Tomasz Helemejko
The concept of Marxism
Karl Heinrich Marx was born in Trier in the Kingdom of Prussia on the
5th of May 1818 and died on the 14 th March 1883. He was a philoso-
pher and economist who is most famous for the cr eation, together with
Friedrich Engels, of the thought of M arxism and for the impr ovement
of the idea of class str uggle. In his Communist Manifesto he showed the
historical materialism and the impor tance of means of pr oduction in
the way the history was formed1. Moreover, he indicated the significant
role of the economic basis of society in determining its social str ucture
as a whole, as well as the psychology of the people within it. H e wrote
that constant class str uggle leads inevitably to the pr oletarian revolu-
tion in which the pr oletarian class will win and a non-class society will
spread. This process was one the final steps in the historical transforma-
tion consisting of repeated stages. Jean Touchard in his book Histoire des
idées politiques wrote quoting Marx that “on a certain level of (economi-
cal) development the for ces of pr oduction enter a contradiction with
the relations of production. The latter soon becomes an obstacle to the
development of the for ces of pr oduction what commences the social
revolution”2. He is known for the development of modern socialism and
communism along with creating Marxism.
1 See K. Marx, F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, http://www.anu.edu.au/
polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html.
2 J. Touchard, Histoire des idées politiques, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1959.
10 TOMASZ HELEMEJKO
1. Ideological sources of Marxism
Marx derived his ideas from Hegel’s dialectical method and Feuerbachi-
an materialism, changing and criticizing these ideas. These two philos-
ophers were the most influential to his idea of dialectical materialism
which was a unique combination of their concepts.
Dialectic as a philosophical idea dates back to the ancient times. Her-
aclitus of Ephesus who is considered as the father of this concept stated
that everything is a constant process and this motion consists of trans-
forming one individual thing into something else. I n the 19 th century
in was the Hegel’s idea of dialectic which gave basis to a modern under-
standing of this concept. He showed for the first time “the whole world of
nature, history and spirit as process that is in a constant motion, change-
ability, dynamics and development”.3 Hegel considered development as
going through the stages of lo w quality to the stages of high quality , as
a motion happening not only in space but also in time and that pr ocess
can be called improvement. In his idea the most important changes were
caused by overcoming the inner contradictions which emerged naturally
on the path of development because every term includes his own contra-
diction. According to Hegel the synthesis of a term and its contradiction
was based on ideological dialectics. I t stated that the idea is the essence
of the world’s improvement which can take place with the participation
of human history. In his idealism Hegel claimed that the reality is based
on an spiritual substance existing in the form of an objectiv e thought
consisting of connected logical terms. He conceived the idea of objective
dialectic which was not a method explaining the reality neither any kind
of reflection, but rather a mode of existing of the terms, their essence
because “they exist in reality only in a dialectical way, as a motion, sort
of continuity, as a process of dev elopment”.4 Marx used this concept
but, as he had in habit, he analyz ed and changed the original thought.
Marx rejected the idea of objectiv e spirit and in his concept it became
a science of general rules of motion both in outside world and the sphere
of human thought. By synthesizing it with Feuerbachian materialism he
created the famous concept of dialectical materialism.
3 J. Grudzień, Filozofia marksistowska, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warsaw
1970, p. 117.
4 Ibidem, 119.
THE CONCEPT OF MARXISM 11
The second compound of Marx main theory has its roots in the philos-
ophy of Feuerbachian materialism which at the time, according to Engels,
was an inspiring novelty for both young philosophers.5 Marx in his work
Theses on Feuerbach stated that the materialist thinkers consider the Object
as something connected with contemplation rather than human sensuous
activity, practice. Perception itself is a part of human attitude to the out-
side world that is why he stated that Feuerbach focused only on the influ-
ence of the objects of nature on human beings, forgetting about the oppo-
site process. He also criticizes Feuerbachian idea of religion as the concept
created by men which could be annihilated just b y the awareness of this
fact. Marx stated that the spiritual basis is only one of the factors along
with the real premises which should be abolished in or der to free oneself
of religion. He wrote that moulding the consciousness itself would not be
the determining factor in changing the reality as long as the practice would
not follow it. Moreover, Marx criticized Feuerbachian concept of the es-
sence of man, saying that the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each
single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations.6 He also
takes under considerations F euerbachian concept, stating that “ men are
products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, ther efore, changed
men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, for-
gets that it is men who change cir cumstances (…) The coincidence of
the changing of cir cumstances and of human activity or self-change can
be conceived and rationally understood only as r evolutionary practice”.7
That means that the idea of a change can no longer deriv e from outside
of the social masses but it should rather be an effect of realizing that their
individual interests are identical with the common ones. In this process the
working class would be the center of a historical initiative.
2. Dialectical materialism
Marx’ dialectic is a theory of a constant motion in the surr ounding world,
a method of discovering and a guideline of development. It focuses on re-
5 F. Engels. Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Progress
Publishers edition, Moscow 1946.
6 K. Marx, Theses of Feuerbach, translated by Cyril Smith, 2002, http://www.marxists.
org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm.
