Perhaps this material may prove to be difficult reading. However, the theories of Communism will be far easier to digest in this brief, concentrated form than they would be if the student attempted to spend several months digging them out of far-flung, technical treatises in Communist literature.
Every student should pursue his studies of Marxism until he has discovered the answers to such questions as these:
• What is the Communist “law of opposites”? What is the “law of negation”? Explain the “law of transformation.
• How does the Communist philosopher explain the origin of life? Does the universe have a designer or a purpose?
• What is meant by the Communist concept that everything is the result of accumulated accident?
• Does Communism have a god? What did Feuerbach say man’s god really is? Who did Marx say must remake the world? How did Marx and Engels justify the use of violence?
• What is the basic fallacy in the Communist “law of opposites”? What is the inherent fallacy in the “law of negation”? What is the weakness in the “law of transformation”?
The Case for Communism
The influence of Marx and Engels has continued in the earth, not simply because they were against so many things but primarily because they stood for something. In a word, they promised to satisfy humanity’s two greatest needs: the need for universal peace and the need for universal prosperity.
The very fact that Communism offered a millennium for all the distracted, dissatisfied and unhappy people in the world assured it a hearing, not merely by under-privileged workers, but by many of the aristocracy, many of the wealthy, and many of the political and economic theorists.
When these people began hearing how Marx and Engels were going to achieve universal peace and universal prosperity they began dividing into clear-cut camps for or against Communism. One group insisted that Communism was worth a try in spite of the blood bath it would bring to humanity (after all, what is one more war if it is the gateway to permanent peace?). The other camp insisted that Communism is a complete repudiation of every decent human attribute. It would summarily forfeit all the gains which men have made through centuries of struggle.
What, then, is the case for Communism?
In this chapter we shall attempt to reduce Communist thought to its basic formula. The student will become immediately aware that Marx and Engels dealt with much more than violent revolution and Communist economics. In fact, they developed a framework of ideas designed to explain everything in existence. This philosophy is the pride and joy of every modern Communist intellectual and therefore deserves careful scrutiny.
The Communist Philosophy of Nature
To begin with, the basic Communist idea is that everything in existence can be explained by one thing—matter. Beyond matter there is nothing. Matter is the total explanation for atoms, solar systems, plants, animals, man, psychic consciousness, human intelligence and all other aspects of life. Communist philosophy maintains that if science can get to know all there is to know about matter, we will then know all there is to know about everything.{9} Communism has therefore assigned to science the monumental task of making man totally omniscient—of knowing all truth—but has limited the investigation to one reality—matter. Matter is conclusively accepted as the beginning and the end of all reality.
Communist philosophy then sets forth to answer three questions:
• What is the origin of energy or motion in nature?
• What causes galaxies, solar systems, planets, animals and all kingdoms of nature to constantly increase their numerical quantity?
• What is the origin of life, the origin of species and the origin of consciousness and mind?
Marx and Engels answered all of these questions with their three laws of matter:
The Law of Opposites—Marx and Engels started with the observation that everything in existence is a combination or unity of opposites.{10} Electricity is characterized by a positive and negative charge. Atoms consist of protons and electrons which are unified but contradictory forces. Each organic body has qualities of attraction and repulsion. Even human beings find through introspection that they are a unity of opposite qualities—selfishness and altruism, courage and cowardice, social traits and anti-social traits, humbleness and pride, masculinity and femininity. The Communist conclusion is that everything in existence “contains two mutually incompatible and exclusive but nevertheless equally essential and indispensable parts or aspects.”{11}
Now the Communist concept is that this unity of opposites in nature is the thing which makes each entity auto-dynamic and provides the constant motivation for movement and change. This idea was borrowed from Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770–1831) who said: “Contradiction (in nature) is the root of all motion and of all life.”{12}
This, then, introduces us to the first basic observation of Communist dialectics. The word “dialectics” has a very special meaning to Communists. It represents the idea of conflict in nature. The beginning student of Communist philosophy can better understand the meaning of dialectics if he substitutes the word “conflict” each time “dialectics” appears.
So at this point the student is expected to understand that each thing in the universe is in a state of motion because it is a parcel made up of opposite forces which are struggling within it. This brings us to the second law of matter.
The Law of Negation—Having accounted for the origin of motion and energy in the universe, the Communist writers then set about to account for the tendency in nature to constantly increase the numerical quantity of all things. They decided that each entity tends to negate itself in order to reproduce itself in greater quantity. Engels cited the case of the barley seed which, in its natural state, germinates and out of its own death or negation produces a plant. The plant in turn grows to maturity and is itself negated after bearing many barley seeds. Thus, all nature is constantly expanding through dying. The elements of opposition which produce conflict in each thing and give it motion also tend to negate the thing itself; but out of this dynamic process of dying the energy is released to expand and produce many more entities of the same kind.{13}
Having accounted for numerical increase in the universe, the Communist philosophers then set about to account for all the different creations in nature.
The Law of Transformation—This law states that a continuous quantitative development by a particular class often results in a “leap” in nature whereby a completely new form or entity is produced.{14} Consider, for example, the case of the paraffin hydrocarbons:
“Chemistry testifies to the fact that methane is composed of one atom of carbon and four atoms of hydrogen. Now, if we add to methane another atom of carbon and two more atoms of hydrogen (a mere quantitative increase since these are the elements already composing the methane) we get an entirely new chemical substance called ethane. If we add another atom of carbon and two more atoms of hydrogen to the ethane, we get propane, an entirely different chemical substance. Another quantitative addition of an atom of carbon and two atoms of hydrogen results in a fourth chemical substance, butane. And still another quantitative addition of an atom of carbon and two more atoms of hydrogen results in a fifth chemical substance, pentane.”{15}