Hello.
Welcome you all again to the Lecture Series
in Political Theory.
You know, I am Prof. H. Srikanth.
So far, I have given 15 YouTube lectures on
different themes in Marxian Political Theory.
Although it is not directly connected to political
theory, today I thought I should discuss Marxian
Dialectics, or what came to be known in short
as Dialectical Materialism.
There is reason for it.
When we discuss the political ideas of eminent
persons like J.S.
Mill, Rousseau, Machiavelli, Aristotle or
Plato, we should keep in mind that they are
not just political thinkers.
They are all great philosophers.
Their political ideas are integral part of
their world outlook.
One cannot understand why they have arrived
at a particular understanding of politics,
unless we also know their philosophical perspective.
That is true of Marxists and Marxist Political
Theory as well.
We will have a better grasp over Marxist Political
Theory, if we also know the essence of Marxist
philosophy of Materialist Dialectics, or Dialectical
Materialism.
The discussion of Marxian dialectics is found
in different classical Marxist works such
as ‘The German Ideology’, ‘Anti-Duhring’,
‘Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical
German Philosophy’, ‘Materialism and Emperio-Criticism’,
etc.
Marxian dialectics is the result of the philosophical
engagements of Marx, Engels and Lenin with
greatest minds of their times.
Unless we know whole context, it will be very
difficult for most of us to make sense of
those debates.
But 
this revolutionary philosophy that they have
given birth to becomes toothless, unless it
reaches out to the masses.
Stalin and Mao realized it and started writing
in language that could be understood by the
masses.
However, I tell you from my own experience
that we understand Marxian dialectics better
if get the opportunity to attend political
classes or workshops engaged by scholar activists
who are thorough with theory and also practice
Marxism in their day to day lives.
My talk on Marxian dialectics, or Dialectical
Materialism will be based on what I learnt
from such political classes and workshops,
when I was doing my post-graduation.
Before I come to Marxian philosophical outlook,
let me start with Philosophy in general.
I consider Philosophy as a world outlook,
an approach to understand the universal relations.
Philosophy enables us to understand both microcosm
and macrocosm in more general terms.
While disciplines like Political Science,
Economics, Physics, Biology, Mathematics,
etc., looks at particular aspects of the material
world, Philosophy helps us to comprehend the
totality in all its relations and contradictions.
The philosophers tried to make sense of the
world we live in, by interpreting it from
their philosophical outlook.
Human history has produced several philosophers
and different philosophies.
They all can be classified into two schools
of thought – Idealist School and Materialist
School.
First let me take the Idealitst School.
The Idealist School of Philosophy assumes
that Idea is primary and matter is secondary.
To all Idealist philosophers, Idea is independent
of matter, and it is out of Idea that the
matter emerged.
Idea we can call it God, some super natural power
or the Spirit or the Geist.
They consider that the Idea is eternal, omnipotent
and omnipresent.
Idea determines the form and accounts for
changes in the matter.
To them, Matter is only something temporary
and it can be destroyed.
But Idea is permanent.
It is the truth and hence the object of our knowledge
is to understand the nature, dynamics and
manifestations of Idea in all its forms.
Many ancient philosophers – Greek, Roman
or Indian – looked at Idea mostly as unchanging
form, eternal, like Plato’s Forms.
Matter changes, but Idea is something that
never changes.
But this conception of unchanging Idea underwent
a change with Hegel, who spoke about ever
expanding Idea or Spirit.
Unlike old Idealists who thought Idea
is static and matter changes with Idea, Hegel
says that even Idea expands from lower to
higher forms.
It is changing eternally and never static.
I will talk more about Hegel after sometime.
Now let us come to the Materialist School.
Alongside Idealist School of Philosophy, we
also see its opposite – Materialist School.
We sometimes assume that the Materialist School
is something that came up in recent years.
It is not so.
There were philosophers who upheld materialist
tradition even during the heydays of Greek
Philosophy.
Even in ancient India, we see Charvaka or
Buddha upholding rational and materialist
values and outlooks.
This materialist tradition says that matter
is primary and idea is secondary.
Everything in the universe is material and
there is nothing super or supra natural about
the idea.
You have read in school text books.
Materialism also says the matter is neither
created nor destroyed, it only changes forms.
The world that  we live in is the real world, there
is no world outside this material world.
So the object of our knowledge is the material
world that we live in.
The materialist philosophical tradition passed
through different stages.
Primitive materialists of ancient times challenged
many aspects of Idealist traditions of that
time.
