leninism, meaning Marxism creatively developed by V.I. Lenin under new conditions, the Leninist stage in the development of Marxism, raised by V.I. “Marxism-Leninism” presented with knowledge, according to “exposition”, according to the level of understanding of I.V. Stalin and according to his instructions, not only simplifies, primitivizes, dogmatizes genuine Marxism-Leninism, but also simply discredits it, because it forcibly and arbitrarily emasculates from it are many decisive creative, self-developing, qualitatively changing, critical-self-critical fundamental methods and principles.

That is why since the late 20's. under the influence of I.V. Stalin and Stalinism, the stage of creative development of Marxism, Leninism, Marxism-Leninism is curtailed and stalled to a decisive extent not only in the USSR, but also in the world communist movement, which was also subject to dictatorial attitudes and dictatorial I.V. Stalin . But, being real, having proved their vitality and insurmountability, creative Marxism and creative Leninism continued to live and influence the minds, behavior and actions of people not only throughout the first half of the 20th century, but also all subsequent years, and for the future.

A difficult and difficult time for them lasted at least until the second half of the 20th century, and the transition to a new stage is associated not only with the death of I.V. Stalin in March 1953, but also with the difficult overcoming of the Stalinist dogmatized, perverted and distorted interpretation of Marxism and Leninism.

Meanwhile, even at this second stage in the development of Marxism, creative thought enriching Marxism continued to beat both during the life of V.I. Lenin and outside the USSR, outside the field of direct dictatorial influence of I.V. Stalin. It should be noted the creative, debatable works of Rosa Luxemburg (1871 - January 1919), with whom V.I. Lenin argued and disagreed on a number of issues. A very large contribution to the development of Marxist thought was made by Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), primarily with his main work - Prison Notebooks, one of the largest Marxist theorists and founders of the Italian communist political party.

His interpretations, new interpretations, often controversial, creative developments, especially the book “History and Class Consciousness” (1924), were introduced into Marxist concepts by the Hungarian scholar György Lukács (1885-1971), with whom the original Marxist researcher, Soviet esthetician and philosopher closely collaborated M.A. Livshits (1905-1983), with whom I studied as a student at MGIMO and with whom I later collaborated, a contemporary of D. Lukach K. Korsh. And other researchers in the USSR and in the West have done a lot both to present the living Marxist, Leninist thought in all its richness, and to bring into it with their works the theoretically new, additional, fresh.

The third stage, covering the second half of the XX century. we would define it as the stage of overcoming Stalinist violence, control and diktat over Marxism, Leninism, Marxism-Leninism, the struggle of orthodox and creative Marxism, repatriation to the creative development of Marxist theory in unity with the new real practice. This is a stage of intensifying the search for new interpretations and visions of Marxism, often inadequate in the form of “Western Marxism” (as opposed to “Eastern” - Stalinist), a partial appeal to certain provisions of Marxism in the currents of “new Marxism”, “neo-Marxism”, which usually go aside from Marxism, taking only one side of it and significantly revising Marxism, non-standard theoretical interpretations socialism and communism in the form of "Eurocommunism". In general, this is the stage of a kind of new renaissance of Marxism, its creative development in breadth and depth - both of the general Marxist concept and its regionally special, nationally special incarnations and diversity - and at the same time intensifying the struggle against attempts from within to revise and revise Marxism.

The period was difficult, contradictory, even dramatic and tragic, but on the whole revitalizing, rehabilitating, developing, modernizing, qualitatively strengthening and renewing Marxism and communism. We note four main characteristic, in our opinion, features of this period.

Firstly, it was not easy, it was difficult to leave Marxism deformed in Stalin and post-Stalin times, reduced to dead formulas, devoid of living content, crudely adapted to the needs of an authoritarian, dictatorial regime. In a word - from truncated, dogmatic, scholastic, primitive, untouchable Marxism, which does not tolerate searches, disputes, discussions, innovations, changes, transfer to new qualitative levels of theoretical analysis and construction. Such an unchanging, rigid, verbatim interpretation and understanding of Marxism, and not necessarily only in the Stalinist presentation and the boundaries established by it, was called orthodox.

Secondly, it was not easy and did not immediately build up a creative, normal-critical attitude towards the provisions formulated by Marxism in order to bring them into line with the new historical and real general and regional practice. By this time, the main thing was the gap between the Marxist theory formulated earlier, in past times, and the new concrete historical practice, including in new countries socialism. Theory has ceased to effectively help socialist practice, to illuminate in advance for it a concrete path to the future.

Creative, non-standard, updated Marxist statements, views, conclusions that explain what is happening processes and outlining specific lines of action to guide real processes with a perspective on the future, scientists in the USSR and other socialist countries began to develop and propose more often and more insistently. Unfortunately, they were little heeded, or even completely ignored, by the party leaders at the top, theoretically weak, often poorly educated, afraid of everything new, of any timely reformist and revolutionary intervention in real life, even when many contradictions were aggravated in it and crisis phenomena were growing.

With the formation of the world socialist system after the Second World War, the leaders and scientists of these countries urgently faced the problem of a new theoretical understanding from the Marxist positions of the dialectics of the general, particular and singular in relation to different conditions for the creation of socialism in the countries. Europe, Asia and America.

The leaders of many socialist countries and the communist, workers', labor political parties in them, scientists have created a large number of works that have contributed a lot of new, fresh, modern, original to the total Marxist thought. Although a number of them did not do without a significant amount of old dogmatism and callousness, quotation and primitivism, memorization of letters and words, and not following the living Marxist spirit and creativity.

Significant creative contribution In the second half of the 20th century, many prominent leaders of the foreign communist, workers, and also national liberation political parties and movements that were part of the world communist movement contributed to the development, revival, and renewal of Marxism.

Thirdly, the increased desire for creative revival, renewal, modernizing Marxism revealed, especially in the 60-80s, a certain difference, differentiation of the directions of these searches carried out in the "East", primarily in the USSR, and in the "West" - in the countries of Central, Eastern and especially Western Europe. In the USSR and some other socialist countries data the search was not of a decisive, radical nature, the positions of dogmatism and quotations were still strong in general and regional Marxism (for example, Maoism), the usual scholastic trend in Marxism far outweighed the creative one.

In the countries of both Eastern Europe and Western Europe, on the contrary, many prominent communists, looking for Marxists, especially after the departure of I.V. provisions. In the Eastern European countries, the concepts of “democratic socialism”, “humane socialism”, “socialism with a human face” have become widespread and substantiated, to which, however, some directly revisionist interpretations have been introduced.

In these countries, as well as in the countries of Western Europe, the trend of “Western Marxism”, which began in the first half of the 20th century in the person of, for example, D. Lukács and K. Korsh, was significantly strengthened, the prominent representatives of which were the French Lucien Seve, Louis Altusser and others. .

The historical and dialectical paradox is that from the very beginning - the fundamental works of K. Marx and F. Engels - Marxism was formed primarily as Western Marxism, born in the advanced countries of Western Europe: Germany, France, England. But in the post-Lenin era in the USSR, under control, in a primitive understanding and simplified presentation by I.V. Stalin, it acquired the form of a distorted, a kind of “Eastern Marxism”.

Now, in new times and with new fresh winds, Marxism began to be intensively and creatively discussed and developed in Western Europe (and the present Eastern European socialist countries were also listed in it in the past) precisely as unorthodox “Western Marxism”, as opposed to orthodox “Eastern Marxism” . Such are the historical, dialectical paradoxes of the change in the geographical, regional names of Marxist trends in the 20th century.

