Or Hegel’s “Absolute Idea” and “Spirit of History”?
Nasser Paydar May 2003
“The damage dialectics suffers at Hegel’s hands due to mystification in no way prevents him from having been the first to comprehensively and consciously articulate the general forms of dialectical movement. In his hands, dialectics is standing on its head; it must be turned right side up to discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.”
(Marx, *Capital*, Vol. I, Afterword to the Second Edition)
The more we scrutinize the political landscape of non-labour or syndicalist Left forces traversing the spectrum from left to right and back and the more we clear away the accumulated dust of their pseudo-communist or worker-worshipping rhetoric to reveal the true substance of their social existence, the more we find a crude Hegelianism and a correspondingly emaciated, feeble version of the Marx’s narrative of communism and class struggle. For this spectrum, communism is neither the communism of the working class nor that of Marx; rather, it is a “leftist” caricature of Hegel’s “Absolute Idea,” “Spirit of History,” or “World History.” Pinpointing the actual roots of poverty, inequality, oppression, and other human afflictions in the manner of Marx; developing the theory and manifesto of class struggle into a concrete communist alternative; organizing the working class into councils around this alternative in short, sustaining a living labour and communist movement that embodies the political manifestation of Marx’s materialist dialectic none of this constitutes the practical substance of this Left; indeed, it barely occupies any space in its political discourse or theoretical debates. Hegel spoke of the Absolute Idea of the universal spirit of existence, the abstract reason for peoples and nations, and the essence of historical evolution, the ultimate realization of which supposedly elucidates the pinnacle of human perfection. In his view, human social existence was the crystallization of a specific moment in the teleological process of the Spirit of History and, consequently, the material manifestation of a rational reality. Humans were called upon to recognize history’s ultimate purpose and to strive, using material tools and means, for its objective realization. Within this explanatory framework, realities were deemed rational because, on the one hand, they echoed the furthest reach of humanity’s relative understanding of “world history” and, on the other, they showcased the material achievements of this human cognition within the realm of social existence. In Hegel’s narrative, movement and struggle represented humanity’s endeavour to transition from a lower level to a more perfect phase aligning with the scope of historical possibilities and capacities in the service of the material actualization of the Absolute Idea in human life. “Spirit begins in a state of infinite potentiality which is nothing more than mere possibility yet within this state, it holds its absolute essence in potential; this essence is the very end and purpose that Spirit attains only at the journey’s conclusion, thereby realizing its own truth. Thus, in the realm of existence, progress manifests as a movement from the imperfect toward the more perfect. “Here, however, the ‘imperfect’ must not be understood as absolute imperfection; rather, it is something that harbours within itself its own opposite that is, what is commonly termed ‘perfection’ much like a germ or an inner drive. It is akin to how ‘potentiality’ (or *dynamism*), at least theoretically, points toward something destined to eventually become actual. To cite a more precise example, the Aristotelian term *dynamism* meaning motion also signifies force and capacity. Thus, an imperfect entity, insofar as it contains its opposite within itself, is fraught with contradiction; and the resolution of this contradiction is just as necessary as its existence is inevitable.” (Hegel, *Reason in History*)
In this text, we will to some extent unravel the Hegelian underpinnings of the Left’s prevailing narrative regarding the communist and labour movements, as well as the glaring, fundamental contradiction between that narrative and the Marx’s interpretation of these movements. However, at the outset, we must briefly acknowledge the astonishment and bewilderment that will likely arise in the minds of many upon hearing this proposition. Some will rightly ask: Is attributing the actual existence of the contemporary Left to Hegelianism truly a serious discussion? How is it possible that those who in their slogans, their articulation of ideas and expectations, their written manifestos, and their declarations of principles and social and class perspectives consistently speak of communism and the necessity of a communist transformation of the existing world; those forces and tendencies that view themselves as active communists and agents of changing the current reality; those who, at every turn whether veering right or left invoke communism above all else and swear by it; those for whom “revolution” and the denunciation of reformism are constant refrains, waking or sleeping how is it possible that *they* are truly beholden to the reactionary notion that “whatever is real is rational”? Or, to put it in demagogic terms: “They may not be rational, but a communist transformation of them is not rational *for the time being* simply because such a transformation is not feasible”!!! This question addresses a fundamental social reality that demands rigorous dissection, critique, and judgment commensurate with its significance. These proponents do not speak bluntly or openly of the rationality of capitalism or the reasonableness of wage-labour relations; had they done so, they would have effectively nailed the coffin shut on their own claims to being communist. No, they do not say this explicitly, but they frame this very issue this chilling conviction in a different guise. Their underlying argument is that the current reality of the labour movement is, in itself, a rational phenomenon! To be more precise: the fact that