socialism, and a world of the people. So, the move to read Marx again is progress, advance, and development from the viewpoint of the laws of historical science. Therefore, we wish to pay tribute to the scholars, cultural figures, and publishers who wrote and published these books.

However, I would like to raise the issue here. It is unavoidable that there is always a certain error, lack of awareness, inaccuracy, or inadequacy in any movement at first. The same goes for books of this kind. Speaking from their conclusions, many of these scholars and intellectuals have failed to recognize that the origin of Marxism is philosophy, that the essence of this philosophy is the unity of science and philosophy, and that history is science, thus exposing they are not active and frivolous. Now we will take up this matter as a negative example.

As the first typical example, I will introduce Dr. Kunihiko Uemura (doctoral course of Hitotsubashi University, doctorate in sociology, professor of the faculty of economics at Kansai University-social philosophy), who discussed Marxism in general and wrote the Actuality of Marx ~ The Meaning of Re-reading Marx, published by Shinsensha, first printed in October 2006.

Next is Dr. Minoru Tabata (majoring in philosophy and history of philosophy of doctoral course of Graduate School of Literature, Osaka University, Professor of Faculty of Human Sciences, Osaka University of Economics), who discussed Marxist philosophy and wrote Marx and Philosophy ~ Rereading Marx as a Method, published by Shinsensha Publishing Co., Ltd., which was first printed in June 2004.

And the third is Dr. Makoto Ito (who graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tokyo, is a professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo, professor of Kokugakuin University, a member of the Japan Academy, and major in theoretical economics), who discussed Marxist economics and wrote Reading Capital, published by Kodansha, which was first printed in December 2006.

I have introduced these as leading publications, but I would also like to clarify the common errors, inaccuracies, inadequacies, and imperfections, including others.        

 

 

            CHAPTER ONE

Who are Marx and Engels? What were their lives like? We will make these clear precisely and exactly, including the famous episodes!

 

 

Section 1

Karl Marx, his life!

 

On May 5, 1818, Marx was born as the second son (the third of nine children) with a liberal lawyer as his father, in the town of Trier in Rhine Province, Germany's leading commercial and industrial district. His father encouraged this child to become a lawyer, and sent him to Bonn University in 1835 and to Berlin University in 1836. Marx, however, was interested in philosophy and history, and devoted his energy to them instead. Germany was a country of philosophy, and at any university nationwide, Hegel's dialectic and Feuerbach's materialism were being discussed as if they were in vogue. The student movement at the University of Berlin inevitably split into two groups, the left sect and the right sect. The left sect formed the Youth Hegelian sect, and Marx sat in the center of the left sect.

By the time he graduated from the University of Berlin in 1841, Marx had completely sublated Hegel and Feuerbach. Hegel argued that “everything is evolving, moving forward, exploding, converging, and being transformed and that the driving force is the struggle of opposites.” This dialectic methodology was correct. However, while Hegel confined this to the world of ideas, Marx completed the dialectic philosophy as follows: “According to dialectic philosophy, the universe and the human world are the movements of matter, and the movement of matter itself is the existence and struggle of opposites, which is reflected in the human brain. And with the truth that emerges from here, the movement of matter is converged through development, progress, explosion, and transformation (revolution).” Feuerbach's materialistic thinking that God is the human world made by man was correct, but Feuerbach did not see man as a social person. Marx reached the philosophical materialism as follows: A man is the social person in productive forces and relations of production. Human will or recognition are generated by reflecting the social existence in the human brain. The will or recognition of that human dominates the material existence.” In this way, Marx sublated Hegel and Feuerbach (taking over the right core, resolved unsolved, inadequate, and incomplete parts). Marx thus completed the philosophical dialectic materialism. Marx began with philosophy. So, Engels later remarked, "Without German philosophy, Marxism could not have been born" (The German Peasant War, 1875).

After graduating from the University of Berlin, Marx began to practice and act on the principle of philosophical thought. In January 1842, he became the editor in chief of Rheinische Zeitung and cast his body in a revolutionary movement. In the Rhineland at that time, peasant uprisings, peasant riots, and armed peasant wars were erupting. Farmers' anger over heavy taxes, repression, and land confiscation around the country exploded, and Rheinische Zeitung was fighting as the flag-bearer of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. Marx supported the peasant movement in his militant treatise and appealed for an alliance with the proletariat. Engels also contributed to Rheinische Zeitung at the time, where he came to know Marx's name. The government regarded this newspaper and Marx as dangerous elements, and in May 1843, they banned the publication of the newspaper and deported Marx.

In June 1843, Marx was exiled from his country and went to Paris. At this time, Jenny, who was a friend of Marx's older sister Sophie and a daughter of Privy Councilor von Westphalen, accompanied Marx. Marx and Jenny had known each other since their student years at the University of Berlin and had been engaged, so the two got married soon thereafter. From here the road of suffering for the two began. The aristocracy, the beauty, many offers of marriage – it was because of his overflowing passion and knowledge that Jenny abandoned all these and fell in love with Marx, four years her junior. She accompanied Marx while he was forced to escape to France, Belgium, and then England. In her later years she made a sincere effort to help Marx in spite of poverty and disease, the successive deaths of their children, and oppression and persecution. All the manuscripts of Marx, in his famously bad handwriting, were cleanly rewritten and brought to Engels and publishers by Jenny. Jenny, who died of liver disease at the age of 67, on December 2 1881, had told Engels before that she was pleased with Marx and had nothing to regret in her life. Marx, who moved to Paris, published a revolutionary publication entitled Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (The German and French Year) in February 1844, to which Engels also wrote a manuscript. In this relationship, Engels visited Marx in Paris in August, and the two, for the first time, completely agreed in ideological and political views. The exchange between the two lasted ten days at that time, but Engels later remarked, "There was nothing more pleasant in my life than these ten days." Thereafter, they exchanged their life-long comradely friendships for forty years. In February 1845, Marx was expelled from Paris to Brussels, Belgium at the strong request of the German government, and he was expelled also from Belgium, moving to London in August 1849. London then became the final home for Marx and Engels.

For Marx, who was exiled from Germany to Paris, Brussels, and then London, these 40 years were a constant struggle alongside Engels. The Peasants' War in Germany, the labor and Chartist movements in England, the February Revolution in France (February-March 1848), and the March Revolution in Germany broke out one after another. Marx and Engels participated in the revolutionary movements of European socialists, democrats, and liberal human rights activists, guiding in organizing them, and making a significant theoretical contribution. They themselves had no time to rest.

In early 1846, Marx and Engels organized the “Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee” in Brussels. It developed into the “Communist League” in June 1847. At the request of the alliance, Marx and Engels finished writing The Communist Manifesto, the platform for the alliance, in February of the following year. In September 1864, Marx and Engels formed the First International, an international unified organization of labor movements. In 1871 Paris Commune broke out. Marx devoted all his energy to studying this affair and completed the theory of proletarian dictatorship, which resulted in The Civil War in France (June-July 1871). Then Marx guided the German labor movement through Criticism of the Gotha Program (1875), which he wrote as a practical lesson of the affair.

Marx had been in ill health since around 1850, suffering from asthma and liver disease, and moreover years of poverty and hard work had taken a toll on his body. Marx, who at that time felt sorry to receive financial support from Engels, wrote a letter with gratitude, in which he described his own view of life: “I want to do valuable work since I was born in this world. It is to reveal the historical mission of proletarians and the liberation of proletarians and the future of mankind. I want to devote myself to this work.”

Engels dedicated his life and deep comradeship to this Marx.

And it was the criticism of economics that Marx had to complete, and its compilation was Capital. Around that time, Engels disposed of the spinning plant and trading company that he inherited from his father as his eldest son, and poured the proceeds into the completion of Marx's Capital. The first volume was published in September 1867. Since then, Marx had continued to prepare for Volume 2 and Volume 3, while fighting the disease. On March 14, 1883, Engels came to Marx’s house as usual. Worried about Marx, who had aged noticeably since Jenny died two years earlier, Engels moved nearby and always visited Marx. At 14:45 on that day, Marx was sleeping with his head on the manuscript on the desk. Engels reached out his hand, but Marx never woke up. 65- year- old Marx fell asleep forever. Three of their six children had died immediately after birth, the eldest daughter died two months before, and the only surviving children were their second daughter, Laura, and their fourth daughter, Elina. Engels took charge of Helena Demuth, who had lived with and cared for Jenny since she was a girl, and Marx’s two daughters, and took care of them to the end. And all the manuscripts for Capital which remained on his desk were arranged by Engels, and they were published as the second and third volumes. The two daughters also devoted their lives to socialist movements.

On March 17, Marx was buried at the Highgate Cemetery in the outskirts of London, and fourteen companions attended the funeral ceremony. Engels bade farewell to Marx as follows:

To live with so many uncompleted works before him, with the tantalizing desire to complete them and the impossibility of doing so — that would have been a thousand times more bitter for him than the gentle death that overtook him. …

Be that as it may. Mankind is the poorer for the loss of this intellect— the most important intellect, indeed, which it could boast today.

Ultimate victory remains assured, but the digressions, the temporary and local aberrations — already so inevitable — will now proliferate as never before. Well, we have got to see it through — what else are we here for? But we're not going to lose heart, for all that — not by a long chalk.

Engels wrote in his English preface to Manifesto of the Communist Party, written on January 30, 1888:

“However much the state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in this Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the obtaining historical conditions.”

What Engels says here is that Marxists must sublate how to practically apply them according to historical circumstances and conditions, always adhering to theoretical principles.