The same kind of radical moods and tendencies have developed in the communist political parties of the countries of Western Europe in their understanding and interpretation of socialism and communism. Leaders, prominent figures and theorists of many Western European communist political parties could not agree with the established in the USSR, starting with I.V. Stalin and then preserved in the so-called “real socialism”, a significantly deformed, perverted socialist practice, which largely broke with Marx’s ideas and general Marxist theoretical propositions about socialism. First of all, with the provisions and requirements of the organic unity of socialism and the power of the people, democracy (which V.I. Lenin followed and implemented, like other Marxist principles), popular government and self-government of workers, socialism and freedom, human rights, cultural and individual creativity, manifestation of personal initiative and self-expression and others.

Without these important and essential features, originally laid down in Marxism in the understanding of socialism and communism, the communists and Marxists in the West could not themselves imagine and offer the working people the image of socialism as a society fought for by communist political parties. So in the communist political parties of the countries of Western Europe in those years (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, etc.) a powerful current of “Eurocommunism” developed, in which a broad, multi-dimensional, democratic, humane characteristic was given to socialist society, based on Marxism, with an internal laid down by emphasizing the unacceptability of the essential limitations and flaws of “real socialism” in the USSR.

It should also be noted that the radical nature of the mood of every kind of "modernization" of Marxism after many years of stagnation led to the appearance in the West in the 40-60s. a number of such currents of “neo-Marxism”, “new Marxism”, which, under the slogan of the creative development of Marxism and the explanation of reality through K. Marx, actually left him or built their own new, left-radical concepts with the inclusion of elements of Marxist thinking in them. But it was no longer Marxism proper, creatively developed in relation to new real conditions, but its revision and revision. Suffice it to say that K. Marx was no longer considered by many "neo-Marxists" as an economist and revolutionary, but only as a humane philosopher and moral prophet.

The so-called Frankfurt school belongs to this kind of philosophical left, left-radical currents, whose representatives expressed social and spiritual protest against modern capitalism, were associated with the “new left” movement, with mass left-wing actions, such as, for example, French and West German students in May 1968. The most prominent, famous and active of them were Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm, who created a large body of interesting works, with whom I was personally acquainted and met more than once at scientific congresses in the USA, where they began to live and work, and in other countries.

The philosophers of the Frankfurt School mainly used the works of the young K. Marx, some of his positions, especially humanistic ones, to criticize “real socialism”, but they subjected the holistic concept of Marxism to revision, opposing Marxism to Freudism, etc. They were, in my opinion, not creative Marxists, but a kind of Marxologists, adapting certain provisions and conclusions of K. Marx for their own, and rather interesting, original, philosophical interpretations of topical modern problems, including society, history, culture, freedom, man , revolutions, etc. It is clear that they sharply criticized the then “Soviet Marxism”, as, for example, G. Marcuse in the book “Soviet Marxism. Critical Analysis” (1958).

Fourth, a colossal drama and tragedy for the theory and practice of Marxism and communism at the end of the 20th century. was a targeted liquidation in I989-I99I. in the USSR and the eight Eastern European countries of the socialist system, the most cruel ideological and political eradication from public life, from the social sciences, from the consciousness and worldview of hundreds of millions of people of the scientific ideas of Marxism and communism, a wild campaign planned from within and from without to discredit any practice of socialism and communism.

This deployed in the USSR, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe through all mass media information the campaign of anti-Marxism, anti-communism, anti-Leninism, anti-socialism has crossed all possible limits of lies, falsification, deceit, cynicism and obscurantism. The most striking and outrageous thing was that the main organizers and inspirers of this most reactionary and shameful anti-scientific and inhumane campaign were the most prominent former "Marxists" and "Communists" A.N. Yakovlev, Yu.N. Afanasiev, D.A. Volkogonov and others .

But these reactionaries and obscurantists of the late 20th century failed to break the power of scientific ideas and theories of Marxism, socialism and communism neither in the USSR, in the Russian Federation, nor in other CIS countries, nor in Eastern European countries. Living Marxism and communism withstood for 100-150 years and not such attacks and attacks on them, and even more so from the current morally degraded and sold pygmies from “science” and practice. Marxism and communism have lived and will live, and the wicked anti-Marxist, anti-communist pygmies will disappear without a trace from the pages of human history.

Marxism received a new breath and a new breakthrough as a result of a creative analysis by many theoreticians and practitioners in socialist, former socialist and other countries of major mistakes made in the 20th century, omissions and gaps in the development of the theory of Marxism, deformations, distortions, defeats in the practice of socialism. Drawing bitter, harsh lessons from mistakes and failures is the best way to recovery, to a new upsurge in the theory and practice of Marxism and communism.

In the 80s and 90s, a large number of serious studies were published in the Russian Federation, critically and predictively, in a Marxist way, analyzing the lessons, achievements and failures of the past and present development of socialism in the USSR and other countries, its prospects for the future. Both monographic and collective books, collections of articles were published. Interesting analytical, staged, polemical, discussion articles were constantly published in the outgoing communist, socialist, leftist journals.

Sharp discussions unfolded on the cardinal questions of Marxism, socialism and communism, held, which is very important, in a respectful, comradely atmosphere, even with the most alternative positions of their participants. Many Russian and international conferences have been held on contemporary topical issues of the development of mankind, civilization, society, man, to summarize the lessons of the development of the 20th century and to determine the prospects and problems in the coming new, 21st century.

The same work was carried out in other CIS countries, in the former socialist countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

Marxism has again acquired the features of a movement that it had missed in the recent past, a sharply beating thought, a dispute, debatability, militancy, energy, purposefulness, progressiveness, a qualitative upsurge, and revolutionary spirit. A fresh stream of creative scientific thought confirmed such essential characteristics of Marxism, which had previously faded and noticeably lost, such as its vitality, the unity of continuity and innovation, creative innovation, reaching new qualitative frontiers of generalizations and conclusions, revolutionary spirit, striving forward.

Enormous new and difficult, complex theoretical and practical problems arose after the forcible collapse and destruction by the counter-revolution from within and without the USSR, the Eastern European socialist countries, before the remaining four socialist countries of the previously huge world socialist system - three in Asia(, Vietnam, North Korea), one in America (Cuba). Both in theory and in practice during the 1990s they convincingly proved the great ability of socialism, despite all the difficulties, to find the most effective and revolutionary ways to maintain its positions in the face of the most powerful world imperialist pressure, onslaught, threats and diktat. Even more importantly, they have shown a great ability, guided by socialist concepts being translated into modern soil, to achieve in just one or two decades colossal practical economic, social, spiritual, cultural successes, a significant rise in the living standards of the people, the well-being of working people and their families. In contrast to the terrible stagnation of the Russian Federation and other CIS countries forcibly turned to the capitalist path. The progress made is particularly relevant to China. Vietnam has made a significant breakthrough and rise in recent years. Socialist Cuba has achieved a lot.

A major role in this was played by new, innovative theoretical orientations based on the creative application of Marxism, which determined an effective practical course of economic and social reforms, changes, and changes for the benefit of the country and people. And here a really outstanding and energetic theoretical and practical role in such a rise of socialism belongs to the leaders of these countries, namely Deng Xiaoping in China, Fidel Castro in Cuba, the leadership of socialist Vietnam.

The twentieth century, with all the most difficult turns and tragedies that have taken place in the development of Marxism and socialism, ends with optimal trends of both theoretical growth, the rise of Marxism, and optimally sounding chords of the most powerful practical, real progress of the major socialist powers, demonstrating in practice the advantages of socialism over capitalism, a clear victorious the aspiration of the renewing socialism for further growth and progress in the 21st century.

Marxism develops creatively not in solitude, not in isolation, but in correlation and competition with other scientific, philosophical, historical, political-economic, sociological, political science concepts and theories that exist and take shape in human society.

Since Marxism represents an independent, original, original theory, doctrine, method, then, naturally, it does not at all claim to represent and encompass all science, philosophy, history, political economy, sociology, political science, etc., that exist in the world in general. It occupies its own and definite place in this world system of knowledge, and, therefore, it does not need to be overestimated at all, as was done in Stalin and post-Stalin times, when Marxism was presented as almost the only and final scientific knowledge in the world on any issue.

