An Essay on the Need to Revise Marx' and Engels' Historical Materialism E-Book

Ib Gram-Jensen

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 318

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

This book argues that apart from a number of ambiguities and inner tensions, Marx' and Engels' historical materialism suffers from a misconception of the nature and motive power of historical development and transformations on which their unwarranted confidence in the inevitability of the transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society is based; and from a consequent failure to address the problems of accomplishing this transition - the desirability of which is not denied. No finished alternative is offered, but some elements of a better version retaining the critical and revolutionary edge of Marx' and Engels' own are suggested. Others doubtlessly remain to be thought out.

Leseprobe

For Susanne

Contents

Introduction

1. The Evidence

2. Marx’ and Engels’ Historical Materialism

3. The Denial of Determinism in Marx and Engels

4. Complementarity

5. The Definition of Classes

6. Discourse Analysis

7. Laws of Historical Development?

8. Laws of History in Marx and Engels

9. The Need for a Revision

10. Concluding Remarks

Appendix: From the Grundrisse

References

Introduction.

Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism suffers from serious weaknesses, some of which have been dealt with in a number of texts by this writer. Firstly, their conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations does not seem tenable. Secondly, their idea that the transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society is inevitable, which is connected with that conception, does not seem tenable either. And thirdly, the question whether, and if so how, a workable classless society can actually be established and maintained remains open – and is left open by this essay as well, as it is beyond the competence of this writer to give any definite answer.

The title of my previous book on these questions, A Revised Historical Materialism, of the first essay of which the present text can in many ways be considered an extended and revised version, was chosen rather than something like the subtitle of Meiksins Wood’s Democracy Against Capitalism, namely Renewing Historical Materialism, as what is argued is not only the need to add something new to Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism, but also the need to cut something away from it: their conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations, and their belief that historical development and transformations are ruled by laws comparable to those ruling natural development, before substituting something new for the excised elements – which are, moreover, some of its very central ones.

What is very explicitly stated in A Revised Historical Materialism is that the revision is not a matter of rejecting the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society, or any idea of accomplishing it by means of gradual reforms: both reformist and gradualist strategies are rejected, and the grounds for rejecting them are stated.1 Moreover, a premise for the whole discussion is the belief that an effectively classless society can only be based on the effectively collective command of the means, process and outcome of production. Which, in its turn, requires a genuinely democratic society as the precondition for effectively collective decisions on public affairs, with all the freedoms required for the establishment and functioning of “an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”2

The two crucial elements in the intellectual heritage left by Marx and Engels are the critique of political economy and their historical materialism. The critique of political economy identifies the appropriation of surplus value and surplus labour by means of “the equal exchange between free agents which reproduces, hourly and daily, inequality and oppression”3 in capitalist production. What this critique of political economy, and of the capitalist mode of production and type of society, cannot, in itself, offer is a strategy for the substitution of this exploitative mode by a classless, that is, communist, society or even an answer to the question whether this is possible or not.

Therefore a theory, or at least hypothesis, about the nature of the process of historical development and transformations from one type of society, defined by a dominant mode of production, to another is relevant – and according to Marx and Engels, the historical materialism they sketched as a hypothesis about this process lead to the conclusion that the transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society would inevitably be accomplished through the agency of the proletariat, the class created and exploited by capitalism. Hence the importance of the laws assumed to rule the process of historical development and transformations, and of the conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production assumed to be its motive power.

Thus, the two elements which are irreducible to each other: the critique of political economy, the analysis of capitalism and capitalist exploitation, on the one hand, and historical materialism, the hypothesis about the nature and terminal of historical development and transformations in what Marx designated “the prehistory of human society”,4 on the other. The latter is unmistakably – and explicitly – imbued with a Hegelian dialectic turned upside down, and thus changed from an idealistic into a materialistic dialectic, in order to find its rational kernel.5 And according to it, historical development is “a process of natural history ruled by laws that are not only independent of the will, consciousness and intentions of people, but on the contrary determine their will, consciousness and intentions.”6 Hence Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism is marked by a fundamental tension in terms of the relationship between historical determinism on the one hand and human agency on the other.