 

 

Section 2

The event of 1879――In the episode is Marx's living figure. Let's firmly recognize Marx's humanity, personality, and human image through historical facts, and establish them in our midst, too!

 

It was Mr. Francis Vienna, who was famous as a British journalist, biographer, radio broadcaster, and columnist, who wrote episodes and events about Marx. He learned of the red revolutionary Marx, whose life had ended in London after being exiled from Germany, in which he was greatly interested. He took his time to collect various materials, and he published a detailed account of Marx's life, The Lifetime of Karl Marx, in 1999, and the Japanese version was published by the Asahi Shimbun in 2002. As a journalist, he separated himself from ideology and politics and recorded only objective facts, extremely practically and plainly. Therefore, this kind of work is perceived differently by the people who read it. As for this kind of book, especially about Marx, it is difficult to understand precisely the nature and background contained in the objective facts, unless you are true Marxist, who has learned all the books on Marxist thought and theory. Unless you truly embrace Marxism, this book is just a mediocre reading. We, true Marxists, read the book like this with a special care to know the truth and essence behind the objective facts. At that time, deep emotions fill the whole body. Here is a typical example of Marx's humanity in the facts written by the author.

It was in 1879. Marx in this era was late in life and frequently got sick. Jenny was also sick, so they used to be ill in bed together. Jenny died in 1881, and his eldest daughter also died in January 1883. The European labor movement had entered a period of low tide, Paris Commune was defeated in 1871, the German labor movement was also dominated by the right in 1875 (Critique of the Gotha Program), and the First International was finally dissolved in 1876. So, Marx was at the very bottom of the suffering both in internal and external world. At this time, the following happened. The author recorded this episode and story as follows.

At the request of a family of British royal families, a big name in British politics called for a lunch, bringing together volunteers in politics, business, bureaucracy, and press, inviting Marx to their gorgeous banquet halls. The intention was that Marx, a red terrorist head, who scared European governments with his radical thought and slogans lived in London and was now aged, so for their curiosity why not invite once and listen to him? Marx attended in response to this invitation.

A sentence at the end of Manifesto of the Communist Party drafted by Marx himself, where he writes the Communist attitudes as follows:

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

In other words, the bourgeoisie and its power are in fear of losing their own honor, position, and wealth by the proletarian revolution, replacing their own fears with fears against communism. So, we have nothing to fear. We should be resolute anytime and anywhere. Marx acted according to the communist attitude shown in the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

Now, when Marx showed up in the chandelier room where all the participants were waiting, they all thought, ‘Oh my’. He was not the "horrible monster" they had imagined. He was a surprisingly small, dark-skinned, ordinary man of quiet atmosphere with gray hair, a white beard, and a silky black moustache.

〈There are the famous words at the beginning of the Manifesto of the Communist Party: "A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter." Since all the participants knew these sentences, they had imagined what kind of "specter" would appear. But they saw the person who appeared in front of them, and thought ‘Oh my’. 〉

〈All bourgeois idealists are "external cause" theorists. In other words, they judge each thing in appearance. Conversely, dialectical philosophy is an "intrinsic cause theory," in which all is determined by the intrinsic causes, that is, the internal forces. And internal forces in man are the thought and political consciousness of that person, the human mind, spirit, and energy, and these internal forces have the decisive power. This is the intrinsic cause theory of dialectical philosophy. The diplomacy and foreign policy of a nation are all an extension and reflection of its internal affairs. This is what Clausewitz says in his On War that war is an extension of politics. And in the banquet-hall on that day, a little Marx turned into a gigantic Marx through his internal forces.〉

The banquet began, chatting continued. From the time the attendees asked Marx questions and political opinions began to emerge, the atmosphere of the venue changed. Marx answered any question in a serious, clear, and coherent manner. That was true of any question. Everyone was surprised at his rich academic knowledge and high intellectual standards for all the problems in various fields.

〈As Marx writes in German Ideology (1845) criticizing Feuerbach in collaboration with Engels, idealists discuss only the unimportant and superficial phenomena of the problem, but we materialists grasp the fundamental principle and the core based on philosophical ideas, and elucidate everything with them. So, all the problems were clear for Marx. Philosophy was the intellectual root of all things.〉

So, tough questions were asked by some of the attendees. Aren't all the proletarian revolutions that Marx advocates for failing? Isn’t the labor movement retreating and the tide receding? At that time, Marx’s eyes shone sharply, his attitude was resolute, and he answered flatly: “History never goes straight. Looking at the history of Europe and the history of the British royal family, everything went on with twists and turns. As long as history is science, it will reach where it should.”

〈At the time, Marx’s situation was in the greatest predicament, but he did not flinch at all because he had a clear ideological consciousness and a scientific view of history. As Marx was convinced, afterward, history created a historical era of the formation of the Second International, the triumph of the Russian Revolution, and the collapse of imperialism. In this way, thought becomes a material force and history advances.〉

Then, when one of the attendees said that society would be stable if production increased, the country became richer, and welfare policies for the poor were put in place, Marx categorically said that it was quite impossible. This is because as the economic law of capitalism, there is no room for welfare due to the maintenance of the nation, the expansion of the power system, and the increase in military spending due to the war.

〈The modern world is exactly as Marx said. The inequal society has expanded worldwide. War never ends, and military spending continues to increase. The people are forced to work harder and harder to keep up with the developing and changing cultural standards, and the problem of the working poor has become a major issue. These realities prove the correctness of Marx’s prophecy.〉

After the luncheon, what really impressed all the attendees was that Marx’s remarks were, in all, solemn and confident and he never distorted his theory. And his wording was polite, not crude to any of the attendees, and there were no harsh expressions. He was consistently polite and always used honorifics on topics related to the British royal family, too.

  〈There is Marxism in his attitude. As he clearly states in his preface to A Critique of Political Economy and preface to Capital, Volume 1, conflicts and strife, anger and hatred are not personal but class antagonism. In particular, we must be well aware of the meaning of this sentence in A Critique of Political Economy, “Human beings encounter the relations of production in front of them regardless of their will.” In other words, what kind of circumstances they were born in is not their intention but their destiny, not anyone’s responsibility. Therefore, personal hostility is against human morality. Since everything is class antagonism, conflicts and strife within class conflicts, class struggle and class movement change society and advance history. For Marx, this day’s event was a private one, so he kept this attitude.〉

After everything was over, the feelings toward Marx shared by all who attended were all exhilarating, and none of them personally felt displeasure or ill feelings toward Marx. It was a common understanding that if everyone had the opportunity, they would like to meet and talk again.

  〈In terms of class, there are fierce anger and struggle, while personally, there is a great deal of affection. Everything has two sides as a unity of opposites, and when, where, and how one of the two sides is exerted as the main side depends on movement and struggle, the situation and conditions. Here is the dialectical philosophy.〉 

Marx always acted, strictly following thought and theory on philosophy and science. That is, he adhered to philosophical scientific thought and theory in everything.

He was convinced of philosophical scientific thought and theory in any predicament. Therefore, he was always clear, austere, stern, and resolute.

A true Marxist must be well aware of Marx’s personality, humanity, and human figure, and learn from him with respect and reverence for him.

 

 

Section 3

Friedrich Engels and his life. Engels, devoting everything to Marx, was always one with him in ideology, politics, theory, and practice. In such the life of Engels, there is proof that they were as one, and that they cannot be separated!

 

Where Marx was, there was always Engels. As Engels made clear in his life, these two were one completely unified, ideologically, theoretically, politically, and humanly. If these historical facts are confirmed, those who discuss Marxism should not have come up with ideas that they would separate, divide, or oppose the two. We want to clearly confirm the objective facts and the historical facts, and strongly appeal to recognize the two as one.

In the preface to his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, written in January 1859, Marx writes about Friedrich Engels,

Frederick Engels, with whom I maintained a constant exchange of ideas by correspondence since the publication of his brilliant essay on the critique of economic categories (printed in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher), arrived by another road (compare his Condition of the Working-Class in England) at the same result as I, and when in the spring of 1845 he too came to live in Brussels, we decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy, in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience. The intention was carried out in the form of a critique of post-Hegelian philosophy.

(The German Ideology, which was coauthored by the two and published in 1845, has become the starting point of Marxist philosophy.)

As Marx observed, they came to the same conclusions through quite different paths. This was exactly the "unity of opposites" that the dialectic philosophy shows. First of all, the two were different in their appearance. Engels was a big man. When he was around twenty-one years old, he joined the German Army and received military training, and when he was around thirty-one years old, he participated in and led the German peasant war (peasant uprising). And since he was also good at military science, he later acquired the nickname "General." Unlike Marx, he did not have any higher education or college education; instead, he self-studied. He had a good command of twelve languages and was called an 'encyclopedia' because of his erudition.

On November 28, 1820, two years after Marx, Engels was born as the eldest son of eight brothers in a wealthy family operating a large spinning mill and trading company in Barmen, an industrial city in northern Rhine Province, Germany. His father, who was an unusually enthusiastic Catholic, decided that his eldest son would be the successor to the family business, and gave him stern discipline. From an early age, his father walked him through the factory, trying to get him used to the job. Engels jumped around a wide factory, watched various machines that move violently at high-pitched sounds, and had a strong curiosity for various kinds of fabrics that were fed out one after another. These early childhood environments gave Engels a wealth of behavioral power and mental labor later in life.