They tried their best to give an account of the laws governing
the development and changes in the material world, but they failed
as they did not have sufficient knowledge
to explain the mysteries of the universe.
Consequently, Idealist tradition dominated
philosophy during the medieval period – both
in the West and in India.
However, development of science and technology
that followed the Renaissance and the Industrial
Revolution revived the materialist tradition.
Scientists like Newton, Kepler, Darwin, Dalton,
etc., revolutionized our understanding of
the matter and the universe, and paved the
way for what came to be known as Mechanical
Materialist tradition.
Taking inspiration from discoveries and inventions
of the time, many political philosophers like
Hobbes, Locke, J.S.
Mill etc., attempted to explain politics based
on the then understanding of the universe,
nature, society and man.
They tried to account for the causes of motion
and developed methodology for understanding
the material reality.
Their theories laid the foundations for bourgeois
humanism.
This bourgeois humanism or mechanical materialism
reached its zenith with Feuerbach in 19th
Century Germany.
When Marx and Engels started their political
and philosophical work, they were under the
shadow of the two great giants –Hegel and
Feuerbach - who represented the development
of highest forms of Idealist and Materialist
traditions respectively.
Hegel was the one to say that nothing is static,
everything is dynamics.
He tried to explain the motion by developing
the principles of dialectics.
He found out that motion is the result of
the contradictions of the opposites.
In short, we talk about Thesis, Anti-thesis
and Synthesis.
Dialectics is much more than that.
But he believed that this dialectics operate in
the field of Idea, resulting in continuous
development of Idea from lower to higher stages.
As a reflection or as realization of the goals
of the Idea or the Spirit, the material world
also changes from stage to stage – from
family to civil society and ultimately to
the State.
To Hegel, the State is the march of God on
the earth and is the highest realization or
essence of the Spirit to which everybody should
submit.
He glorified the German State and argued that
freedom exists in following the dictates of
the State.
His ideas rationalized the authoritarian and
dictatorial Prussian state.
In contrast, the mechanical materialist tradition
reached its culmination with Feuerbach.
Feuerbach is known for his interpretation
of God as reification of Man, i.e., man separated
from man.
His understanding was that it was Man created God
in his own image.
All the qualities that we attribute to God – as
the most beautiful, most merciful, the strongest,
strongest, the symbol of Love, etc., - are nothing but human
qualities.
They make no sense to any other animals or
inanimate things.
It is only the human qualities we take it
out, the best of them we attribute to God
and we start worshipping that God.
Feuerbach replaced God by man, by stating
that God is only creation of Man, not that
God created man.
He wanted to replace religion by Humanism.
But there were limitations in his thought.
He represented the belief in unchanging human
nature.
He sought to understand human essence in abstract
individual, by abstracting individual from the society
and social relations, like any other individualists.
His materialism, like other forms of materialism,
overlooked the significance of human praxis
praxis in making of the objective world that we live
in.
He constructs a society, which has no history,
and hence no future.
Consequently, his Humanism itself turns into
a form of oppressive religion, a godless religion.
Materialism could be accepted uncritically.
They understood the positive aspects of these
great philosophers.
But they realized that need to move beyond
these philosophers and their philosophical
traditions.
Taking materialist essence from Feuerbach
and principles of dialectics from Hegel, Marx
and Engels developed a new philosophical approach
called Materialist dialectics, or Dialectical
Materialism.
The new philosophical approach sheds off the idealist
interpretation traditions of Hegel and also
overcomes the limitations of mechanical materialism
of Feuerbach.
Introducing this Marxian dialectical approach,
Stalin writes in his book, 'Dialectical Materialism,
“It is called dialectical materialism because
its approach to the phenomena of nature, its
method of studying and apprehending them,
is dialectical, while its interpretation of
the phenomena of nature, its conception of
these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic.”
Now with this basic understanding, let us
look at the fundamental premises of Marxian
dialectics.
According to Dialectical Materialism, everything
in the universe is material.
There is nothing which is supra natural and
super natural.
Matter pervades everywhere and is interconnected.
It has no end, nor beginning.
You can create a particular matter out of
some other matter.
But Matter as a whole can neither be created,
nor destroyed.
It only changes forms.
The most important premise of dialectical
materialism is that matter, or material world
is never static.
It is always in motion.
It is in the process of change and development.
Matter and motion are complementary.
There is no matter without motion, and there
is no motion without matter.
When we say motion, it is always mean motion
of matter.
Forms of motion may differ from one form of
matter to another.
But there is no matter which does not undergo
motion of certain form.