In the present context, the point is not whether Marx and Engels’ interpretation of Hegel is more or less correct, but what their “inverted” dialectic of historical development and transformations is and implies. And this is summarised in Marx’ 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and suggested by various other passages in his and Engels’ finished texts, notably the Manifesto, Capital and Anti-Dühring, but also, sketchily, adumbrated in Die deutsche Ideologie and discussed or alluded to in various other texts, e. g. the Grundrisse, and letters of theirs.

Thus, the emphasis is on demonstrating from the textual evidence that the abovementioned determinism is indeed found in Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism, and on the reasons why it must be considered untenable as well as rendering their historical materialism inconsistent: there is an ineradicable tension in it between the notion of human agents as the makers of their own history (on given conditions) on the one hand and their notion of historical development and transformations as a quasi-natural process ruled by laws comparable to those of natural development, based on their conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations, on the other. Some additional questions are, however, dealt with too, mostly in order to give a more precise impression of the nature of the recommended revision, which includes demarcating it from some other suggested alternatives to Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism.

The required revision may, then, be summarised as follows:

The conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production has to be substituted by that of the interaction between social circumstances and agency as the motive power of historical developments and transformations.

Engels’ idea of conflicting human wills cancelling out, thus producing parallelograms of power giving rise to historical development which thus proceeds in the manner of a natural process and is essentially subject to the same laws of motion,

7

must be abandoned along with that of history being ruled by laws comparable to those ruling natural development, determining the will, consciousness and intentions of agents.

8

Human beings must be

consistently

acknowledged as the makers of their own history under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confronted, and the theoretical and strategic implications of this acknowledgment must be accepted.

9

Finally, it may be added that (structural) determination must be understood in the Wrightean sense of the delimitation of a field of the possible, with pressures and probabilities, within which actual historical outcomes eventuate.10 And that the question of class capacities11 is important when these outcomes are to be accounted for.

1 Gram-Jensen, A Revised Historical Materialism, p. 114-116.

2 Marx & Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, p. 482. Cf. Gram-Jensen, A Revised Historical Materialism, p. 113.

3 Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, p. 403.

4 Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 22 (MEW, 13, p. 9).

5 Marx, Das Kapital, 1, p. 27.

6 Marx, Das Kapital, 1, p. 26.

7 Engels, “Engels an Joseph Bloch in Königsberg, 21./22. September 1890”, p. 464.

8 Marx, Das Kapital, 1, p. 25-27.

9 Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, p. 146 (MEW, 8, p. 115).

10 Wright, Class, Crisis and the State, p. 15-17.

11 Levine & Wrigth, passim. Wrigth, Levine & Sober, Part I.

1. The Evidence.

The argument for this revision of Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism also involves a critique of interpretations of it to the effect that there is no determinist element in it, which thus gloss over the gap left in it by the lack of a strategy for the transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society once its determinist assumptions are abandoned. This critique is therefore partly motivated by this strategic consideration, partly by the sheer, and rather surprising, defectiveness of several interpreters’ readings of Marx and Engels.12

The primary, first-hand evidence of Marx’ and Engels’ thoughts – and the only primary, first-hand evidence – is their texts, among which those “Books and major essays that were published under the control of the writer, with the usual opportunity for correction, revision, etc.” must be considered the most reliable.13 At full length, Draper’s list of different categories of texts runs as follows, in descending order of reliability:

Books and major essays that were published under the control of the writer, with the usual opportunity for correction, revision, etc. (Most of Marx’s or Engels’ major works will come to mind as examples.)

Articles published under the control of the writer.

Articles composed as political statements, for a political audience, and signed; in short, intended for the purpose they are used for.

Articles in which remarks on issues occur only in passing, often elliptically.

Journalistic articles, written as hack work, perhaps not even signed.

Articles published not under the control of the writer. Perhaps the most extreme case is that of

New York Tribune

articles that were rewritten or added to at will by the editors.

Unpublished manuscripts.

Unfinished or fragmentary, often never reviewed or revised – unfinished for various possible reasons, including dissatisfaction with the work.