7 Ibidem.
12 TOMASZ HELEMEJKO
vealing general laws ruling both nature and human thinking. He considered
world as a unity of phenomena and occurr ences not in steadiness but in
constant and uninterrupted motion, development and change. I t is a law
binding the organic world, human conscience as w ell as the society . The
motion, being a feature of all things, is a result of one body having an effect
on another, the relation between them. According to the Marx’ materialism
since everything in our world consists of matter, the dialectic talks about the
motion of matter. It is a result of duality of the essence of all matter, its inner
contradictions, opposing properties etc. (e.g., physical centripetal force and
centrifugal force). Due to dualistic matter, the struggle of these contradic-
tions is the cause of motion which is the only form of existence of matter.
The development in Marxism consists in going from a quantity change
to a quality change from one quality to another. Although Marx and En-
gels did note that a new thing deriv es from an old thing they did not
picture development as a loop, they did not consider it as a process of
repeating the things which had happened or been befor e. In their point
of view it was a growing line since the pr ogress took place in steps (or
“jumps”) always leading to something of a new quality. Motion and devel-
opment consist in incessant solving of some contradictions and in its result in
the emerging of others. Negation of an old quality by a new quality is not the
end of struggle, it does not stop it. The new quality is full of contradictions
which appear in the course of time. They cause a next struggle in which
a new quality emerges. The process of negation does not mean destroying
and rejecting the values of the old quality, since new quality adopts accom-
plishments and good features of the old quality. That is why development
can be divided into three stages: creation, pupation and dying.
As mentioned before, dialectic materialism states that the matter is an
objective feature of all things, the only reality, the cause, the basis and the
carrier of the world ’s diversity.8 That does not r eject different ways and
structures of organizing the matter in the biological spher e and human
conscience. Due to Marxism every process has its roots in matter which in-
fluences all things as it is the only objective and autonomous being. Engels
stated that the matter is nothing else but a sum of substance, a sum of all sensu-
ously perceivable forms of motion9. The matter is not only the basis of things
existing in reality, it is also the envir onment of mental phenomena cr ea-
8 J. Grudzień, op. cit., p. 176
9 F. Engels, Dialectics of nature.
THE CONCEPT OF MARXISM 13
tion. Engels stated that time and space are forms of the matters existence.
They are universal features of matter and neither they can exist without
matter nor there is any matter without time and space. The unstoppable
motion is a factor determining the eternity of the universe and matter.
The second main point of materialism says about the originality of mat-
ter and the deriv ativity of human conscience. The matter is previous be-
cause it is an objective reality and it exists independently from conscience.
It is an outside spher e while the conscience is the ability of our mind to
reflect the reality surrounding us, to comprehend the processes occurring
in the world, understand our thoughts and actions as w ell as our attitude
to the outside world and ourselves.10 It creates the pictures of matter so it is
derivative to it. It is of secondary importance because it is a product of our
nervous system, work and human practice–the matter in motion.
3. Historical materialism
The historical materialism was an attempt of transmitting the idea of
dialectical materialism into the path of history. Basing on his philosophy
not only did Marx prove its accuracy in the past times, he also tried to
predict future changes in society, politics and state. By deeply analyzing
the history of humanity he noticed cer tain repeated regularities which
lead him to the idea of historical materialism. E ngels compared Marx
concept of historical materialism to Darwin’s theory of evolution, stating
that just like the latter discovered the law of evolutionary progress in the
organic world the former created similar laws concerning the histor y of
mankind. Marx singled out certain features and phenomena causing the
progress of humankind or being crucial factors in the change of history11.
The society, its classes and the struggle between them
In our world composed by matter the social relations are characterized by
the matters reflection in society: the private property and different attitude
10 J. Grudzień, op. cit., p. 183.
11 See also: C.W. Mills, The Marxists, Dell Publishing, New York 1962; L. Kołakowski,
Główne nurty marksizmu. Powstanie – rozwój – rozkład, tom I, Wydawnictwo Na-
ukowe PWN S.A., Warszawa 2009.
14 TOMASZ HELEMEJKO
to it. He stated that that was the cause of forming of all social ideologies, law
views political theories and institutions.12 Marx perceived the material con-
ditions of human being as a determining factor of what he called super-
structure. The state and the law are the exact reflection of the relations of
production existing in the society. “The basis” is the main factor forming
different views, feelings and social consciousness.
The historical materialism, connecting the progress of mankind with
the material means of production, implies a question concerning the role
of human beings in the historical dev elopment. Marx answers it quite
clearly, stating that the histor y of societies, being a relation of consecu-
tive changes in the ways of pr oduction, is, ther efore, a history of the
forces manufacturing the material goods. Although exploited and down-
trodden they may be, the people has always been the evolutionary force,
both in political and economical sense changing the ways of production
and developing the means of production.
The proletarian masses hav e to be guided in their path of histor y.
Marx neither negated nor decr eased the importance of the individuals
in this pursuit. The more people take part in the events changing history
the more they need leaders, politicians and ideologist. Marx determined
their role as cr ucial in incr easing the class conscience of the ex celling
class. Although he underscor ed the impor tance of appearance of such
unique persons in the cr ucial moments of histor y he rejected all symp-
toms of the cult of an individual as an idealistic concepts.