the working masses limit themselves to piecemeal improvements in their lives under the yoke of wage slavery is a genuine process, and it is *this* reality that is deemed rational! The various groups, individuals, and collectives in question do not articulate this view neither in speech nor in writing with such smooth phrasing or explicit clarity. It would be a grave error to judge parties, forces, and social tendencies solely by what they say. The true basis and criterion for evaluation should not be the abstract scaffolding of beliefs or the doctrinal formulations found in their rhetoric; rather, it must be the realm of the material and social unfolding of these statements—or, more simply put, their political practice and the objective reality of their class-based and social activities. Throughout the history of the labour movement, the material and political conduct of the broad spectrum of the non-labourism and syndicalist Left which cloaks itself in the guise of communism has been driven by the belief that the working masses, burdened by livelihood pressures, a lack of social knowledge, low political consciousness, and the struggles of daily life, lack the opportunity to contemplate a communist class alternative. From this perspective, the struggle for higher wages, a subsistence-level standard of living, social security benefits, the right to strike, the right to form unions, and similar demands represents the absolute limit of what workers currently envision and fight for. They further argue that specific social and historical junctures inevitably arise when governments, under the strain of economic and political crises, descend into disarray and lose the capacity to suppress the working class. In such conditions, workers can rally under the banner of a vanguard party one that advocates for communism and the seizure of political power to stage an uprising, overthrow the ruling regime, and, if possible, seize political power. This constitutes the entire fabric of the explanation offered by reformism masquerading as communism regarding the nature of the working masses’ class struggle and the fate of the labour and communist movements; and this is precisely the explanation that aligns perfectly with the routine work and the political or social conduct of the various segments within that spectrum of pseudo-communist reformism.
If we thoroughly dissect the issue stripping this Left of the three interconnected components of syndicalism, the struggle for democracy, and the movement for regime overthrow what, in reality, actually remains for it within the confines of the capitalist world? The answer is simple: Communism as an idea, as the absolute spirit of existence whose realization represents the ultimate aspiration and goal of the Left is the only thing that would emerge from beneath the dust of its towering claims. It is an absolute idea and an abstract spirit of world history belief in which serves as the Left’s sole credential for proving its communist identity. Across all its faction’s syndicalist, insurrectionist, and otherwise the social-reformist Left reduces its communism to a frozen caricature akin to Hegel’s “world-historical idea.” Simultaneously, it rationalizes the current state of the labour movement with all its class confusion, the absence of communist strategic horizons, and its debilitating political deadlocks as an unavoidable necessity and a concrete, attainable manifestation of that very absolute idea’s material and social existence! It is a fact that workers currently lack a clear class perspective; but within the narratives of the non-proletarian or syndicalist Left, this very phenomenon is presented as entirely rational. Workers are unable to formulate and realize their own distinct communist alternative; social reformism, with great relish and the full force of its argumentative power, clothes this reality in the garb of rationality. Workers confine their ongoing struggles for improved living conditions within the bounds of capitalist rule, while the spectrum of social-reformist forces claiming to be communist views this situation as reality and that reality as the very embodiment of reason even as the worker masses remain disengaged from the effort to organize against the wage-labour system. Social reformism analyses this bitter reality with elaborate, “rational” flourishes, theorizing and advocating for a specific organizational approach: trade unionism for the workers, alongside the party-based and ideological organization of an isolated elite. Under the pressure of dictatorship and various forms of social and political oppression, workers have not placed the attainment of free, adequate healthcare, education, and housing on the agenda of their daily struggles. Social reformists sanctify these realities using their full propaganda capacity and clamorous rhetoric, launching campaigns to demonstrate their rationality. In short, all the weaknesses of the labour movement ranging from the failure to centre working-class struggles around a concrete and immediate communist alternative, and the masses of workers remaining distant from the process of organizing into councils opposed to the wage-labour system, to the low level of communist consciousness among workers and their modest day-to-day expectations and demands; from their widespread illusions regarding bourgeois solutions and visions, to the extreme weakness in exercising independent class power against capital are all viewed, within the philosophical outlook and political perspective of social reformism, as “rational realities.” Consequently, policies, tactics, and social solutions are formulated based on an acceptance of this very rationality. It is of utmost importance to note that reformism regardless of whether it fervently claims to be communist, or whether it advocates peaceful means versus militancy and the overthrow of the system invariably grounds the material basis of its policies and practical course of action (in deed, if not in word) in the assumption that the actual realities of the labour movement are rational.