Finished – but unpublished for various possible reasons, including dissatisfaction.

Letters. The circumstances of a letter, including its addressee, must always be taken into account. When writing to Engels, Marx takes much for granted and does not have to phrase his thoughts as they come to the pen in order to avoid ignorant or malicious misinterpretation. Some letters to others are diplomatizing. All letters are timebound: opinions expressed (for example, about people) may change. Letters are prime examples of ad-hoc writings that cannot be usefully quoted until the context is evaluated.

Circular letters. These are very like political statements, more like considered articles than casual correspondence.

“Educational” letters. Written to strangers in some cases, to party leaders in others, these are written with some conscious effort to set down a view; but even so, without the responsibilities entailed by publication.

Intimate letters, where all is “thinking aloud” and no effort is made to avoid possible misunderstandings by a third party. Most of the correspondence between Marx and Engels comes under this head. Very often, general-sounding statements have specific contexts and meanings.

Casual or ad-hoc letters, perhaps hastily dashed off, given little or no consideration of any kind.

Private notes, notebooks, and workbooks. These were not only not written for publication but were often written in a personal “shorthand” or in a telegraphic and allusive style, intended only for the writer’s eyes. The aforementioned

Grundrisse

is an example of a long work in this style; Marx’s “Conspectus of Bakunin’s Book &c.” is a shorter and more fragmentary case.

14

Again, in what I have written on this, the focus is not on the extent to which, and how, Marx’ and Engels’ conception of the nature (and laws) of the process of historical development is inspired by Hegel or anyone else, but on what this conception is. And, therefore, on how Marx and Engels themselves present it in their texts.

We cannot ignore or dismiss explicit statements in these texts which are recurrent and demonstrably form integral parts of the theoretical framework presented in the texts unless there are very strong, and well-authenticated, reasons for doing so. And if we want to establish what Marx and Engels thought and wanted to communicate – including changes in this over time – it seems logical to attach greater weight to what they published, or wanted to publish but were prevented from publishing by external circumstances, than to what they left unpublished. In other words, we should not, for example, make it a rule to interpret concepts and arguments in Capital to make them fit those in the Grundrisse, let alone reject them or try to explain them away if they cannot be read with the Grundrisse as a key to “what Marx really meant” by what he wrote in Capital. Nor, of course, should we interpret and screen Marx’ and Engels’ concepts and argumentation according to what we think they should have meant – that is, “represent modifications and additions to Marx’s thought as ‘interpretations’ or ‘readings’ of Marx’s texts.”15

What we should do is to read Marx’ and Engels’ texts loyally, that is, to do our best to establish as precisely as possible what Marx and Engels intended to communicate, and then state and argue our own position on this as clearly and cogently as possible. While the conceptual apparatus they inherited from others should certainly be recognised, the temptation to “decode” their texts by reading them in a “Hegelian” or “Spinozist”, “Darwinian” or whatever other sense, no matter what the sentences in the texts seem to mean when read straightforwardly, should be resisted. Even when Marx and Engels state that they are influenced by Hegel or others, as they do in various places, the way in which they read and followed them must be deciphered from their own reasoning.

Marx’ and Engels’ predictions of the inevitable transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society are explicit and recur in central texts of theirs, including ones published under their control, from the mid-1840s and on, and based on their conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations which likewise recurs in these texts from the mid-1840s and on, and forms an integral part of their historical materialism as presented more or less systematically in the texts, e. g. Die deutsche Ideologie, The Poverty of Philosophy, the Manifesto of the Communist Party, the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Capital and Anti-Dühring.

These recurrent predictions and the arguments on which they are based cannot be dismissed as mere exhortatory cheering on the troops without demonstration by means of very strong evidence that Marx and Engels themselves did not believe in them – evidence which, to the best knowledge of this writer, nobody has so far presented: the words opening the first section of the Manifesto,16 which have been referred to by various writers,17 do not amount to such evidence.

It is also evident from the texts that Marx and Engels based their expectations and predictions precisely on their conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations.