Marxism expresses and embraces a certain part of the general thought process of movement and approach to absolute truth, and because of this, it is by its nature critical, self-critical and modest.

In addition to Marxism, along with Marxism and often in opposition to Marxism, scientific research, the development of certain branches of knowledge, specific problems, from certain theoretical and methodological positions, are conducted and carried out by many other trends, trends, schools, individual and large, prominent philosophers, economists, etc. Them contribution in the general "piggy bank" of scientific, philosophical and other knowledge is also significant, interesting, brings a lot of new, additional, different, including what K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin and subsequent Marxists specifically and thoroughly weren't doing. Therefore, genuine Marxists, both with respect and with interest, and with the thirst for new knowledge inherent in scientists, actively get acquainted with all other scientific, philosophical developments and productions, study in detail the emerging scientific literature, especially on modern problems, and introducing new knowledge, additional innovations in science. .

Since the emergence of Marxism, such trends, trends and schools as structuralism, philosophical anthropology, new trends of materialism, rationalism, pragmatism, neopositivism, phenomenology, idealism, existentialism, the social philosophy of the Frankfurt school, etc. have made a significant contribution to the development of world philosophical thought. Modern Marxism develops side by side with them, using everything valuable from new philosophical developments, critically mastering and applying new, additional knowledge obtained by the global community of scientists. Similarly, unbiased and bourgeois-unorthodox, searching world scientific thought is also interested in and turns to the new creative developments of Marxism.

In a word, just as in the middle of the 19th century Marxism arose and took shape as the natural heir, legitimate successor and successor of all the best that mankind has created in science, so in the subsequent - in the first and second halves of the 20th century, at its end and new In the 21st century, Marxism is developing and must continue to develop not in isolation, not fenced off, but by mastering all the new scientific knowledge produced by mankind, especially the most advanced, the best, the most creatively original and innovative.

How can and should be designated and called Marxism at subsequent stages after its emergence, modern Marxism, embodying the methods and principles of development inherent in it, changes, adjustments, qualitatively new provisions and conclusions corresponding to the new reality, after clarification, changes, and even rejection of a number of past conclusions and provisions, not confirmed, overturned by the objective facts of the existing reality? This question is often raised and discussed, especially in recent times, including by Russian scientists.

One approach is to constantly designate it as simply Marxism, bearing in mind that, like other currents, directions of scientific, philosophical thought (for example, idealism), it does not stand still, but constantly develops, keeps pace with the times, and therefore changes, changes, renews, moves to new qualitative levels, like other directions, currents of scientific, philosophical thought. And there is a lot of reasonable and convincing in this.

Another approach expresses the desire to emphasize that this is precisely not the old, former Marxism, but the Marxism of our time, the Marxism of the modern stage of global, global, civilizational development. Namely, the second half of the 20th century, and more specifically, the end of the 20th century. In the "Theses on Feuerbach" K. Marks, emphasizing the difference from Feuerbach's contemplative materialism, spoke of "new materialism". Recent Western philosophies are also referred to as “new”, “neo”, “late”, “modern”, “modern”, etc.

The third approach is expressed in the fact that in the designation of modern scientific theory the term “Marxism” is used not as the only one (only “Marxism” or “modern Marxism”), but in combination with other elements of scientific theory. So the modern leadership of the Communist Political Party of the People's Republic of China determined that the ideology, worldview of the Communist Party is a combination of Marxism, the ideas of Mao Zedong, the contribution of Deng Xiaoping and taking into account the specific conditions People's Republic of China (PRC).

In a similar way, one can speak of modern scientific theory based on Marxism, of modern scientific theory of the Marxist type. This emphasizes that this theory is precisely a theory of a Marxist character and type, and does not break with Marxism, does not revise Marxism, does not renounce it.

The fourth approach is manifested in the fact that the name of modern scientific theory does not mention the concept of “Marxism” at all, but instead of it, for example, “scientific socialism”. This concept, instead of Marxism-Leninism, was included in the program documents of the French, Japanese, Swedish, Australian communist political parties. The reaction to Stalin's "Marxism-Leninism" is understandable, but genuine Marxism is much broader than scientific socialism, scientific communism, which is only a part of the theory of Marxism, mainly concerning the development of society, the transition and creation of socialism and communism, the predicted future of mankind. At the same time, materialist dialectics with the doctrine of contradictions and antagonisms, the method and theory of cognition of Marxism, etc. fall out of the richest and most comprehensive teaching of Marxism. Thus, the use of the concept of scientific instead of Marxism cannot be considered successful.

Fifth approaches generally dissolve Marxism among other scientific directions, tendencies and currents. This is especially characteristic of the programs and theoretical guidelines of the social-democratic, centrist-socialist and right-wing socialist political parties, including those in the Russian Federation. Often referring to adherence to the entire heritage of world socialist thought, to the entire world intellectual wealth, these political parties and movements are actually moving away from Marxism, breaking with genuine Marxism.

From such a bashful gap with Marxism one or more steps to complete failure, gap with Marxism, revision and revision of Marxism. This is no longer Marxism, but revisionism.

Yes, Marxism is not a dogma, but a developing and changing, modernizing theory. K. Marx himself opposed the transformation of his teaching “into a historical-philosophical theory about the universal path along which all peoples are fatally doomed to go, no matter what the historical conditions in which they find themselves ...”

But in Marxism, at the same time, there are such cornerstone, fundamental, essential scientific provisions, conclusions and principles, without which Marxism already ceases to be Marxism, with all its significant creative change and improvement. These, in our opinion, are the following (of course, in their essential features, and not in details and specific forms):

Materialistic dialectics with the doctrine of contradictions and antagonisms;

Recognition of the knowability of the world as opposed to agnosticism;

The doctrine of the basic contradiction of the entire modern era between capital and labor, which objectively determines the main course of modern history;

Surplus value theory;

An objective need not only for an explanation of the world, but also for its qualitative, and in this sense revolutionary, change;

The essence of the objectively and subjectively determined change and reorganization of the world lies in the elimination of the capitalist and any other system of exploitation, oppression, social injustice, alienation of peoples, people from authorities, property, from free labor, culture, amateur performances;

The subjects of change and the new structure of society, civilization, own human life are the working classes and social groups, the totality of people of wage labor, the peoples of all countries;

The objectively acting trend of the socialization of the economic and social conditions of life is steadily leading to an increase in the socialization of society, to a decisive turn and a revolutionary transition from an exploitative and unjust capitalism to a socially just and humane socialist structure of society;

The objectively maturing and subjectively realizable turn to the path of socialism and communism in various concrete incarnations and practical variations in the main essential and general features means a consistent, step-by-step establishment authorities working people, possession and disposal, management and self-government of their property, approval people's power and freedom, free labor for oneself and wages according to work, ensuring the growth of people's well-being in material, everyday, cultural relations, the formation of a versatile, meaningful lifestyle of citizens, collectivist, comradely, humane social relations, international friendship and cooperation of peoples;

The highest goal of socialism and communism is the free, all-round, integral development of man: the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all.

Preserving, with all their development, change, improvement, these fundamental provisions of the Marxist doctrine, the creatively developed, modernized Marxism itself may well, in our opinion, be designated, called both at the end of the 20th century and in the 21st century classically as Marxism, as modern Marxism , modern Marxist scientific theory, as a modern scientific theory based on Marxism, as a modern scientific theory of the Marxist type.

The main thing is that its essence, essence, living spirit, vitality, great energy and conviction, indefatigable faith in the strength and great deeds of man and peoples, in their excellent destiny, optimistic striving forward, into the future, which are inherent in Marxism, should be invariably preserved, only expanding and deepening.

This is the reliability, inviolability, prospects and future of creative living Marxism.