Hegel’s metaphysical dialectic serves as the connecting link between the plans, courses of action, objectives, and immediate tasks in short, the unifying bond of the theories and practical approaches of social reformism, encompassing both syndicalist and insurrectionist currents. Hegel believed in the continuous historical transformation of phenomena, including human historical existence. He posited the inevitability of this movement as a fundamental component of his dialectic; likewise, the culmination of gradual, quantitative changes into a fundamental, qualitative transformation was an integral part of his system. Hegel emphatically highlighted the internal contradictions within phenomena, regarding the process of quantitative change and the emergence of qualitative shifts as stemming from the inherent antagonisms of existence itself. While Hegel subscribed to all these concepts, what eluded his grasp was the material nature of the process transforming human historical and social existence. His dialectic lacked the capacity to explore civil society through the lens of political economy, to recognize the primacy of human social existence over consciousness and thought, to comprehend how material production gives rise to social classes and the inevitability of class struggle, and, ultimately, to understand the process by which class consciousness evolves into the material force of class conflict. For this very reason and under the pressure of these fundamental shortcomings Hegel’s dialectic, instead of exploring the rationality of transforming realities and becoming a material weapon of struggle for change through a specific social class, conversely came to validate the rationality of existing realities.
From the perspective of Left-Hegelian social reformism, the working class and its movement constitute a material reality in motion a reality that, under the contradictory pressures of capitalist society, is destined to undergo a prolonged process of quantitative changes; these changes are expected to culminate, at a critical historical juncture, in the emergence of a revolutionary situation and the subsequent outbreak of revolution. The workers’ day-to-day struggles for higher wages, the formation of trade-union-style organizations to coordinate these efforts, resistance against capital’s encroachments on living standards and hard-won gains, and broadly speaking the unified movement to secure better terms for the exchange of labour power for capital, all exemplify the true nature of the labour movement’s gradual development as viewed by Left-Hegelian syndicalism (or non-workerist currents). Social reformism whether pacifist or militant is deeply captivated by the ebb and flow of this process; it conceives the relationship between this movement and communism not in formal or theoretical terms, but rather in practical and objective ones, likening it to the relationship between “present reality” and the “Absolute Idea” within Hegel’s dialectical system. The Left refers to this process as the workers’ trade-union movement or the level of struggle currently attainable by the working masses. A segment of social reformists though not all of them holds the view that the communist workers’ movement currently pursues its ideological and political existence through committed party vanguards and idealistic, active communist elements. While they may not state this explicitly, in practice, they regard the former as the rational and desirable reality of the labour movement, and the latter as heroic, exemplary figures striving to realize the “Absolute Idea” in this case, “Communism” within that former entity!!!
Social reformism, in the realm of theoretical debate and political polemics, by no means considers itself deserving of such a verdict; but the entire political practice of the greater part of the Left-over recent decades stands as living proof of the validity of this dismal reality. Revolutionary zeal and a steadfast commitment to employing force to overthrow ruling political regimes typically obscure the fact that the social-reformist or non-proletarian Left has effectively dissolved into the prevailing system. However, this drive for overthrow and militant fervour bears no necessary, intrinsic connection to playing a specific role in advancing the working class’s movement to abolish wage labour; rather, it serves as the heavy price paid for democracy and the ideal of democratizing the structure of capitalist dictatorship or merely substituting one form of capitalist rule for another. For all its progressive and forward-looking aspects, Hegel’s dialectic was ultimately suspended upside down in the heavens. The dialectic of the dominant segment of the existing Left insofar as it concerns communism is likewise not fundamentally material or grounded in the real world. Here, communism is a historical ideal, akin to Hegel’s “Spirit of History” or the “World-Historical” idea an ideal that persists within the material existence of the world merely as an abstract category. The working class viewed as the specific social force potentially capable of realizing this historical spirit is extolled and venerated by the Left with intense fervour. The interplay between the workers’ trade-unionist, rights-based, and democratic struggles on the one hand, and the Left’s militant, insurrectionary idealism on the other serving as the historical arena for the manifestation of the abstract idea of communism effectively dissolves the entire political substance of both the labour movement and the Left. Reality everywhere dons the garb of rationality, ruthlessly lashing out at any voice that dares to question the nature or specifics of Marx’s or working-class communism. It suffices for the living, tangible communist alternative of the proletariat or the council-based organization of the working masses in opposition to the wage-labour system to be broached here or there, and suddenly, all social-reformists from syndicalists to advocates of “regime change,” from union enthusiasts to council proponents, from pacifists to militants, and indeed all of them, including those critics who are themselves social-reformists will form a united front and unleash a barrage of attacks against you with all their fervour and might. People, forces, and tendencies whose communism much like Hegel’s “Spirit of World History” hangs suspended by every fibre of its being from the gallows of metaphysics individuals who have never once in their lives managed to cast even a fleeting Marx’s glance at the relationship between their own struggles and activities and the imperatives for strengthening and expanding the communist workers’ movement, nor do they intend to do so suddenly ascend the pulpit to preach about Marxist dialectics and raise a hue and cry over the compromising of the relationship between theory and practice. Those who have never conceived of communism outside of its abstract, idealized form and whose communist struggles have never transcended the aspiration to establish a trade union serving as a mediator between labour and capital suddenly fill the air with clamorous shouts of “Betrayal of the working class!” and “Betrayal of communism!”, acting as though a handful of “pseudo-leftist, pacifist amulet-peddlers” were disrupting the labour movement!