12 Cf. Gram-Jensen, the second essay in Experience and Historical Materialism, Structure, Theory and Agency, Part One, ch.s 2-3 and Appendix Three, the first, second and seventh essays in A Critique of Mau: Mute Compulsion and Other Essays and the first and second essays in A Revised Historical Materialism.

13 Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, II, p. 3.

14 Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, II, The Politics of Social Classes, p. 3-4. As argued in Experience and Historical Materialism, section d. of the second essay, Draper himself misreads the Manifesto.

15 Timpanaro, p. 194.

16 Marx & Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, p. 462.

17 Draper, The Adventures of the Communist Manifesto, p. 210, p. 243. Gasper. Sørensen, “Den historiske materialisme i lyset af nyere diskussion om social handlen og social objektivitet”, p. 26-27. Collier, p. 143-144. Thing, p. 82-83.

2. Marx’ and Engels’ Historical Materialism.

In section ix of his essay “The Poverty of History”, Thompson called attention to the distinction between structural and historical analysis with their different heuristics as a problem in historical materialism left unresolved by Marx and Engels. And to their “historicist notions of lawed and pre-determined development”18 which are part of this problematic. A problematic also involving the problem of how to understand the meaning and significance of the interconnected concepts of “relative autonomy” and “determination in the last instance”.19

Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism is a theory or hypothesis about the nature of the process of historical development and transformations (that is, the transitions from one type of society (defined by a specific dominant mode of production) to another), with the conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of this process as its core element. This conception is the major problem with their historical materialism, while some unsuccessful attempts to reconcile it and its implications with the conception of human beings as the makers of their own history, which are dealt with below, are less crucial, but symptomatic of the tension in their historical materialism between these two conceptions and their respective implications. The conception of the dialectic of forces and relations as the motive power of historical development and transformations is found in their texts from the mid-1840s and on, with its classical formulation in Marx’ 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

[.....]. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production – antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals’ social conditions of existence – but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.20

This conception is the core element in Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism because it serves as the very explanation why such transitions take place, and must take place: when the further development of the productive forces is fettered by the relations of production. Marx’ magnum opus, Capital, is likewise informed by this conception on which his prediction of the inevitable transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society, the leap of humanity, brought about by the victory of the proletariat and the fall of the bourgeoisie, from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom terminating the prehistory of human society, is based: what are the words in Capital, 1, ch. 24.7 on the historical tendency of capitalist accumulation that the working class is “a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of capitalist production itself”,21 or those in the Manifesto that, “The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association”,22 or those in Marx’ letter to Annenkow that, “With the acquisition of new forces of production, people change their mode of production”,23 if not so many promises that the isolation of class struggle24 will be broken by the very development of capitalist productive forces and capitalist society itself? That is, more precisely, by the dialectic of forces and relations of production?

Marx’ and Engels’ expectations and predictions are if not based on, then related to the structural analysis of capitalism from which the conflict between the (fundamental) interests of the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) and those of the working class (the proletariat) exploited by the capitalists is deduced. Their conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations is coupled with their expectation that the proletariat will be “increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself.”25 These two elements in their historical materialism confirm each other, the latter rendering the expectation and prediction which is part of the other, more general one, more credible – there is not just a general law of historical development and transformations according to which capitalism is bound to be substituted by socialism and eventually classless communist society, the growing class capacity of the proletariat, the gravediggers of the bourgeoisie produced by the bourgeoisie itself is derivable from the structural analysis of capital(ism), and observable from the actual development of capitalist society.

The very conception of the fettering of the development of the forces of production by the relations of production is, or seems to be, somewhat ambiguous. In Die deutsche Ideologie, Marx and Engels stated that,

We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private property, because the productive forces and forms of intercourse have developed so far that, under the domination of private property, they have become destructive forces, and because the contradiction between the classes has reached its extreme limits. Finally, we have shown that the abolition of private property and of the division of labour is itself the union of individuals on the basis created by modern productive forces and world intercourse.26

Here, the emphasis is not on the development of the productive forces being hampered by the relations of production, but on the negative consequences of the capitalist integument of this development, the turning of the potential technological development into negative effects on the lives of agents which is also the theme of Marx’ speech “Rede auf der Jahresfeier des “People’s paper” am 14. April 1856 in London”.

