The Development of the Monist View of History
67. Russkoye Bogatstvo , January 1894, Part II, pp.105-06.
68. It is interesting that the opponents of Darwin long asserted, and even up to the present day have not stopped asserting, that what’s lacking in his theory is precisely a “Mont Blanc” of factual proofs. As is well known, Virchow spoke in this sense at the Congress of German Naturalists and Doctors at Munich in September 1877. Replying to him, Haeckel justly remarked that, if Darwin’s theory has not been proved by the facts which we know already, no new facts will say anything in its favour.
69. Russkoye Bogatstvo , January 1894, Part II, pp.115-16.
70. See his book, Du droit de propriété à Sparte . We are not at all concerned here with the view of the history of primitive property which it contains.
71. “Il est asset visible pour quiconque a observé le détail (precisely le détail , Mr. Mikhailovsky) et les textes, que ce sont les intérêts matériels du plus grand nombre qui en ont été le vrai mobile,” etc. ( Histoire des institutions politiques de l’ancienne France. Les origines du système féodal , Paris 1890, p.94.) [“It is sufficiently visible for anyone who has observed the details (precisely “the details,” Mr. Mikhailovsky) and the texts, that it is the material interests of the greatest number which were its true motive force,” etc. – Ed. ]
72. Russkoye Bogatstvo , January 1894, Part II, p.117.
73. As for the application of biology to the solution of social problems, Mr. Mikhailovsky’s “discoveries” date, as we have seen, in their “nature” from the 20s of the present century. Very respectable ancients are the “discoveries” of Mr. Mikhailovsky! In them the “ Russian mind and Russian soul ” truly “ repeats old stuff and lies for two .” [46*]
74. Russkoye Bogatstvo , January 1894, Part II, p.108.
75 . Ibid. , pp.113-14.
76. Montesquieu said: once the geographical environment is given, the characteristics of the social union are also given. In one geographical environment only despotism can exist, in another – only small independent republican societies, etc. No, replied Voltaire: in one and the same geographical environment there appear in the course of time various social relations, and consequently geographical environment has no influence on the historical fate of man-kind. It is all a question of the opinions of men. Montesquieu saw one side of the antinomy, Voltaire and his supporters another: the antinomy was usually resolved only with the help of interaction . Dialectical materialism recognizes, as we see, the existence of interaction, but explains it by pointing to the development of the productive forces. The antinomy which the writers of the Enlightenment could at best only hide away in their pockets, is resolved very simply, Dialectical reason , here too, proves infinitely stronger than the common sense (“reason”) of the writers of the Enlightenment.
77. After all that has been said it will be clear, we hope, what is the relation between the teaching of Marx and the teaching of Darwin. Darwin succeeded in solving the problem of how there originate vegetable and animal species in the struggle for existence. Marx succeeded in solving the problem of how there arise different types of social organization in the struggle of men for their existence. Logically, the investigation of Marx begins precisely where the investigation of Darwin ends. Animals and vegetables are under the influence of their physical environment acts on social man through those social relations which arise on the basis of the productive forces, which at first develop more or less quickly according to the characteristics of the physical environment. Darwin explains the origin of species not by an allegedly innate tendency to develop in the animal organism, as Lamarck did, but by the adaptation of the organism to the conditions existing outside it: not by the organism but by the influence of external nature . Marx explains the historical development of man not by the nature of man , but by the characteristics of those social relations between men which arise when social man is acting on external nature . The spirit of their research is absolutely the same in both thinkers. That is why one can say that Marxism is Darwinism in its application to social science (we know that chronologically this is not so, but that is unimportant). And that is its only scientific application; because the conclusions which were drawn from Darwinism by some bourgeois writers were not its scientific application to the study of the development of social man, but a mere bourgeois utopia, a moral sermon with a very ugly content, just as the subjectivists engage in sermons with a beautiful content. The bourgeois writers, when referring to Darwin, were in reality recommending to their readers not the scientific method of Darwin, but only the bestial instincts of those animals about whom Darwin wrote. Marx forgathers with Darwin : the bourgeois writers forgather with the beasts and cattle which Darwin studied .
78. We use the term “dialectical materialism” because it alone can give an accurate description of the philosophy of Marx. Holbach and Helvetius were metaphysical materialists. They fought against metaphysical idealism. Their materialism gave way to dialectical idealism , which in its turn was overcome by dialectical materialism . The expression “economic materialism” is extremely inappropriate. Marx never called himself an economic materialist.
79. “Social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which mislead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works , Vol.II, Moscow 1955, p.404.)
80. “Mit der Gründlichkeit der geschichtlichen Action wird der Umfang der Masse zunehmen, deren Action sie ist.” Marx, Die heilige Familie , p.120. (“Together with the thoroughness of the historical action will grow the volume of the mass whose action it is.” – Ed. )
81. N. Sieber, Some Remarks on the Article of Mr. Y. Zhukovsky Karl Marx and His Book on Capital ( Otechestvenniye Zapiski , November 1877, p.6).