For this group, the relationship between theory and practice viewed through a class lens is precisely the Hegelian relationship between the Absolute Idea and reality: here, the Absolute Idea has assumed the name “Communism,” while reality has donned the guise of the workers’ struggle a struggle geared toward the feasible manipulation of capitalist society. It posits a form of Communism or the “historical spirit” destined to be the working class’s ultimate goal, set against a reality (the currently existing reformist movement) that is deemed entirely rational by virtue of its very existence and indeed, could not be otherwise! For the social-reformist Left, the theory-practice relationship entails acknowledging the Hegelian link between the rationality of this reality which simply *is* as it is and the preservation of Communism as an abstract, idealized concept that is not materially realizable in the here and now. To dispel any doubt that the prevailing factions of the current Left not only operate in this manner but whether consciously or unconsciously glossing over the contradictions actually articulate their daily behaviour and practice in these very terms, consider the following statement:
– “Of course, workers ought to fight for Communism; but when they are deprived of their basic rights, is this really the time for a communist struggle?”!!
– “It is obvious that workers must organize into a council-based movement against capitalism, but that applies only to a revolutionary situation; in a non-revolutionary context, one cannot speak of councils or council-based organization”!!!!
– “We, too, want workers to have access to free housing, water, electricity, and healthcare, but such things amount to nothing more than wishful thinking and utopian expectations. These demands should be pursued only after the revolution and the overthrow of the capitalist state; they cannot be raised within a capitalist society”!!!!
– “Do they these Leftists really grasp the importance to workers of amending this or that clause in the Islamic regime’s labour law? They know this, yet they still talk about the movement to abolish wage labour and insist that the working class’s problem is not reducible to the alteration of specific clauses in the labour law”!!!
– “These Leftists, who constantly speak of abolishing wage labour and organizing workers to destroy the capitalist system, are from head to toe truly the embodiment of a trance-like radicalism and the very picture of radical passivism”!!!!
_ “Does this ‘Left’ which speaks of the living, immediate reality of the global workers’ struggle for communism actually understand anything about the relationship between theory and practice?”!!
_ “We want workers to have a socialist movement, but advocating communism as a concrete social alternative contradicts the principle of relying on the working class’s own strength and reflects a utopian, rationalist understanding.”!!
_ “For the time being, the proletariat’s theoretical struggle consisting of critiquing current bourgeois policies and articulating trade-union, economic, and social demands is what is feasible; the movement that unfolds in this manner is precisely the proletarian socialist movement.”!!
– “The communist movement is the movement of conscious elements organized within the Communist Party, and the Party’s effort to assert its authority over the labour movement with the aim of seizing political power within a probable revolutionary perspective.”!!
None of these phrases or formulations are points gathered and juxtaposed here arbitrarily, based on personal taste or subjective interpretation. On the contrary, each one defines the actual practice and firm conviction of a specific Leftist political tendency or group. These are points that even if denied in words form the basis of policy adoption and drive the practical course of action for these forces. The tedious refrain of a historically bankrupt practice runs as follows: the broad masses of the working class, given their conditions of labour, life, and exploitation within capitalist society, cannot make the communist transformation of the existing reality the direct objective of their immediate struggles. The upshot of this entire spectrum’s position is: Communism? Yes! The communist movement? Yes! Anti-capitalist organization? Yes! Revolution and the seizure of political power? Yes! Ending wage labour and establishing a communist society? Yes! All these are, in their own right, sacred ideas and beliefs; yet, the practical and concrete organization of the broad working-class masses into a living, council-based, anti-wage-labour movement a movement embodying the material and social struggle against the very foundation of wage labour is deemed unrealistic for the time being, and perhaps even a sign of influence from utopian socialism! The struggle to improve living standards and welfare benefits is fundamentally incompatible with the struggle against wage labour!!! To achieve the former, one must abandon the latter!!! For now, wresting the right to organize from the bourgeoisie is what matters; organizing workers into a living movement *against* wage labour remains a pipe dream for the foreseeable future!! Instead, one should set about building a party removed from the clamour and mundane realities of workers’ daily struggles with the help of ideologically committed elements and those who believe in communism!! And this initiative should be announced to the workers through the issuance of a manifesto!! As for the communist movement, instead of it being a living movement of the working masses rallying around a viable communist alternative, it can be substituted by merely talking about communism, fighting for democracy and against the denial of civil and political rights, opposing national oppression, reflecting actual worker struggles in the party press, and churning out slogans like “Death to Capitalism”!!! And a communist revolution? Well, firstly, it is simply impossible in a single country!!! Secondly, it