Engels, who became a young man with a strong desire to learn, rebelled against his father and his religion and volunteered to join the German army artillery regiment for a year at the age of twenty. He also found time during the military training to work on the research of philosophy and science as an auditor at the University of Berlin, and participated in the German philosophical debates as a member of the Young Hegelians, the same school as Marx. In this way, Engels was able to investigate Feuerbach’s materialism, overcome Hegel's dialectics, and he acquired the same philosophical scientific ideas as Marx. This scientific philosophical thought led to such famous works as Dialectics of Nature (1875) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880). At that time, Marx graduated from Berlin University and fought for the peasant war in Germany through the Rheinische Zeitung, and Engels learned Marx’s name by contributing to the newspaper. Around the age of thirty-one, Engels directly participated in the peasant war (peasant uprising) and fought with weapons.

His father wanted to bring Engels into the world of business by any means, and he sent him to Manchester in 1842. Manchester was the largest industrial city in the United Kingdom, where the cotton fabric industry developed, and it was also the birthplace of the British Industrial Revolution. His father had a cotton fabric factory and trading company there as a co-investor. However, Engels took advantage of this opportunity to study English classical economics by frequenting the city library. He also went to Paris to study French socialism. The result was The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845).

Around that time Marx was expelled from Germany, and he lived in Paris with Jenny, where he published a revolutionary publication, The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. Engels learned of the publication, to which he contributed The National Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy. Marx was deeply impressed by the paper.  In August 1844, this led Engels to stop in Paris on his way back to Germany from England and interacted with Marx. When they met face to face for the first time, they had a great discussion, which lasted ten days. And then, the two agreed perfectly in all respects: worldview, philosophy, economics, and socialism. As soon as Engels returned to Germany, he wrote to Marx, "The ten-day stay in Paris was the most joyful and enjoyable moment of my life." In this way, their solid friendship and joint work dated from that time. In the subsequent forty years, they exchanged no less than 1500 letters.

In January 1845, the French authorities ordered Marx, who was engaged in revolutionary action in Paris, to leave the country within 24 hours. This was due to the demand of the German government. When Marx was at a loss where to go in the winter cold with his eight-month-old eldest daughter, without any money, Engels, who had become aware of this, immediately made arrangements for Marx to escape to Brussels, Belgium, and later Engels himself went to Brussels. In a letter from Engels to Marx dated 21 February 1845, he wrote: "I will never let them put you at least in financial trouble because of the despicable acts of the government." Thereafter, during the 1845s through then 1870s, when Engels created funds for his joint work with Marx through his participation in his father's management activities.

In 1845, Engels published The German Ideology, a joint work with Marx, and established the “Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee.” In August 1849, Marx was expelled from Belgium by her government, too, and escaped to London. But all of them were arranged by Engels. They acted in unison in the formation of the "Communist League" in 1847, in the drafting of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party," in the establishment of the "First International" in 1864, and in the response of the "Paris Commune" in 1871.

Along with that, Engels developed his own activities, too. He took part in the German March Revolution in 1848 and the German peasant uprising in 1850. At the same time, he also developed his writing activities and authored many famous works including; Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844), The Condition of the Working-Class in England (1845), The Principles of Communism (1847), Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany (1851-53), The Peasant War in Germany (1851, 1875), Dialectics of Nature (1875), The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man (1876), Anti- Dühring (1877-78), Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (1886). What draws our attention in Engels' writings is the scientific thought that the history of the entire universe and mankind constantly continue to develop and advance from the eternal past to the eternal future under the laws of dialectics.

From the 1870s, Engels organized his father's legacy and supported Marx's activities and livelihood, while he moved nearby to take care of the ailing Marx. As revealed in the first chapter, Engels managed Marx's affairs after his death, and was in charge of everything, including the care of his orphans.

Thus, he organized and completed the material left by Marx and published the second and third volumes of Das Kapital, in 1885 and 1894, respectively. In addition, he devoted himself to the leadership of the Second International, formed in 1889.

In books on Marx, issued by defeatist revisionists, relations between Marx and Engels are often incorrectly written. For example, "The two were not in perfect agreement," or "Engels was more correct,” or "Engels did not fully understand Marx." Immediately after the death of Marx, in a letter dated 15 October 1884, Engels wrote to his close friend, Johann Philip Becker, as follows:

Rather, my misfortune is that since we lost Marx, I have been supposed to represent him. I have spent a lifetime doing what I was fitted for, namely playing second fiddle, and indeed I believe I acquitted myself reasonably well. And I was happy to have so splendid a first fiddle as Marx. But now that I am suddenly expected to take Marx's place in matters of theory and play first fiddle, there will inevitably be blunders and no one is more aware of that than I. And not until the times get somewhat more turbulent shall we really be aware of what we have lost in Marx. Not one of us possesses the breadth of vision that enabled him, at the very moment when rapid action was called for, invariably to hit upon the right solution and at once get to the heart of the matter. In more peaceful times it could happen that events proved me right and him wrong, but at a revolutionary juncture his judgment was virtually infallible.

How do the defeatist revisionists, who say this and that about the relationship between the two, read this sentence?

 

On Engels' comradeship and friendship with Marx, and his humanity and view of life throughout his life!

 

After the progression of terminal esophageal cancer was discovered in early 1895, Engels died at 10:30 p.m., on August 5. He was seventy-four years old. Because Engels did not have a family, Marx’s orphans took care of him to the end. The estate was distributed among those who were connected with Marx. By his will, the body was cremated at Working Crematorium near London, and the ash was scattered over the English Channel between England and the continent of Europe. While funerals and such ceremonies were forbidden, on August 10, leaders and activists of the socialist movement held a memorial gathering on the premises of Waterloo Station, which attracted many socialists and Second International leaders.

It is that humanity that is notable in Engels' lifetime. While he was on the same intellectual level as Marx, he always put Marx at the forefront, and he took a step backwards, devoting himself to the "funding" of the Marxist movement as "the work of dogs," as he put it. This attitude toward Marx can be seen in the following sentences: “The basic thought running through the Manifesto…belongs solely and exclusively to Marx. …This proposition… is destined to do for history what Darwin's theory has done for biology” (Manifesto of the Communist Party, preface to the German version, June 28, 1883). Furthermore, he wrote: “The "Manifesto" being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus, belongs to Marx.” (Manifesto of the Communist Party, preface to the English version, January 30, 1888).

Since the beginning of the 1850s, European labor movements had reached an advanced stage, and in July 1889, the Second International was formed in Paris. On May 1, 1890, workers all over the world rose up in unison, and the global scale Mayday was carried out under the slogan of Manifesto of the Communist Party, “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” Engels participated in Mayday in London, shouting, "Oh, I wish Marx could be here alongside me and see this with his own eyes!" (Preface to Manifesto of the Communist Party German Version, May 1, 1980).

Lenin, who proved the correctness of Marxism for the first time in history through the Russian Revolution, wrote about the strong friendships between the two in On Marx-Engels's Letters To and From in 1913: “Old legends contain various moving instances of friendship. The European proletariat may say that its science was created by two scholars and fighters, whose relationship to each other surpasses the most moving stories of the ancients about human friendship. Engels always – and, on the whole, quite justly – placed himself after Marx. “In Marx’s lifetime,” he wrote to an old friend, “I played second fiddle.” His love for the living Marx, and his reverence for the memory of the dead Marx was boundless. This stern fighter and austere thinker possessed a deeply loving soul.

  

 

          CHAPTER TWO

Confirm that the Marxist world outlook, historical view, and laws of motion are all dialectical philosophical views of development, progress, and sublation!

 

 

In the introduction of this book, I touch on the fact that many books on Marxism have recently been published with the aim of rereading Marxism, and introduce three of them as representative works. In one of them, Marx’s Actuality, the author writes as follows: “It has been more than ten years since Marxism lost its position as an orthodoxy due to the Revolution of Eastern Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Cold War structure was dismantled to create a global economic and political situation called the ‘imperial’. In the 21^st century, new trends in Marx’s research that responds to these changes in circumstances also seem to have finally become clear.”

In another book, Marxism and Philosophy, the author writes as follows: “This book is an attempt to read Marx ‘again’. Needless to say, ‘again’ means ‘again’ in light of the reality of the history of the 20th century, the generation, development, and the catastrophic collapse of the Soviet-style socialist system. It is not reading Marx as if nothing had happened. It is the exact opposite. Rereading will, of course, lead to objections to previous readings. In that sense, it can be said that this book aims to transform the image of Marx.”

What the authors want to say is that the Soviet Union and all the socialist nations of Eastern Europe were defeated and failed. Socialism and communism have been defeated. However, this is not a mistake of Marxism itself, but because Marxism was not understood correctly. That is why they want to reread Marx’s book from the beginning. This kind of position, this kind of perspective, and this kind of historical view are actually defeatism. Thinking that you have lost or failed is defeatism. As they start from such kind of defeatism, all the content of these books results in a revision of Marxism, and they are selfish in their own style interpretation of Marxism. Why so? It is due to their complete lack of materialism as the fundamental principle of Marxism, the dialectical historical view as ideology, the historical materialism as scientific historical view, and the political (theoretical) principle of Marxism shown in The Communist Manifesto. As a result, they have all become defeatists and defeatist revisionists.

On the contrary, we Orthodox Marxists see the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China as a progress, a development, and an advance in history. So, we see these cases as necessary steps for socialism and communism to finally win, a contingency for the inevitability of history, and a huge historical product that called for the working class and people to return to the origin once again for their final triumph. The bigger the incident, the more important truth is hidden. From now on, I will consider what that means.