Marxism and communism

Marxism is a science, a doctrine, a worldview, at the same time a theory and ideology, an integral system of scientific views and worldview. But K. Marx constantly considered this scientific character in connection with practice, sought to combine it with practice, really influenced social practice, the revolutionary movement with scientific conclusions and discoveries. According to F. Engels, said at the funeral of K. Marx, “Marx made independent discoveries in every field that he explored, even in the field of mathematics, and there were a lot of such areas, and he did not study any of them superficially. .. But this was far from the main thing in him. Science was for Marx a historically driving, revolutionary force. Whatever living joy each new discovery in any theoretical science, the practical application of which sometimes could not even be foreseen, brought him, his joy was completely different when it came to a discovery that immediately had a revolutionary impact on, on historical development in general.

All the main theoretical discoveries and scientific developments of K. Marx, and above all the doctrine of capital and labor, the theory of surplus value, the theory of classes and civil war, were connected with practice, aimed at practice. But the closest connection between theory and practice is expressed in the teachings of K. Marx (together with F. Engels) on socialism and communism, in a special dialectical relationship and unity of Marxism and communism, socialism.

Marxism is precisely and above all a doctrine, a scientific conception and theory. It is formed on the basis of a deep study and scientific explanation of the existing reality, the surrounding world. But at the same time, it is aimed at changing, improving the real world by resolving its inherent antagonisms and deepest contradictions. It deeply and from the very beginning contains the inseparability, the unity of theory and practice with the prevalence, the dominance of precisely science, theory, and teaching.

Marxism is a doctrine that has its own specific content, concepts, provisions, conclusions and characteristics, aimed at embodiment and is actually embodied in a practical revolutionary movement, in social practice, in a revolutionary, creative reorganization, change and improvement of the world, civilization society, the individual himself.

The product and, one might say, the result of Marxism is communism. This is also part of Marxism, for communism, socialism is a doctrine, science, and practical social, revolutionary movement, the practice of constructive embodiment of a theoretical concept and theoretical positions in real earthly reality.

As F. Engels noted, "communism is the doctrine of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat." K. Marx and F. Engels emphasized in the "German Ideology" that "communism is an extremely practical movement pursuing practical goals with the help of practical means ...". "We call communism the real movement which destroys the present state."

F. Engels described communism in detail: “Communism is not, but a movement. He proceeds not from principles, but from facts. Communists have as their premise not this or that philosophy, but the whole course of previous history and, in particular, its present actual results in civilized countries. Communism is a consequence of large-scale industry and its satellites: the emergence of the world market and the resulting unbridled competition; increasingly destructive, ever more generalized trade crises, which have now definitively become crises of the world market; the formation of the proletariat and the concentration of capital; the resulting civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Communism, insofar as it is a theory, is the theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat in this struggle and the theoretical generalization of the conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. These characteristics of communism are true to this day.

We can say that communism is a practical real social and revolutionary movement for liberation from the exploitation and oppression of the working class and all working people through the transition from capitalism to socialism, the creative practice of building a socialist and communist society, based on the Marxist doctrine of socialism and communism, arising from integral system of views of Marxism.

Between Marxism and communism there is both a common, unifying, one thing, and a different, special, distinguishing them from each other.

What is common - from the point of view of science, theory, teaching - is that communism is an organic part of Marxism, enters into Marxism, is united by Marxism. Because the whole of Marxism expresses the dialectical continuity, the dialectical unity of theory and practice.

From the point of view of differences and distinctions, Marxism and communism express, as it were, different qualitative stages of this unity of theory and practice. In Marxism, scientific theory, based on practice, oriented towards practical changes and transformations, and embodied in practice, has the advantage, the advantage. In communism, the initial part of which is Marxist theory, the preponderance, priority and dominance belongs to practice - the practical social movement and the struggle for the emancipation of labor, the practical revolutionary transition from the dominance of capital to the dominance of labor, the practical creation of socialist and communist reality.

Communism is a qualitatively special component of Marxism, concentrated on social, revolutionary, creative practice, and therefore completing Marxism and, as a predominant practice, going beyond it in the form of an independent practical movement. That is why communism is more practically dangerous for capitalism, for the bourgeoisie, than Marxism.

Marxism and communism are embodied in the historical subject of theory and practice - the working class, all working people, the masses of the people, in the subjective actions of working people and peoples. But it is precisely and especially communism, socialism that is embodied and realized in practice by the subjective actions of working people and peoples, with the advantage of liberation from the exploitation and oppression of capital, for the independent, amateur practical creation of a new socialist and communist society.

Marxism as an ideology

In the light of what has been said above, Marxism appears as a negation of capitalism within the total social process, but not on the basis of substance, not within the framework of the actual production process, but on the basis of the functions of capital, with their help. Here, the functional aspects of the total process of social production as a whole, as it were, fall upon one of its elements (or several elements).

Marxism is the ideology of a holistic functional rejection of capital.

It turns out that Marxism is objectively the ideology of those social groups that embody in their being the functional aspects of capitalism as opposed to the substantive ones, and deny the latter from the standpoint of the former. Marx erroneously considered the proletariat to be the personifier of the functional negation of capitalism, with which he erroneously identified the European, primarily English, lower classes of the first third of the 19th century. The capitalist, formational proletariat is in fact the personification of substance, the agent of capital as content, and acts within it. That is why the social democratic movement only initially opposed the capitalist order, and then gradually integrated into them, since the contradiction, negation here takes place within the framework of one quality - substance, and therefore cannot be complete: this would mean self-negation, the social suicide of the worker. class.

The struggle of the workers of the core of the capitalist system against capital under the banner of Marxism was not so much a political movement adequate to Marxism, but the result of a temporary, due to the underdevelopment of capitalism itself, the coincidence of not yet complete isolation, the dismemberment of two fundamentally different forms of social negation - intra-capitalist, within the framework of capital itself (reified labor) as a substance, on the one hand, and anti-capitalist - the denial of capital as a substance of its social function - on the other. It can be said that for a long time the functional negation of capital within capitalism itself manifested itself in an inadequate substantive form and (or) coincided with an inadequate form. However, as capitalism developed, the basis for this became thinner and disappeared. Milestones of this process - ideological and organizational social democracy and Marxism at the turn of XIX-XX centuries. (revisionism against orthodoxy in the West, Menshevism against Bolshevism, especially in its extreme, neo-Bolshevik - Leninist - form in the Russian Federation), the collapse of the Second International during the First World wars, Austro-Marxism, and, finally, Bad Godesberg (1959), who formally recorded the death of "orthodox Marxism" and anti-capitalism of "workers' parties". I. Wallerstein “at the suggestion” of N. Elias rightly calls this variety “Marxism of parties”, but mistakenly mixes Kautsky, Lenin and Stalin, social democratic and communist political parties into one heap, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the non-party nature of the communist political party, their imperious content and taking form for content.

In the core, in the center of the capitalist system, where capital is strong primarily as a substance, its functional negation in general has very little chance of success (- 1871, Republic of Germany- 1918, 1923) and can exist only for the time being as an element of intra-capitalist "stage denials". Another thing is the semi-periphery and periphery, where the functional aspects of capital are strong, while it is substantively weak; where capital appears primarily as a function, often - in a non-capitalist or early capitalist form - and where capitalist exploitation itself is functional in nature and develops on the basis not so much of local pre-industrial productive forces as of world market and industrial productive forces of the center. As a result, despite the weakness or even the absence of local capitalist substance, the contradiction between the substance and the function of capital is acute, and the function is much stronger and more autonomous than in the center. In such a situation, a complete separation of the function from the substance, the acquisition of independence by it and the creation of an adequate structure that denies it is fundamentally possible. Since negation is functional, the original social content of the agent of negation does not matter.