Another aspect of materialist dialectics is
that all matter exists in time and space.
Matter occupies some space.
Space means space occupied by some or the
other form of matter.
There is no empty space anywhere in the universe.
The word, ‘Empty Space’ is relative.
A space may be empty of particular matter.
But some form of matter known or unknown to us
exists even there.
For example, if I wave hand say that is empty
space.
It is not really empty.
There may not be any solid or liquid matter,
but there is air and there is dust, which we
may not see.
As such there is nothing called empty space. Space means space occupied by some or the other form of matter.
So is time.
There is nothing called absolute Time, with capital T.
You know B.R.
Chopra’s Mahabharata serial, it all starts
with someone called Time, 'Kaal', he comes and
tells the story of the Mahabharata.
He says I am 'Kaal', Time, this is what I have
seen, I narrate the story of the Mahabharata
to you.
It gives the impression that Time is independent
of the material surroundings, outside the
matter.
But dialectics says that there is nothing like
that.
When we say time, it ways refers to time of
a given matter.
Lifetime of an amoeba is not the same of lifetime
of a human being.
Time taken by the earth to revolve round the
sun is not the same as the time taken by Saturn
to revolve round the Sun.
Saturn’s one year and our one year are different.
A day means 24 hours for us living on the
earth, it will not be the same in other planets.
In other words, time and space are conditions
of existence of matter.
They cannot exist outside matter.
If everything is matter, then what about Idea
or Consciousness?
Marxism says there is nothing mystical about
Idea.
Idea, with big ‘I’ does not exist.
Ideas are nothing but the product of human
thinking.
Ideas emanate when human mind interact with
the material surroundings.
What is mind?
Mind is part of human brain which is nothing but
an advanced form of organic matter that has
come into existence in course of the evolution
of the human species.
It means matter thinks matter.
All ideas are also material.
Human mind cannot think of anything that does
not exist in the material world in some crude
crude form.
If we go by this logic, even the idea of God is
a human idea.
It emerged  under particular  material   conditions to serve certain material needs.
As such this idea is never independent of
our senses.
If we go by this logic, what is Consciousness?
Is there anything called Consciousness with
capital C?
Marxism says consciousness means human consciousness.
You know the famous quotation of Marx, ‘it
is not the consciousness that determines the
being, but it is the material being that determines
the consciousness’.
Unlike Idealists who believe that we get Consciousness
when we pray, meditate or look into oneself,
Mao says that 
human consciousness is acquired through human
practice at different levels – at the level
of production, in class struggle and in engagement
in scholastic activities.
It is through all these engagements that we
get consciousness about the material world.
When human consciousness is accompanied by
praxis, it can change the material world.
It is not that Consciousness has no role to
play.
Ideas have important role to play, provided
they have their roots in the real material
world.
So when we say ideas and consciousness, they
have significance.
But what needs to be remembered is that this
idea or human consciousness is also material.
Now it is time for us to focus on the Principles
of Dialectical Materialism.
Materialist Dialectics does not see motion
in a mechanical way, as physical motion of
a matter from one point to another.
Here movement, change, or motion is understood
in different and complex forms.
Motion can be chemical, biological, psychological,
sociological, political, economic,
depending on the nature of the matter...
What guides the motion of the matter?
For that, we need to understand three Principles
of Dialectics:
1. Quantitative Changes lead to Qualitative Changes
and vice-versa;
2. Contradictions and Unity of Opposites, and
3. Negation of Negations.
I give you brief a description of these principles
with simple examples that you can relate to.
The first Principle of Materialist Dialectics
says that every change starts with simple
quantitative changes.
But at a particular point of time and conditions,
quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes
giving birth to a new form of matter.
For example, when you start boiling water,
it becomes hot and hotter.
But at particular temperature, you know at
100 degree centigrade, water which is in liquid
state transforms itself into vapor, attaining
gaseous state.
So also when you keep water in fridge, at
zero degree centigrade it turns into ice,
acquiring solid state.
This is how even Evolution of the Species
took place.
Evolution is never simple evolution, meaning only
quantitative changes.
At one point of the evolution you witness
a revolution, where a particular species completely
transforms itself into a new kind of species.
At particular time, space and conditions,
single cell organisms transform into multicellular
organisms, that to more complicated life forms
– into aquatic creatures, amphibians, invertebrates,
to vertebrates, primates and to homo-sapiens.
This Principle works even in human thought.
When one gets exposed to new ideas – good
or bad – at a point individual transforms
into an entirely different kind of person
with new perspective and practice.