 

 

Section1

The textbook for how to look at historical events is The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx, 1851-52). In other words, if we look at historical events deductively from philosophical principles (historical science) and the Communist Manifesto, it is clear that the root cause and culprit of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was the result of the transformation of the party and power and the complete abandonment of Marxism through Khrushchev's revisionism under the name of "criticism of Stalin.” Everything is a question of power, and everything comes down to philosophical intrinsic cause theory!

 

The first starting point is how to view the fact of the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. How should we see it philosophically (materialistically)? What does it mean to see it in terms of materialism, which is the origin and principle of Marxism? It can be summarized in the following three points. First, we should not see the facts or an objective existence visually, phenomenally, or superficially, but rather, we should grasp their essence. Second, its essence should be driven from the political and theoretical principles of Marxism that everything is a matter of power, everything is class conflict and class struggle, and everything is settled by the proletariat dictatorship (the heart of The Communist Manifesto). Third, grasping this essence, we should attach much importance to “revolutionary practical activity,” emphasized by Marx in Thesis on Feuerbach, and put it into practice. This is the principle of materialism, and we must control everything from this standpoint.

When viewed in this way, the essence of the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China was that the party and power were transformed, and Marxism was completely abandoned, through Khrushchev’s revisionism called the “criticism of Stalin” in the Soviet Union and revisionism (economism) represented by Deng Xiaoping’s “white and black cats” theory in China. Everything is a matter of thought, everything is a question of power, and everything comes down to philosophical intrinsic cause theory. And, as evidenced by historical facts and various testimonies, it was all after Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping that the Soviet Union and China went astray.

Socialism was great until it was poisoned by revisionism. Details will be described in chapter 4 and 5, so please learn carefully later. Here are some typical examples.

It was Lenin who realized socialism based on Marxism for the first time in the history of mankind. No other revolutionary has adhered to and practiced Marxist principles, ideas, and theoretical principles as thoroughly as Lenin. You can see that by looking at the exhaustive struggle against the Second International and K. Kautsky. Because of this, the October Revolution had been fulfilled.  

We can also see this in the battle and victory against the foreign interference military and domestic rebels for five years from 1918 to 1922. From abroad, sixteen imperial and capitalist nations invaded the young Soviet Union all at once. In cooperation with them, domestic rebel forces also rose in revolt. Has there been such a harsh war in history? Soviet socialism was won at the expense of 14 million lives. Great socialism and communism had won.

Stalin, who succeeded Lenin, carried out a series of socialist construction five-year plans, turning Russia, a backward agricultural country, into a modern heavy industrial nation. The success of the rapid planned economy is clear from the world economic statistics at that time. And John E. Galbraith, chairman of the American economic academia in 1972, a major figure in the American business world, and a representative of American intelligentsia, also praised the development and growth of the Soviet Union in his publications. And in Japan, Shinzo Koizumi, who was a first-class intellectual and famous as an anti-Marxist brave leader, also severely critical about the theoretical problem of Marxism (although this criticism is, of course, nothing more than inappropriate) in his publication, 50 years After the Death of Marx－the Theory and Practice of Marxism (1933), was still amazed at the enormous success of Soviet socialist construction, reflected on his lack of awareness, and took off his hat to the leadership of Stalin and other executives.

And the background of “Stalin’s Great Purge Incident” is clarified in The Unseen War in Europe written by John H. Waller, who was active on the European front as an executive of the US military strategic intelligence agency OSS during World WarⅡand who became an American CIA inspector after the war. In Europe on the eve of World WarⅡ, intelligence and espionage activities of each country were mixed. In the process, US intelligence had grasped the rebellion plan within the Soviet Red Army, too. Later, OSS also confirmed this. It was that Marshal Tukhachevsky, Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Red Army, would collude with Nazi-Hitler and plot the uprising of the anti-revolutionary army within the Soviet Union as Germany advanced into the Soviet Union.

Eventually, Soviet intelligence, through double agents, also took control of the situation. And before the start of the war between Germany and the Soviet Union (June, 1937), Stalin and the Soviet Union government made a wholesale arrest of anti-revolutionary organizations centered on the survivors of the former imperial era one after another, which were organized within the armed forces, government, and party, and which were connected to Tukhachevsky. This is called “Stalin’s Great Purge Incident” by the bourgeoisies. However, the essence of this problem, as also recorded by Mr. Waller of OSS, was clearly a prelude to the German-Soviet war. Since Stalin had won this prelude, the Soviet administration won the main battle between Germany and the Soviet Union which began on June 22, 1941, with Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, through the trinity of the party, the government, and the Red Army. As I detail this issue in Chapter 5, British military scientist, Liddell Hart also acknowledges it. Stalin’s purge was a battle against domestic counter-revolutionary forces linked to the Nazis and foreign troops and was completely different from the invasive crackdown by imperialism in essence. Whether or not this class character can be understood is the watershed of revolution or counter-revolution. As history proves, Stalin was great.

The Soviet socialism of Lenin and Stalin triumphed because it was faithful to the principles, the ideas, and the theoretical principles of Marxism. However, it was defeated when the party and power abandoned the principles, the ideas, and the theoretical principles of Marxism through the conversion of Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping, which history has taught us. Here is the lesson of history, here is historical science, and here is the greatness of Marxism. 

 

 

Section 2

What is Marxism? How was it born, cultivated, and perfected? From its principles, the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China is a necessary step toward the final triumph of socialism and communism. History is such a unified development and progress of necessity and coincidence, and this collapse of socialism is a wonderful proof of dialectical historical development. Look at everything from dialectical historical science!

 

In his paper Karl Marx – A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism written in 1914, Lenin wrote:

Marxism is the system of Marx’s views and teachings. Marx was the genius who continued and consummated the three main ideological currents of the 19th century, as represented by the three most advanced countries of mankind: classical German philosophy, classical English political economy, and French socialism combined with French revolutionary doctrines in general.

And again, in his paper What are the People’s Friends written in 1894, Lenin wrote:

The irresistible attraction of this theory, which draws to itself the socialists of all countries lies precisely in the fact that it combines the quality of being strictly and supremely scientific (being the last word in social science) with that of being revolutionary, it does not combine them accidentally and not only because the founder of the doctrine combined in his own person the qualities of a scientist and a revolutionary, but does so intrinsically and inseparably.

Note that Marxism is the product of the “sublation (Aufhebung)” of wisdom that human history has reached, and it is both philosophical and scientific.

Lenin clearly asserts that Marxism is a combination of the highest degree of the rigorous scientific (scientific law) and revolutionary action (philosophical thought). And he states that Marxism was the inheritance, development, sublation, and completion of German philosophy, British economics, and French socialism as wisdom that mankind reached in the 19^th century. In other words, the dialectical historical view that everything is inheritance, development, advancement, sublation, and completion, that is to say, historical materialism (historical view) is the essential principle of Marxism.

So, in the preface to the 1872 German version of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, Engels writes as follows: “However much the state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in this Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the obtaining historical conditions.”

Engels says that the principles of Marxism are absolutely correct, and individual problems, means, methods, and formal problems are constantly being changed, reformed, and improved by the development of history. In other words, everything develops, advances, and is sublated. As Engels insisted and Lenin practiced, we will firmly adhere to the philosophical principle, the political principle, and the theoretical principle of Marxism. At the same time, concrete problems, strategies, and tactical problems are constantly developing, advancing, and being sublated according to historical times, circumstances, and conditions. This is dialectics, Marxism and the philosophical scientific thought of Marxism.

In 1875, Engels wrote Dialectics of Nature, a work that elucidates the laws of motion of the entire universe and the human world in more detail and more precisely. In the book, he writes that the human world and everything in it is constantly moving, developing, advancing, being sublated, and transformed, so no incident or thing is ever negative, regressive, or meaningless. Denial, suspension, and retreat are annihilation, and such things do not exist in this world as long as they are in motion.

It is clear if you know the history of mankind. At the beginning of the emergence of humankind, it was a primitive community society without nation and power because it was a natural gathering economy with no productive forces. In the course of time, production activities began, productivity increased, and nation and power were born after property was created. The nation, power, and society have also changed with the development of productivity. Historically, it is the law of historical development of human history: primitive community - slavery - feudalism - capitalist society – a period of monopoly rule and imperialism - from the collapse of imperialism, which had reached its highest peak, to the society of the people, modern community, and socialism.

In this way, history is consistently moving forward, never retreating. And again, according to scientific law, it is also unlikely that capitalism and monopolistic capitalism will stop and become immobile. It would mean the death of history. History is consistently moving, developing, advancing, sublated, and transformed with no denial, retreat, or cessation.

Engels explains in detail the law of dialectical movement in Dialectics of Nature. The core is as follows: ①Everything is a moving world where inevitability and chance are linked and unified. ②Everything is a world of development, advancement, and transformation, through sublation. ③The force of movement is the contradiction and struggle of internal opposites (intrinsic causes). ④Development, advancement and transformation are fundamental and qualitative. ⑤At the end everything is to be done by explosion and convergence.

From the above dialectical, philosophical, and scientific view of history, we can understand how such statements as, “Marxism lost its legitimacy with the collapse of Soviet Union,” or, “Let’s reread Marx with the aim of changing the conventional image of Marx,” as the authors of Actuality of Marx or Marx and Philosophy say, are un-Marxist, un-philosophical, examples of defeatist revisionism, and Marx readers’ ignorance of Marx.