is contingent upon the attainment of democracy and comprehensive political development or perhaps even the occurrence of victorious democratic revolutions!!! And, of course, each of these steps requires the emergence of a revolutionary situation and a host of other factors!! In short, the task that can be undertaken right now in the name of communism and by communists is to show solidarity with the struggles workers are waging to defend their existing minimum standard of living! Changeling maximum enthusiasm into organizing workers around these very struggles and, ultimately, propagating as fervently as possible the necessity of overthrowing the regime also constitutes an integral and complementary part of this task! Having reviewed these points, we return to the core of the discussion and the Hegelian nature of social-reformist Leftist currents. The serious question is this: if the prevailing Left’s view of communism and the labour movement is not a historical continuation of the Hegelian understanding of the Absolute Idea and the rationality of reality, then what is it? What real rather than merely formal or verbal boundaries distinguish them? Where, within the political life of this Left, can communism be found not as a set of ideological clichés or dogmatic beliefs, but as a living class movement? We have previously noted that a triad comprising trade-union struggles, the democratic movement, and the drive for regime overthrow has come to dominate the entire basis of the Left’s class and social existence. The Left is confined within the narrow limits of this triad; as far as the various factions of the current Left are concerned, working-class communism has been crucified by the grip of this very triad. The Left has mistakenly laboured this reformist triad as “communism” and the “communist movement,” using its adherence to them as the credential for claiming the title of “communist.” If we strip this triad away from the Left, nothing remains of its communism other than an abstract idea. The current Left does not regard communism as a movement within the working class; it has no faith in organizing such a movement, nor does it envision any prospect for the movement to assert itself. It has nothing to say to this movement; on the contrary, it negates its very existence and dismisses any discussion about it as illegitimate.
The very first tenet of class struggle is that the worker must call into question the very basis of their existence as a worker as a seller of labour power; the communism of the workers’ movement is founded upon precisely this protest and class critique. In a completely inverted manner, the reformist Left transforms communism into a sacred ideal in order to obliterate its character as a movement specifically, as the class movement of the workers. This situation is utterly intolerable; fundamentally addressing it is essential for purging the workers’ movement of syndicalist or militant reformism, and serves as a crucial prerequisite for the flourishing, strengthening, and consolidation of a living communist movement within the social and class framework of the global working masses.
Working-Class Communism and the Marx’s Critique of Hegelian Dialectics
“Just as philosophy finds its material weapon in the proletariat, the proletariat finds its spiritual weapon in philosophy; and once the spark of thought has fundamentally ignited this raw, popular soil, the emancipation of the Germans their transformation into human beings will be realized” (Marx, *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*). Marx’s critique directed first at Hegel’s metaphysical dialectic and subsequently at Feuerbach’s dogmatic dialectic was grounded in a focus on the human being and the relationships between people. The critique rested on the fundamental principle that the issue was not whether the Absolute Idea or the human being was the creator or the created; rather, the focus was on “real individuals, their activities, and the material conditions of their lives.” The point of departure had to be real, active human beings and their ideological reactions to the ordinary course of life; what forms within the human mind is merely the sublimation of their natural life process. The answer to the question “What are human beings?” must be sought in their production in what they produce and how they produce it. The production of the means of subsistence entails interaction among people an interaction that is, in turn, determined by their mode of producing life. In critiquing Hegel’s metaphysics and Feuerbach’s dogmatic materialism, Marx ascended to the very vantage point that held the key to unlocking the mysteries of his age. Starting with the human being, this critique proceeded directly to the social existence of humanity and set out to explore the mysteries of how that existence undergoes transformation. Marx viewed society with all its economic, intellectual, cultural, political, and social phenomena as the developed manifestation of a material mode of production. He revealed that the human way of life, the existence of classes and class exploitation, deprivation and oppression, the organization of labour and the political structures corresponding to such exploitation, oppression, disenfranchisement, and inequality, the ongoing struggle between opposing classes, and human social consciousness and knowledge within this society all are rooted in this mode of production. Fundamental change in human life at any stage of historical evolution hinges upon a fundamental transformation of this mode of production. Thus, Marx’s materialist dialectic put an end to the long-standing discourse regarding matter versus spirit, idea versus reality, or the relationship between creator and created concerning humanity and the spirit of history. It spoke instead of concrete, existing reality, of the class struggle within this fundamentally contradictory reality, and of communism as the actual weapon of the proletariat’s struggle to transform that reality.