Marx, as he admitted himself , was not the founder of the concept
of a society divided into classes neither he noticed the str uggle between
them. That observation dated back to the ancient times when it was
mentioned by Aristotle then expanded b y Adam Smith and David Ri-
cardo. Marx himself stated that his contribution in the dev elopment of
this idea consisted in showing the real basis of class division and conse-
quences of this state.
Karl Marx denied the theory of natural harmony and indicated that
in the 18th century the social classes began to polarize and split into two
groups: oppressors and oppressed, due to differences between propertied
and non-propertied classes. The bourgeoisie was the class that appear ed
earlier as it was a product of another str uggle–between the feudal r ela-
12 H. Olszewski, M. Zmierczak, Historia doktryn politycznych i prawnych, Ars Boni et
Aequi, Poznań 1994, p. 261.
THE CONCEPT OF MARXISM 15
tions and capitalistic forces. Then it dominated the society forming the
superstructure subordinate to their goals and practice. The appearance
of proletariat was caused b y the changes in the spher e of r elations of
production in the capitalistic economy and society. This class took over
the revolutionary role in the society . Marx believed that accor ding to
his theory the industrial society would undergo anticipated changes and
would go thr ough certain levels of ev olution, finally causing a global
proletarian revolution. According to these stages: firstly, the bourgeoisie
or middle class will decr ease in numbers, secondly, the workers will in-
crease in numbers, thirdly, all the other intermediary classes will lose any
significant political power and it will make the society polarized between
two powers the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. That does not mean the
annihilation of other social classes, for example feudal nobles, peasants,
middle class or manufacturers. They simply have no significance in the
relations of production, neither they have the class consciousness. They
are not adapted to the modern world, they lack the awar eness of their
enemy. The society is then dominated by the struggle between the bour-
geoisie and the pr oletariat. It happens in all spher es of social life: eco-
nomical, cultural, political, and ideological. The struggle is a law of his-
tory and the factor, accelerating the development which works in every
society consisting of antagonistic classes, fighting for a higher role in the
area of production. The bourgeoisie and the pr oletariat both have op-
posite interests which are inherent in and cannot not be solved without
modifying. That state of social antagonism was called b y Marx “a con-
tradiction”. Different relations of each class to the means of pr oduction
are, according to Marx, the main r eason of that conflict. The capitalist
organization of industry which happened to facilitate the dev elopment
of the forces of production begin to fetter the latter and it causes a dis-
soluble conflict between the possessors and non-possessors r eflected by
different needs and goals of both classes. The objective contradiction
within the economical situation has its subjectiv e counterpart within
the social relations. These factors begin to differ into the point that no
peaceful, evolutionary way could reconcile them.
The famous father of the proletarian revolution writes in his work The
Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism that the state was cr eated
because of a need of fettering the classes contradictions and it is r uled
by the most economically powerful class (that is bourgeoisie) which be-
comes also the most politically influential one. The state is than useful in
16 TOMASZ HELEMEJKO
exploiting and oppressing workers. That indicates the reason for destroy-
ing superstructure (that is state) on the way of pr oletariat in changing
the social structure.13
The philosopher noticed on the example of capitalists r eplacing no-
bles the indispensability of a class in the economic system and that ob-
servation led him to the idea that the pr oletariat would one day replace
bourgeoisie and socialism would replace capitalism as a historical regular-
ity. “They cannot help this. It is their destiny. And so they are doomed.”
The Marxist theory of power assumed that the r uling classes lose their
indispensability with the course of time. Economy would worsen due to
severe crises inherent with the nature of the economic system. The grow-
ing consciousness of pr oletariat and their incr easing in number, along
with worsened life conditions, will lead to disturbances and finally to the
revolution which will firstly emerge in the most industrialized countries.
The superstructure
According to M arx the superstr ucture–political institutions like state,
political organizations, law, customs etc.–which ar e determined by the
capitalist relations of production, can only be changed in a revolution-
ary way when wor kers free the productive forces fettered by the capi-
talist, the forces dormant in the pr oletarian society. The state and the
law are the result of the historical pr ogress and their form depends on
the stage of development of history. They are means of controlling one
class by another, a system of enslav ement and exploitation. The state
creates the law as an additional system of norms, reflecting the relations
of production and property, which are obligatory and punishable by the
sanctions secured by state. Marx stated that the law is the will of the
ruling class transformed onto the legal language of acts. H e wanted to
prove the adequacy of his idea historical changes, showing the successive
types of states: slavish, feudal and capitalistic. H e linked the types of
state with the oppressing classes dominating the society in each of them:
the owners of slaves, feudal lords and bourgeoisie. H e underscored the
importance of the economic system in forming the type of state. M arx
criticized capitalistic state rationally and did not reject all its features. He
considered it as a school of political thinking of the working class as well as
13 See also: J. Ładosz, Marksistowska teoria walki klas, Książka i Wiedza, Warszawa 1969.