These defeatist revisionists have not read the literature of Marx and Lenin carefully, or if they have, they have not understood it. It was predicted early on that traitors such as Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping were bound to appear in the middle of the revolutionary movement. At the Third World Congress of the Third International, held in June 1921, Lenin delivered the following speech: “We must never feel secure in the fact that we have won the revolution. We are surrounded by the capitalist camp, imperialism exists, and there are still plenty of people in the country who have not yet discarded the dregs of bourgeois ideology and the old regime. The party and state power must increasingly cleanse inside and deal with traitors." And Marx also predicts in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte that the working class need to surely stop at some point and start again from the beginning based on theoretical principles for the final victory. History has proven the correctness of Marx’s prophecy and Lenin’s warning through the fact of the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and China. At the same time, history has warned us orthodox Marxists that successors to Marxism-Leninism, such as Stalin and Mao Zedong could not recognize, realize, and implement the correctness of the above prophecies and predictions under several historical conditions. Herein lies the greatest historical significance in the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, etc. Therefore, this incident is a great victory for the Marxist movement. We must respond to the demands of history, and resolutely “sublate” history. What we should keep in mind is not to be upset by taking historical events as defeatist revisionists do, but to discuss practically and act on our own on how to “sublate” history.

In the first thesis of the Theses on Feuerbach, the origin of Marxist philosophy, Marx strongly asserts, “The chief defect of all previous materialism (that of Feuerbach included)…does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.” He strongly insists that we grasp philosophy practically and in action, and that we practice and act on the principles of philosophical materialism and dialectical philosophy. The difference between being an orthodox Marxist and not being an orthodox Marxist is whether or not to correctly understand what the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China was and to practice one’s historical mission based on that understanding. We will respond to the demands of history, and surely sublate history.

 

 

          CHAPTER THREE

The starting point of Marxism, its origin is philosophy. Recognize materialism, dialectics, and historical materialism correctly! 

 

 

The fundamental principle that governs all things is philosophy, and the absolute truth combined with science is materialism. The core of Marxist materialism lies in the Theses on Feuerbach. This must be the starting point for the study of philosophy.

In 1886, Engels wrote as follows in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy: “Answers to this question [Did God create the world or has the world existed for all time?] split the philosophers into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of the mind over nature and, therefore, in the last instance, assumed world creation in some form or other—and among the philosophers, e.g., Hegel, this creation often becomes still more intricate and impossible than in Christianity—comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.” As Engels writes, philosophy is either materialism or idealism, and there is no in-between. In other words, it is either materialism, which takes nature, matter, existence, and things as the foundation of everything, or idealism, which takes human consciousness, mind, and thoughts as the foundation of everything. And it was Marx who perfected the materialism that opposed this idealism. At that time, Marx did not make a random thought or mutation, but thoroughly investigated Hegel and Feuerbach, who were the pinnacles of German philosophy in those days, and completed his materialism by sublating their ‘materialism,’ (taking over their positive aspects, overcoming their weaknesses and errors, and developing them into something correct). This is elucidated in detail in the life of Marx and Engels in the first chapter of this book. Thus, Marx’s revolutionary movement and his life began with philosophy. That is why Engels wrote in The Peasants’ War in Germany in 1850, “If it had not been for German philosophy, Marxism would never have been born," and in his A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law Introduction written in February 1844, Marx wrote: “As philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapons in philosophy.” This is the meaning of the following phrase which was written in the same paper: “When an idea captures the masses, it becomes a material force.” Philosophy and its ideas are the driving forces that move all things.

In The Dialectics of Nature written in 1875-6, on the role of philosophy, Engels wrote, “Modern natural science has had to take over from philosophy the principle of the indestructibility of motion; it cannot any longer exist without this principle.” There are many modern scientists who have proven this, and one of them is Dr. Masatoshi Koshiba,  Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo who received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics, who said in “My Resume” in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on February 17, 2003, “Everything that we modern scientists are proving by experiment and research is what the ancient Greek philosophers predicted about the way of the universe, and now we are proving it scientifically by experiment and research, one by one.” Exactly as Engels said, there can be no science without philosophy, and science proceeds with philosophy (theory and thought) as its guide. So where should we start to learn this great philosophy? This is the Theses on Feuerbach.

However, the author of Marx’s Actuality, one of the major Marx books published for the purpose of rereading Marx, which I introduced in the first section of this book, writes: “The Theses on Feuerbach have long been favored, perhaps because of their brevity and crispness. Anyone who has ever been interested in Marx must have read a quote from the Theses at least once somewhere…. The Theses were a kind of memos that Marx wrote down in his notebook in the spring of 1845.” As you can see, when the author talks about the Theses, he simply makes fun of them, and calls them mere note, but does not say anything about the historical significance and the significance of the platform of the Theses and the core significance of Marxist philosophy, which Engels made clear in his book Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. That is, the author does not understand the value of the Theses.

However short they may be, there are brilliant words and phrases that contain powerful and profound messages that move people’s hearts. We, true Marxists, must have the ideological and political ability to learn the deep and luminous ideas in Marx’s short words. Why is it that the eminent scholars of Marxism themselves are so shallow about the Theses? It is because as they cannot read Marx correctly, they cannot understand him, and as they do not know his life, they cannot learn from him in their own practice and action as he did. We can also learn from such facts as a negative example.

 

 

Section 1

On Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach! We must be deeply aware of his ideological recognition, in which Engels spoke of its historical significance, its platform significance, and its significance as the core of Marxist philosophy about this Theses. This is the starting point for learning Marxist philosophy! 

 

As revealed in the life of Marx and Engels in Chapter One, both Marx and Engels, through the Hegelian Left-wing movement at the University of Berlin, completely overcame (sublated) Hegel and Feuerbach and completed their philosophy (Marxist philosophy). They jointly declared war on German classical philosophy by publishing the historical literature, The German Ideology (1845). The literature was the first historical proclamation of Marxist philosophy.

About this, in his A Contribution to Critique of Political Economy written in January 1859, Marx says as follows:

Frederick Engels, … arrived by another road (compare his Condition of the Working-Class in England) at the same result as I, and when in the spring of 1845 he too came to live in Brussels, we decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy, in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience.

Therefore, The German Ideology is the monumental document of Marxist philosophy.  

Now, after Marx’s death, when Engels was sorting through the many manuscripts, documents, and unpublished papers that Marx left behind, he discovered a note in Marx’s notebook. It was a short, eleven-point memo entitled “On Feuerbach.” When Engels saw this note, he realized that the framework of The German Ideology, which they had written together in consultation, was here. In other words, it was the backbone of Marxist philosophy (materialism). That is why Engels wrote the following when he published Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy in 1886: “I have found the eleven theses on Feuerbach printed here as an appendix. These are notes hurriedly scribbled down for later elaboration, absolutely not intended for publication, but invaluable as the first document in which is deposited the brilliant germ of the new world outlook.” Engels formally named it Theses on Feuerbach. These Theses are the platform, the basic policy. As a co-author of The German Ideology, Engels was deeply aware of the ideological significance of this Theses. The difference between an orthodox Marxist and a non-orthodox Marxist lies in whether or not one can truly understand the eleven theses of the Theses as the historical, programmatic, and core significance. The following is the full text.

 

Marx [THESES ON FEUERBACH ]

 

１)　The chief defect of all previous materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that things [Gegenstand], reality, sensuousness are conceived only in the form of the object, or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was set forth abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from conceptual objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity. In Das Wesen des Christenthums, he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance. Hence he does not grasp the significance of “revolutionary," of "practical-critical," activity.

２）The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-worldliness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

３）The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that the educator must himself be educated. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.

　The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

４）Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-estrangement, of the duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. But that the secular basis lifts off from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the inner strife and intrinsic contradictoriness of this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, once the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be destroyed in theory and in practice.

５）Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants [sensuous] contemplation; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity.

６）Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of man. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.

Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence, is hence obliged:

　1. To abstract from the historical process and to define the religious sentiment [Gemüt] by itself, and to presuppose an abstract-isolated-human individual.

　2. Essence, therefore, can be regarded only as “species,” as an inner, mute, general character which unites the many individuals in a natural way.

７）Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the "religious sentiment" is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual which he analyses belongs to a particular form of society.

８）All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.

９）The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is the contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.

10 ）The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity.

11 ）The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

 

 

Section 2

In the first thesis of Theses on Feuerbach, we find the origin of materialism. Herein lies the philosophical principle that governs all things. Whether or not we can understand this thesis deeply, firmly, clearly, and accurately determines whether we are a true Marxist or not!

 

In the publication aimed at rereading Marx’s books from the beginning, the author of Marx’s Actuality writes as follows regarding Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach: “The Theses are all Marx’s critical comments on Feuerbach’s contemplative and intuitive materialism, and are, so to speak, merely recommendations for a practical and subjective materialism.” He says, quite simply and easily, that this is just a comment. There is no profound ideological recognition of this Theses by Engels here, nor is there any understanding of why Engels bothered to name it Theses. So, there are no statements about the content of the Theses. He does not even try to know deeply the content of the short but sharp words that make up the Theses. Is this a true Marxist? The following is what we orthodox Marxists think about the Theses.

The first thesis of the Theses on Feuerbach is the very foundation of Marxist philosophy, where the fundamentals of materialism, the principle that governs all things, are precisely and rigorously formulated. Materialism is here. Based on the Theses on Feuerbach, The German Ideology is developed. Therefore, we must read German Ideology in conjunction with this thesis. If you do so, you will be able to understand the contents of this first thesis better. 