82. N.K. Mikhailovsky, Works , Vol.II, p.356
83. In this passage Marx sets forth his materialist conception. of history.
84. N.K. Mikhailovsky, Works , Vol.II, pp.353-54.
85. Ibid. , p.357.
86. Ibid. , pp.357-58.
87. Russkoye Bogatstvo , February 1894, Part II, pp.150-51.
88. Ibid. , p.166.
89. Sketches of the Gogol Period in Russian Literature , St. Petersburg 1892, pp. 24-25. (The author in question is N.G. Chernyshevsky. – Ed. )
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Editorial Notes
36*. Lewes, George Henry (1817-1878), English bourgeois philosopher, positivist, physiologist.
37*. The reference is to Communist Manifesto by K. Marx and F. Engels.
38*. In unpublished additions Plekhanov makes the following comment on this passage: “They did not understand that it is impossible to admit Marx’s economic views and to reject his historical views: Capital is also a historical study. But Capital has been badly understood by many ‘Marxists’ too. The fate of Volume Three was that Struve, Bulgakov and Tugan-Baranovsky distorted Marx’s economic theories.” ( The Literary Legacy of G.V. Plekhanov , Coll.IV, p.223.)
39*. This refers to the famous letter Marx wrote to the editors of Otechestvenniye Zapiski at the end of 1877 about an article by one of the editors of the magazine, N.K. Mikhailovsky, Karl Marx Before the Judgement of Mr. Zhukovsky ( Otechestvenniye Zapiski , 1877, No.10). The letter was not sent and was found by Engels in Marx’s papers after his death.It was published in Vestnik Narodnoi Voli, 1886, No.5 and in the legal Yuridichseky Vestnik, 1888, No.10. The letter is usually wrongly called the letter to Mikhailovsky, although in it Marx only speaks of Mikhailovksy in the third person. (Cf. Correspondence of K. Marx and F. Engels with Russian Political Figures , Gospolitizdat Publishing House, 1951, pp.220-23.)
In his letter Marx protests against the distortion of his views, against the desire to turn his “historical sketch of the rise of capitalism in Western Europe into a historico-philosophical theory of the universal way which all peoples are fatally destined to follow, whatever historical circumstances they may find themselves in ...” It was this passage in the letter that the narodniks seized upon, interpreting it as a justification for their hopes of a peculiar way of development for Russia. (Cf. N.K. Mikhailovsky, Collected Works , Vol.VII, St. Petersburg 1909, p.327.)
40*. Marx speaks of the French Mmaterialists of the 18th century in The Holy Family , in the section Critical Battle Against French Materialism of the chapter Absolute Criticism’s Third Campaign , see also in German Ideology .
41*. In 1892 Mikhailovsky wrote in Russkaya Mysl , No.6, p.90, that Marx’s philosophical theory is “expounded in the sixth chapter of Capital under the modest title So-Called Primitive Accumulation .” (Cf. N.K. Mikhailovsky, Collected Works , Vol.VII, St. Petersburg 1909, p.321.)
42*. From the Russian soldiers’ song which derided Russian incapable generals (General read among them) during the Crimean war (1853-56). the author of the song is Lev Tolstoi, then an officer in the field.
43*. The reference is to Wilhelm Blos’s book Die deutsche Revolution. Geschichte der deutschen Bewegung von 1848 und 1849 , Berlin 1923.
44*. In Gleb Uspensky’s tale The Sentry Post , an old man whose job is to supply a small wandering orchestra with strings proudly says that his strings are dear, “they are not any old trash,” because he cannot have it any other way. “If I can breathe only with the string” (if my only means of living is by a string), “I must see that it has a full sound.”.
45*. Characterizing Balzac’s work in a letter to Margaret Harkness at the beginning of April 1888, Engels wrote that from Balzac’s novels he “even in economic details ... learned more than from all professed historians, economists and statisticians of the period together.” K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence , Moscow, p.480.
This passage is commented as follows by Plekhanov: “Mr. Uspensky may fearlessly be placed on a level with Balzac in this respect. His The Power of the Land . see my article G.I. Uspensky in the collection Sotsial Demokrat .” ( The Literary Legacy of G.V. Plekhanov , Coll.IV, p.224.) In Plekhanov’s Works his article on Uspensky is in Vol.X.
46*. The quoted words are from Pushkin’s draft copy of one of the chapters in Eugene Onegin .
47*. Morgan’s book was published in 1877.
48*. Engels speaks of this in the preface to his book Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy , dated February 21, 1888. Cf. K. Marx and F. Engles, Selected Works , Vol.II, Moscow 1958, p.359.
49*. From I.A. Krylov’s fable Tom-tit .
50*. Another character in Griboyedov’s Wit Works Woe , a careerist and toady.
51*. Goethe’s last words.
52*. Y. Zhukovsky analyzes Capital in his article Karl Marx and His Book on Capital ( Vestnik Yevropy , 1877, Vol.9).
53*. Polevoi, Nikolai Alexeyevich (1796-1846) – Russian journalist, writer and historian, one of the first bourgeois ideologists in Russia of the 1820s and 1830s, later reactionary.
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