COSMAN ANDREI

SPE 3
MIDTERM PAPER

Marxs historical materialism;

between Hegelian origins and
Sorelian anti-materialism

WHAT IS HISTORICAL MATERIALISM?

Historical materialism is a methodological approach developed by Karl Marx in order
to justify and categorize historical events and society scientifically. It was articulated as the
materialist conception of history. It refers mainly to the way the means of producing the
necessary elements of human survival have influenced the development of society
throughout time. Marx calls the production and reproduction of the means of human survival
and existence the union of it productive capacity and social relations of production.
Through the historical materialist method, one seeks to understand how the means of
survival were produced and how these have influenced social stratification, classes, political
system and patterns of thought. It is important to note the Hegelian roots of Marxist thought
and how Hegelian dialectic became one of his most important sources of inspiration in the
development of historical materialism, a term which Marx uses interchangeably with
dialectic materialism.

HEGEL AND THE HEGELIAN CONTEXT OF MARXISM

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is a very prominent figure in nineteenth and twentieth
century political and social thought. He lived as a Christian (Protestant) in the southern part
of Germany which was fairly liberal and it is said that he did not have contact with most
important events he had commented on.
As a philosopher, Hegel is considered to be a hard to understand thinker and part of
the current known as German Idealism. He sought to unify philosophical and logical
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conflicts and misunderstanding by developing an all-together new system of logical

argumentation which uses reason as its basis. Thus, the Hegelian dialectic system is made of
three distinctive elements: thesis antithesis synthesis. Therefore, instead of a classic
logical argument in which the thesis is opposed directly by the antitheses, Hegel suggests
that the thesis and antithesis are part of the greater whole. For example, a formulation given
by Hegel in his work The Philosophy of Right would have being as a thesis and nothingness
as an antithesis. The synthesis of these would be, according to him, becoming. Hegel
describes the stages of a dialectic investigation as such:
1. Dialectical investigation proceeds by stages, and at each stage of the
argument a position is advanced which is presented as a finished truth
2. Nothing is ever wholly true or wholly false. Nothing is wasted because a
position needs its contradiction to move on to a higher stage of synthesis.
3. Because nothing is ever wasted, because everything is incorporated into the
higher stages of argument, it follows that the nearer to truth dialectical
argument gets, the more comprehensive the truth being offered becomes.
4. Truth comes from the process of argument itself and is not introduced from the
outside.
5. Because truth comes out of the process of argument, it is not invented but
discovered, not created but grasped.
6. There are no short-cuts to truth in dialectical argument, and for dialectical
argument to work the participants have to recognize that each stage is
necessary. Dialectical argument will not be hurried.

Some Marxist thinkers might argue that socialism was born from Hegelianism, yet
that would imply that socialism came after Hegelianism, when actually socialism as an
ideology was born around the same time in France and England while Hegelianism was in
Germany. Marxism has indeed appeared after Hegelianism yet it is still arguable how much
of Marxism has Hegelianism at its roots in the finite product. Marx believes that his
interpretation of Hegel is superior, that he has created an evolution of his ideas, as described
in his work, Critique on Hegels Philosophy of Right. Needless to say, Hegel was a Christian,
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even though he opposed some dogmas of organized religion such as Catholicism, while Marx
was fully atheist and considered religious belief and in everything supernatural to be
ridiculous and counter-productive. In order to explain the difference between Hegelian
dialectics and dialectic materialism, Karl Marx stated:
My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct
opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which,
under the name of 'the Idea', he even transforms into an independent subject, is
the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of
'the Idea'. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected
by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.1

THE ANTI-MATERIALIST REVISION OF MARXISM

Marxism, as a philosophy, revolves around a materialist vision of humankind in which the
notions of religion and paranormal are nothing more than illusions and superstitions. Marx
views spiritualism and religion as counter-productive, as an element that halts societys
advance with promises of a better afterlife. Marx made the following statement regarding
religion:
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of
soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" 2
As a reactionary move, the revolutionary right attacked the materialist basis of Marxism,
believing that human beings should not be treated so easily just as variables, as simple cogs
in a machine. All anti-materialist movements shared a common hatred for money, speculation
and the dominant bourgeois ideas. Through thinkers such as Sorel, Michels, Lagardelle,
Labriola and de Man, this version of socialism took a different path and underwent a
1 Marx, K. Capital: Critique of Political Economy (1867-1883), 1 :14
2 Marx, K. 1976. Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy
of Right. Collected Works, v. 3. New York
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profound transformation. The book published in 1926 by Hendrik de Man, Zur Psychologie
des Sozialismus, made him one of the most controversial socialist writers of the interwar
period. The purpose of his book was to be the utter destruction of Marxism. He proposed
leaving behind the materialism of Marxism and the adoption of an ethical socialism, stating
during the event which came to be known as The theses of Heppenheim that vital values are
superior to material values. The revolution proposed by the anti-materialists was not
anymore about just seizing the means of production from the capitalists, but to create a
spiritual and ethical revolution which would help the entire nation (for anti-materialists, the
emphasis was on the nation while in Marxism it is about class struggle).

Sorel, on the other hand, went towards a synthesis of populism and nationalism.
Sorel's was a voluntarist Marxist: he rejected those Marxists who believed in inevitable and
evolutionary change, emphasizing instead the importance of will and preferring direct action.
These approaches included general strikes, boycotts, and constant disruption of
capitalism with the goal being to achieve worker control over the means of production.
Sorel's belief in the need for a deliberately conceived myth to sway crowds into concerted
action was put into practice by mass fascist movements in the 1920s. The epistemic status of
the idea of myth is of some importance, and is essentially that of a working hypothesis, with
one fundamental peculiarity: it is a hypothesis which we do not judge by its closeness to a
Truth, but by the practical consequences which stem from it. Thus, whether a political myth
is of some importance or not must be decided, in Sorel's view, on the basis of its capacity to
mobilize human beings into political action; the only possible way for men to ascend to an
ethical life filled by the character of the sublime and to achieve deliverance. Sorel believed
the energizing myth of the general strike would serve to enforce solidarity, class
consciousness and revolutionary lan among the working class. The myth that
the fascists would appeal to, however, was that of the race, nation, or people, as represented
by the state.

CONCLUSION
Marxism as a philosophy managed to reach incredible levels of fame and recognition
ever since its inception and changed the world (for better or worse) visibly. Marxist concepts
such as the class struggle and the seizing of the means of production by the workers became
the cornerstone of most countries that have adopted communism.
To put it in a nutshell, the study of Marxism and its derivates is an essential step in
understanding the reasons and ideas behind historical events and the way they have
contributed to the situation of the present day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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What Was Communism: A Retrospective in Comparative Analysis Andrew C.

Janos, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA
94720, USA
The 'Anti-Materialist' Revision of Marxism as an Aspect of the Rise of Fascist
Ideology, Zeev Sternhell, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 22, No. 3. (Jul.,
1987), pp. 379-400.
Marx, K. Capital: Critique of Political Economy (1867-1883)
Marx, K. 1976. Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of
Right. Collected Works, v. 3. New York