Even at this stage and before he had even set out to write *Capital* Marx challenged the heavy emphasis placed by democratic and reformist critics of capitalism on workers’ political awareness and knowledge as prerequisites for working-class emancipation; he argued that mere awareness and the raising of the masses’ social consciousness would not necessarily provide a remedy for their plight. The issue at stake was a form of consciousness that could serve as a material weapon in the working class’s struggle against the very foundations of capitalism. He cited the contemporary situation in England as an example: a country where workers possessed a relatively high level of political awareness, yet the poverty of the working masses remained appalling. In this context, Marx raised the question of revolutions, noting that the discussion was not merely about revolution or the seizure of political power; the fundamental issue was the transformation of the old society. Here, too, he pointed to France as a living example and an instructive model a society that, as he observed, had undergone multiple revolutions, yet had seen no significant resolution to its social problems or economic inequalities. It is of great significance that, while critiquing the dialectics of Hegel and Feuerbach and replacing them with his own materialist-dialectical perspective, Marx shifts the entire discourse on social reform, revolution, and the state moving from a focus on revolutionizing old power structures to the necessity of an actual revolution at the very foundation of the old society, and from merely changing the forms of the state to the urgent necessity of the state’s dissolution.
He emphasizes that the solution lies neither in this or that political form nor in this or that specific government; rather, it is inextricably linked and linked *solely* to the political program and the level of organization of the working class aimed at transforming the entirety of existing society. The question of the state can only be resolved when the complete, root-and-branch dismantling of the state is placed on the agenda. Another fundamental and instructive point one that Marx insisted upon with great clarity during this very period, prior to his work on *Capital* is that the greater people’s political acumen and awareness, the more difficult it becomes for them to grasp the true sources of exploitation, oppression, and current miseries provided that such political knowledge and consciousness lack a radical, fundamental class critique of the material and economic foundations of present-day society. This is because the illusion is constantly reinforced that the problem, and the solution to it, lie merely in how one manipulates this or that form of government. This is a crucial point for Marx one that social reformism, in any of its guises, is incapable of grasping.
Marx’s critique of Hegelian philosophy and Feuerbachian materialism found its most complete, monumental, and lucid expression in a materialist and dialectical perspective on the human condition, history, society, and class struggle. Marx succeeded in explaining in the most tangible and direct manner to the world’s working class and to humanity at large the fundamental crux of interpreting existing reality and the secret to transforming it. Marx’s materialist dialectic and the application of this dialectical outlook to the analysis of capitalist society, class struggle, and communism constitutes the essential link in employing philosophy as the spiritual weapon of the proletariat; it represents a philosophical offensive against any rationalist conception of the status quo and the transformation of that spiritual weapon into the material force and objective power of the working masses’ struggle to alter the entire existing order. Grasping this crucial point requires, above all, situating oneself within the actual arena of conflict between the opposing class and social solutions of our era—or, more broadly, of the entire history of capitalism from its inception to the present day. Some of the most pivotal and fundamental topics subjected to the dissection of Marx’s materialist dialectic are, in brief, as follows:
1. The existing reality or the specific social existence of the present is, quite simply and explicitly, capitalist society. To comprehend this reality, one must begin by dissecting its vital cell the commodity; the anatomy of the labour-power purchase-and-sale relationship is the sole key to grasping all the components, facets, structures, and recesses of this reality. Laws, contracts, civil and social institutions, the state, and the entire political superstructure in short, everything that regulates interactions between people or between people and nature each plays a specific role in defining the relationship between human social existence and the requirements for the reproduction and survival of the labour-power purchase-and-sale relationship. None of these possess an existence independent or abstracted from that relationship or from the capitalist mode of production. Consequently, any manipulation of them amounts, at best, to tinkering with the civil, political, and social superstructures of wage slavery.
2. The foundation of the existing reality the capitalist mode of production is the basis for the comprehensive dispossession of those who sell their labour-power, stripping them of their free human existence. The problem here is not merely the nature of exploitation, oppression, disenfranchisement, and other forms of wretchedness. A more fundamental dilemma is that the determination of human destiny and indeed the entirety of human existence is surrendered to the product of labour: capital. ” Dead-end work” becomes the absolute and undisputed ruler of human life; everything whether production occurs or not, the definition of socially necessary labour, the worker’s share of their output, the scope and very existence of political and social freedoms, the framework and mode of life, ways of thinking, legal structures, ethical norms, and all aspects of human existence is subsumed into the realm of capital’s power. Humanity plunges into an abyss of powerlessness and degradation. This implies that the working class confronts capital unquestionably and directly in every facet of its life and within every dimension of the disenfranchisement, oppression, exploitation, and social misery it endures. Any conception that divorces these realities from their underlying productive basis is, in essence, a departure from the conscious struggle to transform the entire existing reality.