As a result, Marxism as an ideology finds an adequate social situation for itself on the semi-periphery of the world capitalist system, does not depend rigidly and directly on the social nature of the personifier of negation and on the level of development of the productive forces of a given society (remember Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc.). Genetically, Marxism becomes the ideology of seizing power (the state), and functionally (or negatively meaningful) - the ideology of ensuring industrial development on an anti-capitalist basis within a nationally limited framework (separation of function from substance on a global scale under industrial capitalism, namely, its contradictions and initially expresses Marxism as an ideology is impossible). At the same time, ideology loses its ideological characteristics and turns into a negative ideology as a phenomenon of power-knowledge, the universalistic claims of which become a factor in the legitimacy of the existence of this power in a nationally limited space. This is what Marxism-Leninism is, i.e. Marxism, which has turned into power-knowledge, has lost the features of ideology and is fighting non-Marxist ideologies not only as non-Marxist, but also as ideologies, more precisely, as Ideology.

"Marxism-Leninism" denies the "non-Leninist forms of Marxism" not individually, not as side by side, but as a whole, as a whole, as an Ideology. Being a correlate of the communist system, i.e. omnipotence of power, “the power of power” (kratocracy), which removed in itself, in the same Marxist language, “the contradiction between the base and the superstructure” and found itself on the other side of their dichotomy, “Marxism-Leninism” cannot tolerate and denies any ideological form, since it automatically, by the very fact of its existence, undermines the foundations of its existence. At the same time, outwardly, in form, “Marxism-Leninism” had to remain and remain an ideology - just as the non-state structure of the USSR, which denies statehood, had to act outwardly, in form, as with all external attributes. These are the rules of the game - the Great Game - of the world capitalist system: any sovereign political structure, in order to be allowed into the game, must act as an element of the interstate system, i.e. State, at least outwardly. Similarly, any ideological system of Modernity - “pre-ideological”, “anti-ideological” or “non-ideological” - must act as an ideology.

This applies not only to “Marxism-Leninism”, but, for example, to such forms as nationalism or Islamism. Nationalism itself is not an ideology. However, in the ideologized field of Modernity, it automatically turns into an ideology. More precisely, it acquires its external attributes and claims an ideological status.

If nationalism historically arose in the West in the modern era, i.e. in that place and in that time with which ideology is historically closely connected, and which are the socio-cultural “magnetic field” that gave rise to ideology as a phenomenon, then Islamism has nothing to do with all this. Its religious, integralist and anti-Western character contains nothing ideological. However, since Islamism arose as a reaction to the ideological and socio-cultural pressure of the West, capitalism, since it acts as an ideological and political means of struggle in the modern world capitalist system, it acquires ideological features functionally, negatively and formally. Western universalist ideology - be it liberalism or Marxism, Islamism is opposed as an ideology. True, as Modernity fades into the past and in connection, if not with the decline, then with the weakening of the universalist ideologies of liberalism and Marxism, anti-Western ideological currents, apparently, will less and less try on ideological clothes and will appear in an ethno-civilizational or religious form adequate to them - this already quite distinct. The Iranian revolution of 1979 is an example and illustration of this.

In the ideologized world of Modernity, even such ideological and political phenomena, structures and institutions that essentially arose as a negation of ideology, as anti-ideology, acquired an ideological form. And this discrepancy was an internal system-forming contradiction of these phenomena, structures and institutions. It is easy to see that the discrepancy and contradiction in question re-mirrorly reproduce within the forms that have arisen on the basis of the discrepancy between the substance and the function of capital, on the basis of the contradiction between substance and function, these very discrepancy and contradiction, internalize them, turning them into an internal contradiction. negative-functional forms. But this contradiction already appears as such between the content (anti-capitalist) and the form (capitalist, bourgeois), which they are forced to accept in accordance with the logic of the functioning of the world capitalist whole, in which they are inscribed, albeit with a minus sign. This applies to "Marxism-Leninism" as well.

It was in the form of "Marxism-Leninism", which then transformed into "Maoism", "Juche", etc., that Marxism successfully spread to the semi-periphery and periphery. Especially in those countries Asia, where ideological (“religious-ethical”) systems fixed the rigid consolidation of group social roles and full-scale regulation of their power, i.e. were "power-knowledge" genetically, on a "pre-capitalist" basis, and not as a negation of capitalism and its ideologies. “Under-ideology”, so to speak, and “post-ideology”, “hyper-ideology” coincided negatively - like “Asiatic modes of production” and “real communism”. But this is far from the only reason for the success of “Marxism” (“Marxism-Leninism”) in the non-European world.

The issue is the following. Being such a critical social theory and ideology that arose at the intersection of several lines of social, economic and ideological and political development and reflected the interaction (positive and negative) between different types of historical systems (and between systems of the same type) - European civilization, bourgeois society and world capitalist system, Marxism could objectively be used as a means of ideological negation and, within its framework, a social theoretical analysis of any of these systems. Being anti-capitalist, it could become the basis and tool for criticizing European capitalism (capitalism of the “core”) both “from within” and “from without”, from the positions of the world system - both as a whole and from the “point of view” of its peripheral and semi-peripheral elements ( pre-capitalist and non-capitalist). At the same time, without serious violation of its internal logic, Marxism can be used as a means of criticizing the world system and capitalism from the positions of both European civilization and non-European civilizations. Finally, it could be used to criticize European civilization from the standpoint of the capitalist system as a whole.

In other words, thanks to functional anti-capitalism, Marxism acquired the features of substantive anti-Westernism (“anti-imperialism”), realized through a system of ideas that was Western in origin. To paraphrase K. Leontiev, who described the Czechs as a weapon that the Slavs recaptured from the Germans and directed against them, we can say that Marxism is a weapon that the Non-West (first of all, Russia, and then the East) recaptured from the West and against it sent; this is the weapon that non-capitalism has recaptured from capitalism and directed against it: "Go, poisoned, to your destination." But the point is that in the course of "repelling" and changing the direction of the blow, the most serious qualitative changes occur with Marxism both as Marxism and as an ideology. First, it ceases to be Marxism; specific, one of the three ideologies of the Great Ideological Triangle of Modernity, ceases to be a purely Western ideological and political form. Secondly, as already mentioned, it generally ceases to be an ideology in content, and to a large extent in function; only the form remained, and even then not in everything.

At the same time, it should be noted that such transformations were (were) possible only with Marxism, with Marxism. It seems that only in the course of these transformations, through them and on their basis, could the complete total denial of capitalism, characteristic of Marxism, be realized in practice, its “genetic” program could be realized. Only in this way could the ideology of Marxism be realized in practice; through self-denial. It seems that there was something in Marxism that, in order to fully realize it in practice as Marxism, required overcoming its ideological nature, no matter what Marx himself thought about this. Apparently, in Marxism itself, the non-ideological was a very important, but unmanifested component, it was a hidden transcript. Some researchers see the ideological nature of Marxism and Leninism in this and oppose its ideology, in the strict sense of the word, to liberalism and conservatism. In my opinion, the situation is exactly the opposite. Exactly liberalism and conservatism were ideologies, at least in terms of their implementation in practice.

liberalism and conservatism realized themselves in practice, without ceasing to be ideologies, without disappearing as specific qualitative certainties. This speaks not only of their specifics, but also of the specifics of Marxism itself and its place in the Western System, or, more narrowly, in the “civilization of the nineteenth century,” and the specifics of its role in the world capitalist system. It's more about specifics. One of them is that Marxism arose later than the other two ideologies. Not much later, but in the conditions of the turbulent and dynamic XIX century. this “not much” - two decades - is worth a lot. and liberalism arose "deep" in the revolutionary era of 1789-1848, they (even liberalism) still bear a strong imprint of local Europeanism, they are not yet so close to the edge beyond which the transformation, historically almost instantaneous, of "local Europe" into “world West”, they are relatively far from the “bifurcation point”, after which the “European locus” has turned into the center of the “world globe”. Marxism is not just close to this point, but in fact in it. Or almost there. In this (but only in this!) sense, Marxism is the most modern and global of modern ideologies, in many ways the most quintessential, not to mention the most revolutionary ideology. The possession of so many qualities made Marxism exceptionally dense, saturated, internally contradictory - up to the possibility of self-negation (as an ideology) and gave it an exceptionally dynamic character, not only as an ideology, but even more so as a social theory and scientific program. But before moving on to them - the last remark, more precisely, the assumption of Marxism as an ideology.