This qualitative change facilitates a new
form of quantitative changes, and this process continues
with new kind of changes unknown to us.
Now I come to the Second Principle of Materialist
Dialectics, Contradictions and Unity of Opposites.
Lenin considers it as the essence of Marxian
dialectics.
Hence we need to focus more on the second
principle.
According to the Principle every form of matter
– big or small - consists of some other
matter, or some other particles.
As a result, there is contradictions in every
form of matter.
There is no matter in the universe which exists
without contradictions.
Contradictions is the mode of existence of
matter.
When we say matter, there will be contradictions.
Why there will be contradictions?
Because any form of matter is made of some
other matter and there are contradictions.
There was a time when the scientists thought that atom is the
smallest particle.
But In course of time we understood that atom
which itself means cannot be cut, atom can
also be cut, because Atom is itself is composed
of some other particles – protons, neutrons
and electrons.
Now the scientists say even these protons,
electrons, and neutrons are not final, they
themselves have some other particles.
Because there are so many particles within
participles, there are contradictions, and
as a result of contradictions we see motion.
But these contradictions can be of two kinds
– internal contradictions and external contradictions.
Both internal and external contradictions
are needed for any kind of motion or a change.
But dialectical materialism, of these two
internal contradictions are primary, there
the driving force of change, whereas the
external contradictions are conditions of
change.
They are needed, no doubt they help, facilitate,
activate the process of change, but more important
are the internal contradictions.
This can be explained with simple examples.
As a teacher, I am an external force trying
to make you understand dialectics.
All of you can listen to me, but how much of what
I teach, you are able to understand differs
from person to person.
It depends on the contradictions within you.
With how much of attention you are listening
to me, and how much you could grasp, that
differs from one student to another student.
It will not be same for all, though I as
an external force is same for all of you.
Take another example, which I was told Mao
used to explain to the illiterate peasants.
You know, when a hen sits on the egg and hatches
it for days, one day the egg breaks and a
chicken comes out.
But suppose the same hen sits on a stone for
any number of hours or days, will the stone
break and chicken come out?
You know the answer.
Why it will not come out?
Because the internal contradictions in the
egg and the stone are different.
Mao also brought to light another dimension
of the contradictions.
Depending on time and space, contradictions
can be antagonistic or non-antagonistic.
Generally when we say contradictions, we only
see in terms of antagonistic contradictions.
It need not be always, there can also be non-antagonistic contradictions.
While some contradictions are irreconcilable,
some contradictions can be complementary.
But the nature of contradictions may change
in course of time, what is today non-antagonistic
contradictions may turn into antagonistic
and vice-versa is also possible.
For example, on the eve of the November Revolution
in Russia, the contradictions between the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat were antagonistic contradictions.
But in New Democratic Revolution in China
the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie
and the proletariat was non-antagonistic.
But at the time of the Cultural Revolution,
that non-antagonistic contradictions turned
into antagonistic contradictions.
Mao also talks of two aspects of a contradictions
and their changing dynamics.
For example, in capitalist society, in capitalist contradictions there
is capitalist class on one side and the working
class on the other.
But which aspect of the contradictions remains
stronger depends on the time and space.
The position of the aspects may change – the
capitalist class which is powerful today,
but the proletariat may emerge powerful after
few years or decades.
Let me now come to 
the second part of the second principle i.e.,
the Unity of Opposites.
It brings to our notice the fact that although
there are contradictions in every form of
matter, the contradictions need not lead to
break-up.
Although there are contradictions, there is
also unity.
It is the unity which gives form to the matter.
In atom there is contradictions between electrons
and protons, but there is also unity, hence
atom exists.
So also north-pole and south-pole in the magnet,
and positive and negative in the electricity.
Even in social relations, there exists contradictions
between the working class and the capitalist
class.
But there is also unity, that is what enables
the existence of capitalist society.
But Marxism tells us that while the unity
is temporary, the contradictions are permanent.
Unity is temporary and contradictions are
permanent.
Existence of unity does not negate 
the existence of contradictions.
There is husband and wife, there is contradictions
between the two, but there is family also.
Both go together, family and contradictions
between  wife and husband
Unity does not negate the existence of contradictions,
which is the motive force for any motion or
change.
This is the second principle of Contradictions
and Unity of Opposites.
Now let me come to the last Principle of Dialectical
Materialism, i.e., Negation of Negation.
The Principle says that anything that comes
into existence, comes by negating some other
thing.
But what comes into existence carries within
itself the germs of its own destruction.