In the Manifesto, as well as in ch. 24.7 of Capital on the historical tendency of capitalist accumulation, the abovementioned hampering or blocking of the development of the productive forces is emphasised:

We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.27

But after all too much should not be made of the different more or less subtle differences of meaning which may be detected in the various relevant passages written in various contexts at different times. What is unmistakable is the fundamental idea of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations in the course of the prehistory of human society, the era of class societies, eras of social revolution occurring when the relations of production become fetters on the development of the material productive forces, and with the class with an interest in the transition to a new social order and the further development of the productive forces as the revolutionary agent of transition. And the success of this revolutionary class is, according to Marx and Engels, guaranteed by two things: firstly, the very question of the transition to a new social order will not arise before all the productive forces for which the existing social order is sufficient have been developed, and the material conditions for the new order have matured within the framework of the old one (the latter being true by definition), and secondly, because the potentially revolutionary class will be forced to accomplish the transformation, and, in the case of the working class in capitalist society, because capitalist development itself furthers the development of the class capacities the workers need in order to accomplish it.28

How, then, is this dialectic, as an actual causality in history, to be accounted for? In a teleological context, the answer is obvious, but hardly supportable in terms of human agency, if this agency is not reducible to a mere bearer or support of teleological causation – a reduction explicitly rejected by Marx and Engels in the mid-1840s.29

If such teleological causation or determination of human agency is not assumed, what is the basis for considering the dialectic of forces and relations of production as a law of historical development determining the will, consciousness and intentions of human agents, as a Russian reviewer did, his words to this effect being approvingly quoted by Marx in the Afterword to the second edition of Capital?

For Marx only one thing is important: to find the law of the phenomena the investigation of which he is engaged in. And not only the law ruling them insofar as they have a finished form and constitute a whole [in einem Zusammenhang stehn], as it is observed in a given period, is important to him. Most important of all to him is the law of their transformation, their development, i.e. the transition from one form to another, from one order of the whole to another. [.....] it is quite sufficient when, along with the necessity of the present order, he demonstrates at the same time the necessity of a different order into which the former must inevitably pass, quite regardless of people believing it or not, of their being conscious or unconscious of this. Marx considers the social movement a process of natural history ruled by laws that are not only independent of the will, consciousness and intentions of people, but on the contrary determine [bestimmen] their will, consciousness and intentions. [.....] The scientific value of such investigation lies in the explanation [Aufklärung] of the specific laws ruling the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its substitution by another, higher one. And the book by Marx actually has this value.

Marx’ comment was: “Depicting what he calls my real method so accurately [treffend] and, as far as my personal application of it is concerned, so favourably, what has the author depicted but the dialectical method?”30

Neither Marx nor Engels offer any definitive answer, but at best this confidence in the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations can be considered a hypothesis, expressed by Marx and Engels as the confidence that agents, more precisely the potentially revolutionary class, that is, the class with an interest in the continued development of the productive forces, will respond to the fettering of the development of the productive forces by the relations of production by effecting a historical transformation, found in Marx’ letter to Annenkow, the Manifesto, the 1859 Preface, Capital and Anti-Dühring, to cite just those obvious examples. They all offer explanations to the effect that agency will not fail to do so, previous transformations are explained in terms of fettering, and, explicitly or implicitly, revolutionary responses to it. And the confidence in the expected transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society is argued in terms of the effects of capitalist development in themselves uniting, steeling and organising the capitalist working class. But no adequate proof that all cases of the fettering of the development of the productive forces can be trusted to be overcome in this way, or for that matter that the capitalist relations of production will indeed, with all their negative effects, fetter that development, is offered. That is, the confidence that the class capacities of the class with an interest in the realisation of the potential development of the productive forces will be adequate – and utilised – to overcome its fettering by the relations of production and, in the case of capitalism, that the isolation of class struggle will be overcome, is not supported by any cogent argument. In any case, the demonstration why this confidence is well-founded must be offered in the case of every specific mode of production, every specific integument which has to be burst asunder because no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces.31

The conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations is the major problem with Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism, firstly because it is in effect informing their entire intellectual trajectory from the mid-1840s;32secondly because their expectations and predictions about the inevitability of the transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society are based on it; and thirdly because the failure of these expectations and predictions to come true leaves a yawning gap in their historical materialism in terms of the strategy for the accomplishment of this transition as well as in terms of explaining that very failure and the actual historical development of capitalism.