Apparently, it was the “world” and “turning point” qualities, among other things, that contributed to the strengthening of the non-ideological (hyper-ideological - Marxism historically turned out to be not just an ideology, but the overcoming of ideology and ideological) component and potential in Marxism. This once again indicates that ideology is a European phenomenon; this is the same “European luxury” as politics. You can say this: bourgeois luxury. And the more bourgeois European society became a capitalist world system, more precisely, the core of this system, the more stress was experienced by the ideology associated with European bourgeois values. There could be two principal responses to the rise in tension.

The first is self-preservation at the level and as an ideology, which was demonstrated by liberalism and by those who, from this point of view, are in the “one league”.

The second is the overcoming of ideology, trans-ideological, hyper-ideological, “ideological surrealism”. This is the path of Marxism turning into "Marxism-Leninism", communism. But there was also an intermediate option - socialism. This is the “part” of Marxism which, having leaned on certain structures of substance at the core of the capitalist system and “hooked” on ideology (mainly liberalism), retained itself as an ideology and began its historical “hangling in the hole”. But this has only an indirect relation to Marxism.

The concept of Marxist sociology

At present, the sociology of Marxism is subjected to thorough and sometimes just criticism. But no matter how you treat it, it is one of the currents of modern sociological thought and has its supporters in many countries of the world.

The sociology of Marxism is a theory of the social development of society, created by K. Marx and F. Engels in the middle - second half of the 19th century. Its place and role in the history of sociological thought is determined by the fact that the functioning of society, the consciousness and behavior of the people living in it are analyzed, first of all, through the prism of the material conditions of their life, through contradictions and conflicts in a really existing mode of production.

This is, first of all, a materialistic understanding of history, developed on the basis of a study of the real content of the historical process, its objective laws.

First of all, two fundamental concepts should be noted.

1. Ideas are considered in the context of socio-cultural values ​​of that time and space, where and when they lived. Therefore, it is wrong to identify their views with Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc., where the authority and separately taken ideas of Marxism are used as a means to bring political ideas of various kinds to life. In a word, there is the sociology of Marxism and many post-Marxist trends, schools that are called Marxist.

2. Marx and Engels were among the first to use empirical sociological research in their theoretical works - Questionnaire for Workers, The Condition of the Working Class in England, etc.

The formation of the sociology of Marxism was influenced to one degree or another by Hegel's dialectic, as well as the political, economic and sociological views of such thinkers of the previous period as A. Smith, D. Ricardo, C.A. Saint-Simon and others. The created dialectical-materialist understanding of history gives its own explanation of the materialistic foundations of the life of society, the nature of the interaction of its main aspects, the objective direction of its development, and the role of people's conscious activity in the historical process.

Marxist sociology remains one of the most influential at the present time. It opposes many classical and modern sociological theories. Historical materialism has led to the emergence of many different explanatory versions of the historical process, to the formation of a significant set of fairly fruitful research programs. Many of them demonstrate ever-increasing possibilities in understanding social phenomena. In his claim to describe social life as the totality of Marxism, apparently, he has no equal even at the end of the 20th century.

Delving into the immediate causes that laid the foundation for the development of sociology in the so-called materialistic direction, we can divide them into two categories:

1) reasons of a general and necessary nature, and

2) the causes are partial, more random.

The following three favorable conditions should be attributed to the category of the first:

1. The high degree of development achieved by economic relations over the last century, and the importance they have acquired in all areas of public life. This heyday coincided with a marked decline in such previously dominant factors of evolution as religion and metaphysical teaching, as well as with the extreme specialization of scientific research. Not being united by an appropriate philosophy, the individual sciences could not openly claim to be the supreme directors of social progress; they influenced and acted only, so to speak, behind the scenes of history.

2. Deep, though at first glance, superficial and imperceptible changes that have taken place in the basic moral principles, in ethical generalizations, from new relations established between people, vaguely expressed, for example, in the well-known three-term formula of the French revolution: freedom, equality, fraternity. The ethical process had a sharp effect in the fall of the former, Christian, ascetic ideals of poverty, abstinence, deprivation of all kinds and in their replacement by the opposite ideals of materialistic contentment, earthly bliss and happiness.

3. Rapid advances both in the sciences of the phenomena of the inorganic and organic world, most closely related to human economic activity, and in technology based on these branches of knowledge. During the entire 19th century, this accelerated and powerful growth contrasted favorably with the backwardness of the sciences of the phenomena of the superorganic world - sociology itself and psychology derived from it. This state of affairs, by virtue of the general law of the correlation between the development of the special sciences and the evolution of philosophy, could not but be reflected in the prevailing worldviews.

Indeed, modern philosophy, both in positivism and in evolutionism and neo-criticism, and even in the teachings of the left wing of Hegelianism (let us not forget that Herzen, Bakunin, Proudhon and others came from it) received its internal justification from a number of more perfect, so-called natural Sciences. In the latest philosophical systems, which have had an influence on the mass of minds, one can clearly feel the materialistic or sensationalistic one-sidedness (corresponding to the power of the physical, chemical and biological sciences). Idealism, in the strict sense of the word, enjoyed success only in small circles; and his success was transient, fragile. In general, with the exception of the first third of the century, and even then only in Germany, idealism in the nineteenth century was not deep; it easily degenerated into spiritualism, into mysticism and played the role, at least, for example, in the Russian Federation, of a temporary reaction against extreme enthusiasm for opposing views.

If we take into account that the general nature of human practical activity is directly affected not by special knowledge, but by its expressor, philosophy, then one cannot be surprised that this activity disposed minds to perceive and assimilate sociological theories of a predominantly materialistic and sensationalist nature. The same influences explain both the initial confusion of sociology with political economy (which, by the way, gave Marxism almost two-thirds of its content), and the relative success of the biological, anthropogeographical, and, especially, ethnological schools in sociology. Marx's teaching was the logical conclusion of all previous development, the conclusion from the totality of scientific truths and errors widespread in his time. Thus, the question of the intrinsic value of economic materialism inevitably turns into a question of the value of its theoretical, philosophical, and sociological premises.

The particular and already more accidental causes that have led to the strong and rapid growth of economic materialism are very numerous.

In his early writings, Marx showed interest in the concept of alienation; this theme, in one context or another, runs through many of his subsequent works. Marx is widely known for his views on the relationship between economic life and other social institutions. His interests were based, first of all, on the analysis of the life of societies organized into social classes. Marx's theory of social change finds expression in the theory of the civil war, which, he claims, is the "engine of history"; this idea so deeply permeates the work of Marx that Marxist theory in Western sociology is sometimes called simply "the theory of conflict."

Dialectical materialism and sociology

The fundamental question, which is of paramount importance for sociology, is the question of the interaction of material and spiritual values ​​in the life of society.

Marx put forward and substantiated that independent variable, which, in his opinion, plays a decisive role - the mode of material production. At the same time, he defended the position of the primacy of being in relation to social consciousness, not in the sense of the appearance in time first of the first, and then of the second, but in terms of recognizing the decisive role of the first in the process of interaction. The starting point for the analysis of all societies for Marx was the elucidation of the state of the productive forces, scientific and technical knowledge, and material relations between people. Ideas, the subjective aspirations of people, are a reflection, first of all, of these relations and therefore cannot act as the main, decisive factor in social change. “The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness”

Perhaps no other position, like this (both in the past and now), is subjected to the most intense criticism that Marx proceeds from economic determinism, i.e. explains the emergence of certain social structures and relations, political and cultural institutions entirely from the trend of economic development, although in life one can often observe feedbacks, because the noted phenomena themselves affect the economy, the nature of real production.