You know Shakespeare’s dialogue, “Nothing
comes out of nothing”.
Coming into being of any matter necessitate
destruction of some other.
Something should disappear for some other
to appear.
But that which takes birth, will also get destroyed
one day because of its own internal contradictions.
Because it has within itself the germs of
its own destruction.
I give simple examples to substantiate the
Principle.
When you sow the seed and pour water, one
day the seed breaks and sapling comes out.
For the sapling to come out the seed should
get destroyed.
This sapling grows in course of time, becomes
a tree, has its own flowers and gives fruits
and produces more seeds.
But the same tree will die one day, even though
there is no woodcutter to cut it.
Similarly a child is born out of the womb
of the mother, it cannot remain in the womb
forever, it grows becomes adult, marries, have
children, grows old and one day dies, not
necessarily because of any accident or murder.
But because of the internal mechanisms.
Within everyone there are germs which will
destroy, giving birth to a new form of matter.
Why that happens?
Because with in every form of matter that
comes into existence, it carries within itself
the germs of its destruction, which destroy
it one day, giving birth to another form of
matter.
The destruction or death here is relative.
One form of matter, material existence gets
destroyed to give birth to some other form
of matter.
In English there is a saying, “You cannot
have the cake, and eat it too”.
If you want to eat the cake, then the  cake will
not be there.
You don’t say, I want to have cake and
at the same time have the satisfaction of eating
it also.
When eat the cake, the cake will not be there.
So when something disappears, some other thing
appears.
No form of matter continues to exist in the
same form eternally.
What comes into existence at one point has
to exit someday giving place to some other
form of material existence.
This is the third principle of Negation of
Negations.
Hope you understood the three Principles of
Dialectical Materialism.
These three General Principles of Dialectical
Materialism operate simultaneously in all
forms of material existence.
They determine its nature, dynamics, change
and transformation.
Depending on the nature of the disciplines,
these Principles take different forms particular
as particular laws.
One working in particular disciplines, be
it Physics, Chemistry, Economics, or Sociology,
should be thorough with the laws that operate
in each discipline, or in each form of matter
But at the same time one should not ignore
that these three General Principles operate
in all forms of matter – living or non-living,
big or small, in individual or in the society.
According to Marxian dialectics since everything
is material and every form of matter is guided
guided by particular laws and also the General Principles
of dialectics, it is very much possible to
understand the universe.
Hence unlike Emmanuel Kant who believed that
there are certain things in the world which
are knowable, and certain other things which
are unknowable, Marxism advocates that the
world is knowable, although at a given point
of time, there always remains certain things
which are unknown.
What it means?
It means since there is nothing mystical about
the material world, it is possible to know
everything when we understand the laws and
principles guiding the particular forms of
material existence.
There always remains something which is unknown,
because the world is not static and changing.
Understand the difference between Unknown
and Unknowable.
What Marxism says is that  there will be certain things
which are not known to us today, but the humans
human beings can know it in course of time, as such there
is nothing called unknowable.
This is all I have to say about Materialist
Dialectics, or Dialectical Materialism.
Unlike Idealism and Mechanical Materialism,
Marxian dialectics demystifies all forms of
material existence and guides human action.
Hence the Marxists make Dialectical Materialism
as the philosophical approach of the proletariat,
for, it enables them to understand the nature,
human society and human thinking in a more
objective ways and empowers them with the
knowledge that facilitates revolution.
Before I end let me suggest you some more
readings if you are interested to know more
about Marxian Dialectics or Dialectical Materialism.
I have already indicated to you some of the
classical Marxist works that discuss the materialist
dialectics.
Since they are difficult to understand, I
suggest you to start with Stalin’s piece,
“Dialectical and Historical Materialism”,
which you will find in his volume, ‘Problems
of Leninism’.
You can also read Mao Tse-Tung’s writings,
“On Practice”, and “On Contradictions”.
Maurice Cornforth’s book, “Dialectical
Materialism” gives a very comprehensive
understanding of Marxian dialectics in a simple
language.
Most of students and scholars read.
In India I find Shibdas Ghosh’s work, “Some
aspects of Marxism and Dialectical Materialism”,
interesting as it explains in simple language
how developments in Quantum Physics revalidates
the postulates Dialectical Materialism.
You can find this book if you google it.
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you to watch my other Youtube lectures on
Marxist Political Theory.
You also inform like-minded friends to like,
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Series in Political Theory”.
After a short gap I will come back with lectures
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Thank you very much.
See you soon.