The critique of Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism made by this writer turns on the weakness of this conception and hence of their corresponding idea of the process of historical development as ruled by laws comparable to those of natural development and their predictions of the transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society as inevitable. It emphasises the tension between this conception and that of human agents as the makers of their own history (under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confronted)33 and argues that the interaction between social circumstances and agency should be substituted for the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the supposed motive power of historical development and transformations, with the process of historical development conceived as open-ended within the limits imposed by the given social circumstances.

The Tension in Marx’ and Engels’ Historical Materialism.

Biological development is a wholly unconscious, non-teleological process; social/historical development depends on agents’ conscious relating to, and handling, their “lived” reality, thus, through this practice, interacting with their social circumstances. Hence intentions are part of this process, although they may not be actualised.

The tension in Marx’ and Engels’ historical materialism, as it developed over time, is basically a matter of the irreducibility of the interaction between social circumstances and agency to a process ruled by quasi-natural laws of development determining the will, consciousness and intentions of agents, that is, a quasi-natural process of development comparable to that of the development of species. The tension is due to the fact that while the specificity of the historical development of human society: that human beings relate consciously to their own life activity, is recognised in an explicit contradistinction to animals, there is also a marked tendency in Marx and Engels to posit laws of historical development in effect reducing it to a (quasi-)natural process comparable to natural/biological development.

It is characteristic that in Capital, vol. 1, in the Afterword to the second edition of which we find Marx’ approving quotation from the Russian reviewer the point of which is precisely that “the social movement” is such “a process of natural history ruled by laws that are not only independent of the will, consciousness and intentions of people, but on the contrary determine [bestimmen] their will, consciousness and intentions”,34 Marx also states that the proletariat will be disciplined, united and organised by the mechanism of the capitalist process of production, the monopoly on capital becoming a fetter on the mode of production, and that the capitalist integument will be burst asunder35: a passage echoing the first section of the Manifesto, and with a footnote in which the prediction that the fall of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable (Marx & Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, p. 474) is quoted.

A revolutionary-socialist working-class response to the development of capitalism, and the capacity of the working class to actually succeed in effecting the transition from capitalism to socialism and eventually classless communist society, must be presumed to be guaranteed by the laws assumed to be ruling social development, but it is not obvious that either the existence of such laws or the inevitability of this transition have been demonstrated either theoretically or by the course of history.

What is certain is that the irreducibility of human agency as a crucial factor in historical development is in effect retracted by the positing of the (quasi-natural) laws ruling this development, part of the context of which is the conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations found in Marx’ and Engels’ texts from the mid-1840s36 and on. As the final words of the second essay in A Revised Historical Materialism go:

The discernible drift in Marx and Engels’ historical materialism towards an explanation of historical development and transformations in terms of laws of social/historical development of which agency is a function, clashing with their emphasis on human agents as the makers of their own history (under given and inherited circumstances), is evidence of the tension between this conception of agency on the one hand and that of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations on the other. While the latter conception should certainly be abandoned, the strategic gap it leaves behind urgently needs to be filled.37

Engels’ Parallelograms of Forces.

Engels’ hypothesis on the parallelograms of forces and its context in the letter in which Engels outlines it are as follows:

[.....]. According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas – also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (that is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is so remote or so impossible of proof that we can regard it as non-existent, as negligible) the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree.

We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. But the political ones, etc., and indeed even the traditions which haunt human minds also play a part, although not the decisive one. The Prussian state also arose and developed from historical, ultimately economic, causes. But it could scarcely be maintained without pedantry that among the many small states of North Germany, Brandenburg was specifically determined by economic necessity to become the great power embodying the economic, linguistic and, after the Reformation, also the religious difference between North and South, and not by other element[s] as well (above all by its entanglement with Poland, owing to