In the first thesis, Marx states the following: “The chief defect of all previous materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that things [Gégenstand], reality, sensuousness are conceived only in the form of the object, or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively.” In other words, the old materialism, including Feuerbach’s, only takes facts, realities, incidents, and accidents that exist (appear) in front of us contemplatively, as they are, sensuously, emotionally, or intuitively. It cannot take them sensibly, rationally, or intellectually. So, as a result, Marx says, it cannot capture what objective existences (reality, things, incidents, accidents) reflect in human beings (their brains), what they seek, what their active nature, intelligence, and purposive consciousness are.

Marx goes on to write: “Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was set forth abstractly by idealism. …Hence he does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary,’ of ‘practical-critical,’ activity.” In other words, the old materialism of Feuerbach and others, as a result, cannot understand the importance of revolutionary practical and critical activity (action for change) because it cannot grasp the consciousness, the active, the intellectual demands, and the sense of purpose of what existence (reality, things, facts, incidents, and accidents) is seeking through it. Marx severely criticizes them for not practicing, not acting but only talking, and he strictly calls for revolutionary practical activities.

Based on the first thesis, the following is strongly developed in The German Ideology. In the social sciences, people are the subject, unlike the law of natural science. A human being is a social person. Therefore, the practices and actions based on the thought (perceptions) that becomes conscious in the social life of human beings (the interrelationship between productive forces and production relations) will dominate reality. In other words, existence creates consciousness, and the consciousness dominates existence through practice and action. Therefore, the decisive factor in transforming existence (objective reality) is purposive consciousness. And the reality of existence (material motion) is always changing and developing and as it does, human consciousness is also always changing and developing. Therefore, human thought and consciousness must constantly change, develop, and work on existence in this way. Marx thus strongly insists on the decisive significance of purposive and conscious practical activity.

What is the frame of Marxist materialism developed in Theses on Feuerbach and The German Ideology? It can be summarized in the following three items.

First, the entire universe and all things are matter in motion. This is existence and the foundation of everything. The existence is an objective fact, a reality, a phenomenon, an incident, an accident. And the existence is contingency created by the historical necessity of movement, development, and transformation. Therefore, all existence should be seen as a product of the inevitability (historical stages and historical periods) of history in motion. It should never be viewed contemplatively, sensuously, or superficially.  

〈Therefore, in determining the activities and policies of the advanced molecules and the vanguard party, we must first understand the contingency of the existence, objective facts, incidents, accidents, etc. as an inevitability of history. In other words, based on Historical Science and the Theory of Imperialism (cf. note), we must see all of these as an inevitability of history, period.〉

(note) Historical Science and the Theory of Imperialism was first published on our bulletin, entitled Under the Banner of the Popular Front in December, 2004.

Second, we will thoroughly clarify the essence of what is the inevitability of history that pervades the contingencies of confirmed and captured objective facts, existence, incidents, and accidents. Only when this inevitability is clarified ideologically, politically, and theoretically (intellectually), we will be able to articulate practices, action guidelines, and policies for what we should do. In other words, existence creates consciousness, and consciousness will dominate existence.

  〈Therefore, when we determine the activities and policies of the advanced molecules and the vanguard party, we must clearly, firmly, accurately, consistently, strongly, squarely and head on present (guide) the inevitability that pervades the contingency, using ideology (the People’s Front Platform and its ideology), politics (People’s Front policies), and theory (the three theoretical principles) as guidelines.〉

Third, the crucial difference between materialism and idealism is whether or not to acknowledge the importance of purpose and consciousness (practice and action based on revolutionary consciousness) as the active nature of human beings in human society and social science. The core of materialism is that only through revolutionary practice can the inevitability that history aims for be realized. Matter (existence) creates consciousness (spirit). Once created, consciousness (thought, spirit) dominates existence (matter) with unique functions (workings). As a result, existence (reality) is dominated by human consciousness. This is the meaning of the following two quotations. First, “It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.” (The German Ideology by Marx and Engels, 1845). Second, “The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses” (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law Introduction by Marx, 1844). We must purposefully and consciously develop “revolutionary and practically critical activities” to turn contingency into inevitability.

〈Therefore, when we determine the activities and policies of the advanced molecules and the vanguard party, we emphasize “revolutionary practice (purposeful and conscious development of the Revolutionary Platform, People’s Front Platform, and People’s Front Policy),” as the decisive factor in turning contingency into inevitability. Herein lies the historical mission of orthodox Marxism and vanguard to fulfill.〉 

 

Section 3

Grasp the profound ideological and political meaning of the eleventh thesis of the Theses on Feuerbach as the core of Marxist philosophy, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” And let’s understand the mind of Marx, who tells us what are the personality, humanity, and human image that a philosopher should hold! 

 

We have already discussed in detail what the Theses on Feuerbach is in the preamble to chapter 3 and in section 1. I also mentioned that it was especially important to fully appreciate Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, which Engels wrote in 1886. And if you look through all eleven theses of the Theses, the following becomes clear. The first and eleventh thesis are very important among all eleven theses, and it becomes clear that these two theses are connected and related, and that they are the two legs that dominate all eleven theses. So, if you understand these first and eleventh theses well, you can grasp the whole. And since I have already elucidated the first thesis (materialism) in detail in the previous section, I will discuss the eleventh thesis here.

Marx insists in this thesis: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways.” In other words, the old materialism, including Feuerbach’s, only interprets, explains, editorializes, and comments variously and differently about the history of the universe, humanity, and human beings, their past and future. He says that writing, words, and chatter alone do not help at all. 

And he continues: “…the point is to change it.” In other words, he says what is important and decisive is to transform the world, to realize the revolution, and to conduct a campaign, act, practice, and fight for it. The universe, the human world, and human history are always in motion and as the laws of motion of matter, forces are always at work there. Therefore, a true philosopher (materialist) must conduct a campaign, practice, act, and struggle in accordance with the laws of motion of matter. Then this will be a force for change in the world and contribute to development and progress of the history, he says. That is why Marx writes:

The chief defect of all previous materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that things [Gegenstand], reality, sensuousness are conceived only in the form of the object, or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively….Hence he does not grasp the significance of “revolutionary," of "practical-critical," activity.

In Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law Introduction, Marx wrote as follows: “As philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapons in philosophy.” Furthermore, “the weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.” This is precisely the meaning of the first and eleventh thesis of the Theses.

In other words, Marx develops profound ideas in the short sentences in the Theses. What is particularly noteworthy is that he develops a dialectical philosophy here. Dialectics is the law of motion of matter, the dialectical view of history, the human way of life, and the humanity of the philosopher. In other words, philosophy is a struggle and action, and materialism is a philosophy in motion, and a philosophy for struggle. Therefore, a true philosophy (philosopher) must campaign and fight. A philosopher must be a man of action and a revolutionary. And Marx did so himself. Marx and Engels were not only philosophers but also practitioners and revolutionaries, as this was clarified in the first chapter of this book. Therefore, the eleventh thesis of the Theses is a profound sentence that shows what a true philosopher is, how a philosopher should live, and how his humanity, his personality, and his image of humanity are. If you do not understand this, you cannot be a philosopher. 

 

The authors of the books published in an attempt to reread Marx (old Marxists) have no understanding of philosophical principles, so their contents have been completely shallow. Check the facts! 

 

The historical process of this Theses, its value, its significance, and its political meaning as the skeleton of Marxist philosophy are discussed in detail in section 1 and 2 of this chapter. I also made it clear that the authors of various books published for the purpose of rereading Marx could not understand Marxist philosophy from the very beginning because they were completely ignorant of these details. As a result, their understanding of the last thesis of the Theses, the eleventh thesis, is also so shockingly ignorant and incompetent that it makes me laugh. 

About the eleventh thesis, the author of Marx’s Actuality (Prof. Uemura) writes, “What is meant by ‘transforming the world’ in the eleventh thesis, and what kind of ‘world’ should be ‘transformed’ and how, cannot be understood just by reading these preceding theses. As a result, these theses themselves have also been interpreted in different ways by philosophers.” As you can see, he “can’t understand” the significance of the eleventh thesis at all, which we clarified in the preceding paragraph, that is Marx’s thought about what personality, humanity, and human image a philosopher should have, and because the author does not understand any of it, he “interprets it variously,” just like Feuerbach. And he is completely unaware that he has become Feuerbach himself. This is not only a total comedy, but a tragedy.

The author says, “Marx tells us to transform the world, but he doesn’t tell us how to transform it.” There is no need to talk about such things here. Marx’s purpose here is to talk about philosophical principles, profound ideological principles in short words, and other detailed theories are given elsewhere. Is even this kind of thing beyond his understanding?

Marx’s major works on philosophy are: A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, Introduction (1844), The German Ideology (1845), The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1851-52), Summary of Criticism of Economics (1857-58), A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Economic Manuscripts of 1861-63 (1861-63).

And Marx’s major works on the strategies and tactics required to change the world are: The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1851-52), Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany (1851-52), The Class Struggles in France (1850), The Civil War in France (1871), Critique of the Gotha Program (1875). Elsewhere also Marx has much to say about world transformation. I wonder if these professors who call themselves Marxists have read any of Marx's books. This is what it means to read Marx without understanding Marx.          