3. The insoluble, intrinsic contradiction of this mode of production lies in its material nature specifically, in the separation of the worker from the product of their labour, or, in other words, in the very process of surplus-value generation and production driven by the pursuit of profit. The very foundation of the existence of antagonistic social classes characterized by exploitation and oppression, the total loss of a class’s free human existence alongside the rise of another as the dominant, exploiting class, and the inevitability of class struggle as well as the processes of capital concentration, the rising organic composition of capital, and the inevitability of capitalist crises, all stem from this internal contradiction. That same relationship which transforms the worker’s labour into necessary and surplus labour (or into the cost of reproducing labour power and the surplus value generated by the labour process) reproduces all forms of the worker’s deprivation and oppression, establishes the basis for the worker’s alienation from the product of their labour, and renders inevitable the domination of the working class by the product of its own labour in the form of capital. It expands the material basis of the class struggle between worker and capitalist. The tendency for the rate of profit to fall is rooted here; crises resulting from this tendency becoming absolute originate in the depths of this relationship. The escalating decay of the capitalist system, and the fact that the entire burden of this decay falls upon human life, are consequences of the persistence of this relationship. To overlook the intrinsic articulations and organic links connecting each of these elements to the essential nature of capital that is, the relationship of the buying and selling of labour power represents a departure from Marx’s materialist dialectic regarding the anatomy and understanding of the prevailing social existence, or the capitalist system.
4. Dominant thoughts, ideas, beliefs, culture, traditions, and legal norms are all sublimations of the conditions governing the existence and self-expansion of the dominant mode of production. “Consciousness can never be anything other than conscious existence”; the consciousness of the ruling class is a consciousness of the nature and mechanics of the survival and reproduction of this mode of production. It is a phenomenon that is by no means abstract or detached; rather, it manifests itself clearly within production planning and the order of capital reproduction, in the organization of capitalist labour and production, and in the political, social, and civil structures as well as the state power of capital. In other words, the class knowledge of the bourgeoisie consists of the very reality of the approaches, functions, policies, policy-making processes, and collective actions it carries out in an organic, interconnected chain to safeguard and sustain the existing reality. The converse holds true for the proletariat. Here, too, consciousness is precisely *conscious being*. For the working masses, class knowledge entails an awareness of their own exploitation and oppression; an understanding of the process by which the fruits of their labour and production are transformed into capital; a radical critique of capitalism; knowledge of how to transform the existing objective reality; a clear grasp of the social alternative corresponding to this transformation; and an understanding of class demands and expectations, as well as the nature and methods of organizing the struggle against wage labour. If the class consciousness of the bourgeoisie reveals its true nature in the process of reproducing the labour-power purchase-and-sale relationship, the class consciousness and knowledge of the proletariat likewise manifest themselves in the actual, ongoing struggle to abolish the existing reality and replace it with a social alternative that entails the destruction of the wage-labour relationship.
5. The communist critique of capitalism is the sole effective and decisive weapon in the proletariat’s struggle against wage slavery against the prevailing conditions of labour, exploitation, and disenfranchisement. The composition of this critique embodies the all-encompassing unity of theory and practice. Debates regarding the relationship between theory and practice or consciousness and action are fundamentally metaphysical in nature; the real issue concerns *which* theory and *which* practice, rather than the relationship between the two. Communism is a radical critique of capitalism a critique that can manifest the essential articulation of its theory and practice as a transformative material force only within the social and class movement of the working masses. A proletariat bereft of the weapon of communism is a working class in chains, seeing no horizon for liberation from wage slavery or for halting its descent from its own free existence into a state subservient to the god-like existence of capital. Under such conditions, the thread of workers’ struggles and protests even if these struggles are violent and aimed at overthrowing a particular bourgeois political regime still represents a desperate uprising (or series of uprisings) to align working and living conditions with the prerequisites for capital vaporization. Without evolving within the orbit of a living movement for the abolition of wage labour, and without the communist critique of capitalism forming its very fabric and circulatory system, the labour movement remains one that moves not with the conscious mind of the class, but on the contrary with the mind of the bourgeoisie.