One may or may not agree with Marx's opponents, but it is obvious that a sharp emphasis on the role of the mode of production of material life voluntarily or involuntarily detracts from the significance of cultural, spiritual, and religious values ​​in the development of society. It should be noted that many Soviet and other followers of Marxism so absolutized this Marxist idea that they completely ignored the important role of cultural values. At the same time, in the statements of Marx himself, the desire to reduce the action of all factors of social life to only one - economic, is not negated, their interaction is not denied. Moreover, during his lifetime, Marx himself in every possible way denied economic determinism, stating that economic necessity cannot be interpreted as if only it is an active factor, and everything else is just a passive consequence.

Marx was the first sociologist who viewed society as an objective, self-developing reality. The source of this self-development is contradictions and conflicts, primarily in material life. “At a certain stage of its development,” he writes, “the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production, or—which is only the legal expression of the latter—with the property relations within which they have hitherto developed. From the forms of development of the productive forces, these relations are transformed into their fetters. Then comes the epoch of social revolution... Consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between social productive forces and production relations.

Three key points should be noted. The driving force behind the development of society is the contradiction between the productive forces and production relations. The social revolution is not a political accident, but a natural manifestation of historical necessity. The consciousness of people reflects real life contradictions. In other words, regardless of the subjective desires of individuals, the ruling elites, the masses think and act depending on the nature of the contradictions, primarily in material life. Contradictions and conflicts change - the forms of people's thinking change accordingly, values ​​occur. If the material interests of the masses are constantly not taken into account, if the contradictions grow and deepen, then a revolutionary consciousness arises, setting the masses in motion, and through the social revolution a radical change, a qualitative renewal of social relations takes place.

This view of society entered the history of social thought as dialectical materialism. It was applied by Marx to a concrete analysis of the capitalism of his time. “Bourgeois production relations,” he noted, “are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production, antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but in the sense of antagonism growing out of the social conditions of life of individuals; but the productive forces developing in the depths of bourgeois society at the same time create the material conditions for resolving this antagonism. Therefore, the prehistory of human society ends with the bourgeois social formation.

So, according to Marx, at a certain level of development of the productive forces, bourgeois relations become an obstacle to progress, which is removed as a result of the social revolution. At the same time, in the last years of his life, Marx also looked for alternative options that are directly related to the sociological analysis of the emerging new realities of the capitalist system. Thus, in the third volume of Capital, he noted serious transformations in the very mode of production of capitalist society. Here are some, in our opinion, the most significant excerpts that have not been subjected to serious scientific analysis in the dogmatic versions of Marxism.

“Establishment of joint-stock companies. Thereby:

1. The colossal expansion of the scale of production and the emergence of enterprises that were impossible for an individual capitalist. At the same time, such enterprises, which used to be government-owned, are becoming public.

2. Capital, which itself rests on the social mode of production and presupposes a concentration of the means of production and labor power, receives here the direct form of social capital (the capital of directly associated individuals), in contrast to private capital, and its enterprises act as public enterprises as opposed to private enterprises. It is the abolition of capital as private property within the framework of the capitalist mode of production itself.

3. The transformation of a truly functioning capitalist into a simple manager who manages other people's capital ... ”Osipov G.V., Tulchinsky M.R., Kabyshcha A.V. and others. “Sociology”, a textbook for higher educational institutions - M .: Science, 2002 - 105 p.

Marx only had time to outline these problems. But even their mere mention indicates that the sociologist has realized the emergence of a qualitatively new society, to which the characteristics of traditional capitalism cannot be uncritically applied. It is by no means accidental that after the death of Marx, Engels emphasized with particular force that in the sociology of Marxism, it is not these or those separately taken propositions that are valuable, but the dialectical-materialist approach to the analysis of society.

Thus, Marx establishes a rather unambiguous and convincingly interpreted connection between the economic life of society and all other social institutions. Since the time of Marx in sociology, the very concept of "materialism" has a specific meaning in relation to those theories in which economic relations are the basic cause of all social phenomena.

Sociology of classes and civil war

Karl Marx and Max Weber were the first to try to explain the nature of social stratification. The sociological theory of Marxism includes a systematic analysis of classes, social relations and civil war. According to Marx, a person's belonging to a class, his social interests are conditioned, first of all, by economic relations.

Marx believed that in capitalist societies the cause of social stratification is the division into those who own and manage the most important means of production, the oppressor capitalist class, or bourgeoisie, and those who can only sell their labor, the oppressed working class, or proletariat. According to Marx, these two groups and their diverging interests are the basis of the stratification. In all societies known to him, the nature of these relations was such that the social position of the overwhelming majority of individuals was rather strictly regulated from the moment of their birth until their death. This state of affairs did not in principle exclude a certain social mobility. But it was limited only to individual individuals, which did not have a significant impact on social life as a whole. Class division led to the fact that some groups of people, due to their social position, had material, political and other privileges, while others, on the contrary, were deprived of what was necessary for existence and survival. Marx saw social polarization as the source of class antagonism, the root cause of the civil war. Thus, according to Marx, people are commodity society and, above all, the objective position in the production process. But, being involved in a civil war, they themselves become the creators of society. Such is the general view of classes and civil war, which, however, was never a dogma for Marx and was substantially corrected in accordance with changing social realities.

In the works of the initial period, Marx emphasizes rigid social differentiation, the nature of which led to a clearly pronounced division of all people into two groups - the oppressors and the oppressed, and is interpreted by him as nothing more than the core of the historical process. From these positions, the sociologist characterizes contemporary capitalist society as an antagonistic society - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are the main forces that enter into an irreconcilable struggle with each other. In addition to these classes, there are many more intermediate groups in capitalist society - artisans, merchants, peasants and others.

In subsequent works - "Civil in France" "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" - Marx analyzes the social structure of capitalist society in more detail, highlighting the industrial, financial, commercial, petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the proletariat and the lumpen-proletariat. At the same time, he introduces clarifying class criteria, noting only the attitude to the means of production, but also the commonality of activity, ways of thinking and way of life. Particularly important for isolating a class, according to Marx, is the awareness of belonging to social unity, the feeling of different interests from the interests of other groups, the presence of the will to act together. He emphasized that the difference in class interests stems not from the subjective thinking of individuals, but from their objective position in society and, above all, in the production process. People may not be aware of their class interests and yet be guided by them in their actions.

Sociology of revolution

Marx allowed various forms of civil war. He did not deny the importance of peaceful forms of struggle within the trade union movement, but believed that the reformist struggle, at least in the early period of the development of capitalism, would not solve the problem of antagonism, would not lead to overcoming the alienation of workers from the means of production. He saw the cardinal solution of the problem in the social revolution.

Marx's views on this problem, especially their evolution, have not yet been deeply analyzed and studied. Widely known are his words “revolutions are the locomotives of history” Win F. “Karl Marx.” - M.: AST (Historical Library)., 2003 - 322 p. and at the same time, his thoughts that the revolutionary struggle is difficult to regulate, that its final results often turn out to be little similar to the goals declared by the revolutionaries, are not in demand. And Engels directly pointed out that "in any revolution, a lot of stupid things are inevitably done."