The author of Marx and Philosophy (Prof. Tabata), another of the representative publications aimed at re-reading Marx, writes as follows, “The eleventh thesis has often been perceived as a declaration of ‘philosophy of change.’” However, it is a complete misunderstanding. It is not. Philosophy is nothing more than the interpretation of the world. It is a declaration of farewell from philosophy and philosopher, that philosophers, including Feuerbach, have no intention of doing anything more than interpreting the world after all. Marx himself also later recalled that during the Brussels period, “he had settled accounts with their former philosophical conscience.”

As you can see, the author writes, “Although Marx’s theses have been taken as a philosophical declaration of change, it is a total misunderstanding.” However, this is the very misunderstanding. In the preamble to this chapter, as we have already discussed, you can understand it if you understand this profound thought that Engels discussed the historical significance, significance as platform, and significance as the core of Marxist philosophy of Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. These very Theses are a philosophy of transformation. That is why when Engels discovered Marx’s memorandum (“Theses”), he declared, “Here is the genius germ of a new world view, an extremely important document,” and that is why he gave it the name “Platform.” Therefore, Marx’s philosophy is a philosophy of revolution and a philosophy of change. Marx, in his eleventh thesis, strongly emphasizes the philosophy of change, the philosophy of revolution. The eleventh thesis says, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” In other words, it is not enough to variously interpret, explain, or criticize. According to the laws of the dialectic material movement, to take a revolutionary action in material movement, struggle, practice and action is a true philosopher and make yourself a revolutionary. This is the content of the eleventh thesis. Thus, the shallowness of the authors of these books lies in their inability to deeply recognize the contents.

We, orthodox Marxists and true Marxists, resolutely pledge to consistently pursue the acquisition of the Marxist personality, human image, and humanity that the Theses teaches.

 

 

Section 4

Marxist philosophy is composed of “dialectic materialism” and “historical materialism,” as Engels and Lenin also clearly confirm. The defeatist revisionists, however, do not understand this. Here is also another typical example of their shallow and flimsy mindset. This is also a lesson we must learn as a negative example!

 

As I mentioned in the introduction of this book, the content of many of the Marx books that have recently been published in an attempt to re-read Marx is astonishing because a large number of those who read Marx do not understand Marx. As a typical example, I took up the Theses on Feuerbach in the previous three sections of this chapter and discussed it in detail. As you can see, the defeatist revisionist theory of Marx is defeatist and therefore thoroughly revisionist, and it ends up being a self-indulgent interpretation of Marxism.

The characteristic of their Marx theory is that they lack the philosophical thought recognition of “not interpreting and explaining in various ways, but grasping deeply the essence of the problem, and practicing and acting based on it,” as Marx himself strongly insists in his Theses on Feuerbach, and only interpret and explain in various ways. The same is true of the issue of dialectical materialism and historical materialism that we are now taking up here. They are incapable of recognizing, understanding, and learning deeply from Marx, Engels, and Lenin in a unified way. The authors of Marx’s Actuality and Marx and Philosophy have written here and there that there are no such terms as “dialectical materialism” or “historical materialism” in Marxism. This ignorance of Marxist philosophy has already been discussed in detail in this chapter, so there is no need to say anything about it more. Therefore, using them as negative examples, we would like to clarify the basics again so that we ourselves can clearly and firmly recognize this issue one more time.

In order to grasp Marxism deeply, broadly, and accurately, we must learn Engels and Lenin in addition to Marx. As for Engels, as clarified in Chapter 1 (his life), he and Marx were united in cooperation and collaboration throughout their lives. So, what Engels says is what Marx says. And it was Lenin’s struggle against the Mensheviks and the revisionism of the Second International, his defense of Marxism, and his actual realization of Marxism for the first time in history with the victory of the Russian Revolution that made him the foremost defender of Marxism in history. Therefore, by learning Marx, Engels, and Lenin in a unified way, we can recognize Marxism more deeply, more broadly, and more accurately. Only in this way can we overcome the shallowness of the understanding of Marxism.  

Now let’s get to the point.

 

On Dialectical Materialism!

 

First, what is dialectics? Dialectics is derived from the ancient Greek philosophical term “dialektike.” Its meaning is that the only way to reach the truth is to debate and argue with each other’s conflicting ideas, opinions, and contradictions, to expose the contradictions of both sides, and to reach the truth (rightfulness) based on the new leap and development. This is the methodology of thought through dialectics. This is how European philosophy arrived at the Hegelian dialectic of German philosophy and Feuerbach’s materialism through natural growth, metaphysics, mechanical materialism, and so forth. Thus, by sublating Hegel’s dialectic and Feuerbach’s materialism, philosophy was completed by Marx and Engels as Marxist philosophy, “dialectical materialism.” The historical process has been discussed in detail in the first chapter of this book. If you recognize the history correctly, you can see that “dialectical materialism” is the basis of Marxist philosophy. 

In other words, Marxist philosophy united the Hegelian dialectic, the pinnacle of German classical philosophy reached in the 19^th century, and Feuerbach’s materialism, and overcame the common weakness of idealism in the two. Thus, dialectical materialism was completed. It was through their co-authored The German Ideology (1845) that Marx and Engels systematized this philosophical thought and made it available to the public. So, if you read The German Ideology carefully, you will understand that Hegel’s dialectic and Feuerbach’s materialism are unified, and that idealism is thoroughly overcome. However, the defeatist Marxists deny dialectical materialism because they cannot read The German Ideology and cannot understand it even if they read it.

Marx describes about the combination of dialectics and materialism in Capital (Second Edition, Postscript) as follows. “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.” In addition, he refutes the old materialism in Theses on Feuerbach as follows. "The old materialism, including Feuerbach's, only sensuously perceives all phenomena and does not see the problem as essentially the historical product of a dialectical movement. And they are incapable of taking them critically and practically.” In Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Engels criticizes Hegel and Feuerbach, writing,

Feuerbach … but as a philosopher, too, he stopped halfway, was a materialist below and an idealist above. …We comprehended the concepts in our heads once more materialistically—as images of real things instead of regarding the real things as images of some or other stage of the absolute concept. Thus dialectics reduced itself to the science of the general laws of motion…．And this materialist dialectic, which for years was our best means of labor and our sharpest weapon…

He writes the following in Anti- Dühring: “Historical materialism holds that all social and political change must be sought in changes in the modes of production and exchange.” And, “…in nature, amid the welter of innumerable changes, the same dialectical laws of motion force their way through as those which in history govern the apparent fortuitousness of events.” In other words, Engels asserts that the inevitability of dialectical materialism is penetrated in all phenomena, that is, in contingency.

The systematic description of dialectical materialism is Engels’ Dialectics of Nature, An Introduction. In the paper, he discusses the following points in detail. (1) Mother Nature and human society are a material world that is in constant motion and development from the eternal past toward the eternal future. (2) All matter and motion are interconnected and move forward, being unified, and sublated. (3) Development and progress are struggles between the internal contradictions and the opposites (philosophical intrinsic cause theory), and the quantitative changes in the movement prompt qualitative changes, that is to say, the law of transformation from quantity to quality. (4) The qualitative transformation is fundamental, total, and revolutionary, and thus it is an explosion and force acts. (5) The end of each stage of development and progress is always an explosion and convergence, destruction and construction, a mutual transfer of opposites. This is the law of material motion. Engels develops materialism in dialectics with the following famous words:

Thus we have once again returned to the mode of outlook of the great founders of Greek philosophy, the view that the whole of nature, from the smallest element to the greatest, from grains of sand to suns, from Protista to man, has its existence in eternal coming into being and passing away, in ceaseless flux, in unresting motion and change.

Therefore, in his work The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, Lenin argued:

Marx did not stop at eighteenth-century materialism: he developed philosophy to a higher level, he enriched it with the achievements of German classical philosophy, especially of Hegel’s system, which in its turn had led to the materialism of Feuerbach. The main achievement was dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development in its fullest, deepest, and most comprehensive form, the doctrine of the relativity of the human knowledge that provides us with a reflection of eternally developing matter. The latest discoveries of natural science…have been a remarkable confirmation of Marx’s dialectical materialism.

Furthermore, Lenin strongly argued in Materialism and Empiric-criticism (1908): “That is why Marx and Engels laid the emphasis in their works rather on dialectical materialism than on dialectical materialism, why they insisted rather on historical materialism than on historical materialism.” Marxist philosophy is precisely “dialectical materialism” and “historical materialism.” Let’s be sure of this point.

 

 

Section 5

On Historical Materialism!

 

The author (a Marxist philosopher) of Marx and Philosophy- Rereading Marx as a Method, one of the Marx books published for the purpose of rereading Marx, which I introduced in the preamble of this book, writes the following in the preface to his great work.

The title of this book, Marx and Philosophy, probably reminded readers of such terms as dialectical materialism, historical materialism, or materialist view of history. But it might surprise you when I say that Marx never used such terms as dialectical materialism, historical materialism, or materialist view of history. …Marx never says anything about dialectical materialism (or historical materialism, or a materialist view of history). In the first place, Marx does not discuss anything as his own philosophical view.

Just by looking at these sentences, we can see how many Marxist scholars, including this author, do not know Marxism, cannot understand it, and are truly Marx-readers who do not know Marx. As we have pointed out from the beginning, here is a modern “defeatist revisionism” that perceived the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in a defeatist way. In other words, this is a self-indulgent theory of Marxism, and a modified and twisted theory of Marxism. The nature of defeatist revisionism has been discussed in detail in chapter 2 of this book. Therefore, there is no need to dwell on this here now. However, we would like to reaffirm the fundamental theory of Marxist philosophy ourselves, taking this as a lesson.