The points above outline some of the fundamental aspects of Marx’s analysis of capitalist society and the living conditions and struggles of the working class within it. Examining these points makes it considerably easier to distinguish the Marxist communism of the working class from the prevalent social-reformist Left communism. If the organic unity of theory and practice is a fundamental feature distinguishing Marx’s materialist dialectic from Hegel’s metaphysical dialectic or Feuerbach’s abstract materialism, then any attempt to split communism into theory and practice and subsequently separate them into distinct, unrelated components runs counter to Marx’s conception of the dialectic of class struggle waged by the working masses. Here, communism is by no means an idea or theory detached from the ongoing process of struggle; rather, it is the reality of a class movement spanning every sphere of the working class’s social life. To speak of communism as existing outside the actual arenas of the workers’ struggle against capital thereby reducing it to a mere set of doctrinal beliefs is to reflect the weakness of the labour movement as a whole. The proletariat finds its true head in communism, just as Marx’s communism finds its true body in the proletariat. Those who separate these two seek to sever the very head of the working class from its body. The unity of theory and practice in Marx’s materialist dialectic highlights the connection between the wage-labour relationship and the totality of exploitation, disenfranchisement, and oppression faced by workers worldwide; it draws attention to how the state and the civil and legal structures of capitalist society are bound to the buying and selling of labour power. It lays bare the link between the poverty, hunger, lack of education and healthcare, and homelessness suffered by the working masses and the requirements for reproducing the wage-labour relationship; it loudly proclaims the connection of all these patriarchy, the disenfranchisement of women, sexual and ethnic oppression, all forms of discrimination and inequality, the prostitution of women, the labour and lives of children in dungeons or on the streets, addiction, and corruption to the existence of wage labour.
In Marx’s materialist dialectics, the unity of theory and practice lies in the union of the struggle against all forms of disenfranchisement, oppression, inequality, and misery with the struggle against the very foundation of wage labour. This principle formed the backbone of the *Communist Manifesto* and defined the very essence of the First International. The core message here is that communism is a movement within the working class a movement that views liberation from all existing forms of oppression, inequality, and disenfranchisement as contingent upon proposing and pursuing a communist alternative to these injustices, discriminations, and deprivations, and upon uniting the various arenas and battlefronts of the working-class struggle into a unified front against the capitalist system itself. While this movement attaches the utmost importance to the most immediate livelihood issues of workers, to basic social welfare, and to the fundamental political freedoms of the working masses, it pursues its engagement in all these arenas through its own distinct class-based alternative. But if we understand communism and the communist movement of the working class in this way through this Marx’s lens then the question “How can workers deprived of basic rights fight for communism?”… “It is well for workers to have an anti-capitalist organization, but when they have no organization at all, one must build a trade union”!! The statement that: “We, too, wish for workers to have free water and electricity, but such ideas are mere wishful thinking”!! The pronouncement that: “Discussing the movement to abolish wage labour stems from alienation regarding the workers’ pain and suffering and is a manifestation of armchair passivism”!! The air of superiority in claiming that: “Speaking of the contemporary relevance of communism reflects a misunderstanding of the relationship between theory and practice”!! The notion that: “Advocating communism as a concrete social alternative is a rationalist perspective”!! And finally, the idea that: “The party elite embodies the proletarian communist movement and paves the way for the workers’ socialist revolution”!! All of these will be recognized as ideas contradicting the Marx’s narrative of communism and fundamentally at odds with the prerequisites for the growth, maturation, and strengthening of the working class’s movement to abolish wage labour. Despite their varying outward appearances, these fabrications and displays of erudition are cut from the same cloth; the root and source of them all lie not in Marx’s materialist dialectic, but in Hegel’s metaphysical dialectic. A worker’s hunger is no reason to suspend their communist movement against capitalism; on the contrary, it is precisely this communist movement that carries the capacity for class struggle against the root cause of that hunger. It is sheer delusion to suggest that a worker should demand bread, housing, freedom, and healthcare from democracy, while deferring all other needs as well as the conditions for their own human growth and elevation to communism! A worker who fails to derive or infer the path to salvation from hunger, the understanding of political and social rights and freedoms, and the expectations for welfare and free human development from the very core of the communist movement’s criteria a movement directed against wage labour finds themselves utterly disarmed in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. The fate of the Western European labour movement stands as the most vivid testament to the validity of this claim. Through its deeply Hegelian and anti-Marx’s teachings amidst a whirlwind of spurious, pseudo-communist, and worker-fetishizing clamour social reformism has, over a long historical span, disastrously disarmed the international labour movement in the face of the capitalist system. The reformist socialist Left continues to pursue this path across the globe, including in Iran in the worst possible manner. The struggle that Marx and Marx’s communists waged in the second half of the nineteenth century against every facet of bourgeois resistance across the continuous ramparts of philosophy and ideology, political economy, and the practice of class struggle, all aimed at paving the way for the working class’s communist fight against capitalism must today be prosecuted with far greater significance, depth, and scope against the illusions and various “solutions” propagated by the existing petty-bourgeois socialist Left.
References:
1. Marx, *Capital*, Vol. I, Preface to the Second Edition
2. Hegel, *Reason in History*
3. Marx, *The German Ideology*
4. Marx, *Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right*
5. Lenin, *Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic* (Notes on Dialectics)
6. Marx, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts*
7. Althusser, *Lenin and Philosophy*
8. Babak Ahmadi, *Marx and Modern Politics*
9. Plekhanov, *The Monist View of History*