Marx considered the question of power to be the main question of the revolution. This is a very multifaceted problem, which by no means was reduced by the sociologist to the idea of ​​the dictatorship of the proletariat, as it was presented in “Soviet” Marxism. First of all, we should touch on what elements of political reality Marxist sociology refers to power. In the early works of Marx and Engels, the vital activity of civil society was characterized as "the true center and arena of all history." And in more mature works, emphasizing the unity of civil society and the state, they directly indicated that the first acts as content, and the second as form: “At least in recent history, the state, the political system, is subordinate, and civil society , the realm of economic relations, -- a decisive element. According to the old view of the state ... it was considered, on the contrary, the defining element, and civil society - the determined element”

At the same time, Marx and Engels noted that the actual state, it will never provide freedom; on the contrary, true freedom is possible only where there is an emancipated civil society capable of dictating its will to the state. “Freedom consists,” said the Critique of the Gotha Program, “to transform the state from an organ standing above society into an organ entirely subordinate to this society.” And again: “All the needs of civil society - no matter what class currently dominates - inevitably passed through the will of the state, so that in the form laws gain universal significance ... The state will, in general, is determined by the changing needs of civil society ”Kautsky K.“ Towards a Criticism of the Theory and Practice of Marxism ”

Very contradictory and one-sided are the interpretations of Marx's ideas about the "breakdown" of the bourgeois state in the process of revolution. In the works of the early 50s. Marx unreservedly defended the idea of ​​“breaking” and, in particular, wrote: “All revolutions improved this maina instead of breaking it.” Later, however, Marx and Engels noted the “turning point” that is significant for the characterization of power, from which the tendency to separate the state from the economically dominant class arises and develops: the bourgeoisie “loses the ability to exercise exclusive political dominion; she is looking for allies with whom, depending on the circumstances, she either shares her dominance or concedes it entirely. Such a state no longer needs to be “broken”, but “remade”: “It is just an indication that the victorious proletariat must remake the bureaucratic, administrative-centralized apparatus before it can use it for its own purposes”

An important place in the Marxist sociology of revolution is occupied by the idea of ​​the “withering away” of the state, which was constantly corrected and polished. According to Marx, the necessary stage on the path to stateless self-government is the establishment of the political power of the working class in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. However, on the basis of an analysis of the concrete revolutionary experience of the Paris Commune, Marx realized many of the negative aspects of the very short practice of the dictatorship of the proletariat, essentially revising a number of his previous considerations. Thus, in his work “The Class Struggle in France”, he concluded that the violence of any social groups against others, in the end, turns into a lack of freedom for everyone; that the working class must henceforth wage its struggle "in the most rational and humane way." At the same time, it was important for Marx that state power has a complex, at least dual nature: it is not only an instrument with which the economically dominant class also becomes the politically dominant class, but also a mechanism for performing general administrative tasks, arising from the nature of any society.

Thus, if you look at Marx's sociology of revolution from different time frames, then you can find contradictions, ambiguities, and just mistakes in it. Some of them, in accordance with the changing practice of life, were corrected by Marx himself; Engels corrected something after his death, but something simply did not stand the test of time - the absolutization of the social class antagonisms of his time, the belittling of the role of formal democracy, the interpretation of democracy as a historically transient phenomenon, etc.

Philosophy of Marxism

General concept of Marxist philosophy

Marxist philosophy was created jointly by two German scientists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the second half of the 19th century. and is an integral part of a broader doctrine - Marxism, which, along with philosophy, includes economics (political economy) and socio-political issues (scientific communism).

The philosophy of Marxism provided answers to many burning questions of its time. It became widespread (left Germany, became international) in the world and gained great popularity in the late 19th - first half of the 20th centuries.

In a number of countries (the USSR, the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa), Marxist philosophy was elevated to the rank of official state ideology and was turned into a dogma.

An urgent task for today's Marxism is the liberation from dogmas and adaptation to the modern era, taking into account the results of the scientific and technological revolution and the reality of a post-industrial society.

Prerequisites for the emergence of Marxism and Marxist philosophy

The emergence of Marxism and Marxist philosophy was facilitated by:

the previous materialistic philosophy (Democritus, Epicurus, the English materialists of the 17th century - Bacon, Hobbes and Locke, the French enlighteners of the 18th century, and especially the atheistic-materialist philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach of the middle of the 19th century);

the rapid growth of discoveries in science and technology (discovery laws conservation of matter and energy, the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin, the discovery of the cellular structure of living organisms, wire telegraph, steam locomotive, steamer, automobile, photography, numerous discoveries in the field of production and labor);

the collapse of the ideals of the Great French Revolution (freedom, equality, fraternity, the ideas of the French Enlightenment), their impossibility of implementation in real life;

the growth of social class contradictions and conflicts (revolution of 1848-1849, reaction, wars, Paris Commune 1871);

A crisis traditional bourgeois values ​​(the transformation of the bourgeoisie from a revolutionary into a conservative force, a crisis bourgeois marriage and morality).

Sources of Marxist Philosophy

The main works of the founders of Marxism are:

"Theses on Feuerbach" by K. Marx;

"capital" of K. Marx;

"Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844" K. Marx;

"Manifesto of the Communist Political Party" by K. Marx and F. Engels;

"The Holy Family" and "German Ideology" by K. Marx and F. Engels;

"Dialectics of Nature" by F. Engels;

"Anti-Dühring" by F. Engels;

"The role of labor in the process of turning a monkey into a man" by F. Engels;

"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" by F. Engels.

Dialectical and historical materialism are the main directions of Marxist philosophy.

Marxist philosophy is materialistic in nature and consists of two large sections - dialectical materialism and historical materialism (often historical materialism is considered as part of dialectical).

materialistic understanding of history. Socio-economic formations.

The philosophical innovation of K. Marx and F. Engels was the materialistic understanding of history (historical materialism). The essence of historical materialism is as follows:

at each stage of social development, in order to ensure their livelihoods, people enter into special, objective, production relations that do not depend on their will (the sale of their own labor, material production, distribution);

production relations, the level of productive forces form the economic system, which is the basis for the institutions of the state and society, social relations;

these state and public institutions, social relations act as a superstructure in relation to the economic basis;

base and superstructure mutually influence each other;

depending on the level of development of the productive forces and production relations, a certain type of base and superstructure, socio-economic formations are distinguished - the primitive communal system (low level of production forces and production relations, the beginnings of society); slave-owning society (the economy is based on slavery); the Asian mode of production is a special socio-economic formation, the economy of which is based on the mass, collective, tightly controlled by the state labor of free people - farmers in the valleys of large rivers (Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China); feudalism (the economy is based on large land ownership and the labor of dependent peasants); capitalism (based on the labor of free, but non-owners of the means of production wage workers); socialist (communist) society - a society of the future, based on the free labor of equal people with state (public) ownership of the means of production;

an increase in the level of production forces leads to a change in production relations and a change in socio-economic formations and the socio-political system;

the level of the economy, material production, production relations determine the fate of the state and society, the course of history.

Economic direction of Marxist philosophy.

Marx and Engels also distinguished and developed the following concepts:

means of production;

alienation;

surplus value;

exploitation of man by man.

Means of production - unique product, a higher-level function of labor that allows the production of a new product. For the production of a new product, in addition to the means of production, a force serving them is needed - the so-called "labor force".

In the course of the evolution of capitalism, there is a process of alienation of the main working mass from the means of production and, consequently, from the results of labor. The main product - the means of production - is concentrated in the hands of a few owners, and the bulk of the working people, who do not have the means of production and independent sources of income, in order to meet their vital needs, are forced to turn to the owners of the means of production as hired labor for wages.

The value of the goods produced by hired labor is higher than the value of their labor (in the form of wages), the difference between them, according to Marx, is surplus value, part of which goes into the pocket of the capitalist, and part is invested in new means of production in order to obtain even greater surplus value in the future.

The founders of Marxist philosophy saw a way out of this situation in the establishment of new, socialist (communist) socio-economic relations, in which:

private ownership of the means of production will be abolished;

the exploitation of man by man and the appropriation of the results of other people's labor (surplus goods) by a narrow group of persons will be eliminated;

private ownership of the means of production will replace the public (state);