 

Marx and Engels clearly and definitely develop “dialectical materialism” and “historical materialism” in their co-authored book, German Ideology (1845). If you cannot understand this, you cannot be a Marxist!

 

Historical materialism is a scientific view of history that looks at, captures, judges, and clarifies the history of the world and humanity through dialectical materialism, that is, philosophical-scientific thought, and is an ideological principle for practice and action. This is also called “materialistic view of history,” as Engels says in various places. And it was in The German Ideology that Marx and Engels theoretically, systematically, and historically presented this historical materialism to the world for the first time in history. Engels later formulated this clearly (In A Contribution to Critique of Political Economy and Anti- Dühring, which will be introduced later in detail.) What Marx and Engels argue strongly in German Ideology is the following:

Human beings make history. However, the basic premise for creating history is to live, and to do so, they must first and foremost eat. And they must also have clothing and shelter. In primitive times, all of these things were obtained from nature. They eventually learned to produce, and the productive forces developed and advanced out of man's need to live. With the development of productive forces (development of tools and machines), the relations of production (the state and social structure as a mechanism for distribution and disposal) have changed and developed accordingly. Thus, productive forces and productive relations continue to exist at the foundation of human historical change and development. It is productive forces and productive relations that run through the entire history of mankind. And because the productive forces develop and advance infinitely, the productive relations and human history also develop and advance infinitely.

This view of history, or "historical materialism," is developed in detail in German Ideology. It is organized and summarized as follows.

 

①  Productive forces are the energy (power) for the development of human society.

Human beings must eat to live. That is why we engage in production. Production activities are made possible by the combination of labor power (human work capacity) and the means of production (tools, machines, land, buildings, and raw materials). Of these two aspects, labor power is the decisive factor, and the source of the power is energy for human beings to live. And productive forces have characteristics of always improving, developing, advancing, and growing with this energy (willingness to live). Therefore, productive forces have no choice but to take on a social character. It is because productive forces cannot exist without social nature of cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity of the people involved in them, and the purpose of production also enhances a social character of serving many people and society.  

 

 ②  Totality of productive forces and relations of production is the foundation of reality, on which human thought and consciousness are established as the superstructure.

Therefore, as the materialist philosophy indicates, existence determines consciousness. And as long as productive forces and relations of production as existence are constantly changing, developing, and growing, human thought consciousness as a superstructure will also change, develop, and grow. Productive forces and production relations are mutually contradictory relations in the course of their movement. It is because the development of productive forces becomes increasingly social (both in terms of human relations and the purposes of production), yet the ownership and distribution will be controlled by the class (some human groups) occupying the means and products of production. This yields division and conflict, dispute and strife over products (wealth), that is to say, class antagonism and class struggles arise. Conflict and strife also intensify in the fields of thought and consciousness, idea and theory, and ideology as a reflection of this.  

 

③ The development, improvement, and growth of productive forces will inevitably  

prompt production relations to conform and finally adjust to the productive forces.

The development and improvement of productive forces socializes human relations more and more. Cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity among people become inevitable, and the purpose of production also takes on a broad social purpose. Thus, the development and improvement of productive forces becomes in contradiction with the existing relations of production (the mutual relations of human beings, the state and social structures that govern the control and distribution of products). From this, economic and political contradictions (divisions, conflicts, and struggles) are born. These are class conflicts and class struggles. The only way to resolve this contradiction is to replace the old production relations with a new one (state and social structure) that is consistent with the development of productive forces. The law of historical development is in upheaval, seeking this. In the end, it is accomplished through explosion and convergence (revolution).

 

④  While the growth and development of productive forces is spontaneous,

the growth and development (transformation) of production relations is explosion and convergence.

The development, progress, and growth of productive forces are spontaneous. This is because human work capacity is an accumulation of learning and experience, and the development and growth of the means of production is also an accumulation of research and improvement. In contrast with this, in the transformation of production relations (people’s mutual relations, the state, social institutions), human emotions, thought and consciousness intervene, and the intensity of conflict and struggle caused by them is inevitable. Thus, the history of mankind has always been marked by violence, war, and civil strife at the turning point. The development, advancement, and transformation of human society is an explosion and convergence.   

 

 ⑤  The existence and power of the vanguard as an ideological and theoretical core is decisive for the changes and transformations (explosion  

and convergence) in the relations of production (state and society) that

accompany the development of productive forces.

The change in the relations of production is a revolutionary transformation. The history of mankind (progressing from primitive society, to slavery society, to feudal society, to capitalist society, to monopoly capitalism and the imperialist era and finally to socialist society) is all the result of this law of change of production relations with the development of productive forces. And it must be understood that the changes and developments of the state and social institutions in history have always been explosion and convergence (war and violence and revolutionary means and methods). It is a nuclear explosion in the world of natural science, and in the world of social science, it is the vanguard as a nucleus (core) and the power (struggle) of the masses combined with it. It will unfold with scientific inevitability, as history has shown.

 

Engels, who was of one mind with Marx, and Lenin, whom history has proven to be the greatest defender of Marxism clearly and unambiguously identified “dialectical materialism” and “historical materialism” as philosophical terms of Marxism. Read the writings of Engels and Lenin seriously!

 

Eugen Dühring (1833-1921) was a famous German philosopher and economist who worked as a lecturer at the University of Berlin from 1863 to 1877. He developed his own philosophy and theory of socialism that opposed Marx’s theories. It advocated improvement, not revolution, and social reform through cooperation between capital and labor, not class struggle. This caused a certain amount of agitation in the German labor movement and produced Critique of the Gotha Program (Marx, 1875), that is, the merger based on compromise between the revolutionary Eisenach faction and the reformist Lassalle faction (Gotha Joint Convention). Marx and Engels could not remain silent, and they worked together to develop a critique of Dühring. It covered a wide range of topics, including philosophy, economics, and socialism, and was published consecutively in the organ of the German Social Democratic Party (the forerunner of the Communist Party) in 1877 and 1878. It became a book titled Eugen Dühring ’s Revolution in Science in August 1878. This is Engels’s Anti- Dühring. In terms of the content, it was positioned as a fundamental work along with the Manifesto of the Communist Party and Capital.  

By the way, Engels wrote this paper, always consulting and collaborating with Marx, just as he did in the case of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. In particular, the economics section was written by Marx himself. Therefore, the content of the book is exactly the joint will of Marx and Engels. And the part of the book on the theoretical problems and practical tasks related to socialism was published as a separate booklet, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, in response to requests from many socialist activists. In the booklet, Engels discusses in detail the following five points. First, the working class and people must win power through the revolutionary movement above all. Power decides everything. Second, the working class and people will transform the state and society into the working class and people’s state and society through the operation and enforcement of power. Third, capitalism is blind anarchism in pursuit of profit only. Socialism is a planned economy to meet the demands of society and the people. Fourth, as the productive forces improve and develop, when the differences between physical and intellectual labor, between industry and agriculture, and between urban and rural areas are eliminated, socialism will grow and be transformed into communism. Fifth, when human society reaches communism as a consequence of the development of its productive forces, class society will disappear and, as an inevitable consequence, the state will disappear. The state will not be “abolished,” but will instead “die out.” Marx and Engels discuss the above in detail, and this is the materialist view of history, or historical materialism.

In this booklet, Engels (along with Marx) thoroughly explains their philosophy: dialectical materialism, materialistic history (materialist view of history), and historical materialism. No matter what the defeatist revisionists say, Marx and Engels clearly explain dialectical materialism, material history, and historical materialism in their book. And in his Preface to the First German Edition, written in 1882, Engels wrote as follows: “The application of the materialist view of history to the modern class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie was only possible by means of dialectics.” (Materialism and dialectics only in combination, i.e., only as dialectical materialism can they work in the world of class struggle.) In the second section of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, he wrote, “Modern materialism is dialectical in nature.” And in his Special Preface to the English Edition, written in 1892, he wrote, “This book defends what we call historical materialism. I hope the posh people of England will not be too badly shocked by my use of the term historical materialism." He clearly uses such terms as dialectical materialism, material history, and historical materialism throughout the articles he wrote with Marx’s consent. 

That is why Lenin defended the principles of Marxist philosophy and fought thoroughly against anti-Marxism. In his famous book, Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1908), Lenin argued as follows against Bogdanov, a leading figure in Russian philosophy and economics, who opposed Lenin by bringing pragmatism to the world of philosophy: “All these people could not have been ignorant of the fact that Marx and Engels scores of times termed their philosophical views dialectical materialism.” (We all should know that Marx and Engels call their philosophy dialectical materialism. Marxist philosophy is dialectical materialism.) And Lenin goes on to strongly assert: “That is why Marx and Engels laid the emphasis in their works rather on dialectical materialism than on dialectical materialism, why they insisted rather on historical materialism than on historical materialism.” Thus, Engels and Lenin everywhere assert that dialectical materialism and historical materialism are the fundamentals of Marxist philosophy.

 

A Contribution to Critique of Political Economy, in which Marx formulated “historical materialism.”

 

Marx wrote his introduction to the Critique of Economics in 1859 as a preparation for his great work, Capital, and asked Engels to write a review of it. Engels was happy to do so. In Criticism of Karl Marx’s Economics Book review, Engels wrote, “The book is fundamentally based on a materialist view of history, and the essentials of this view, historical materialism, are succinctly stated in its preface.” This sentence is the formulation of Marxist “historical materialism” as defined by Engels. The full text is reproduced below.

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.

 The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.

The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.

In studying such transformations, it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production.

No social formation is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation.

In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production—antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence—but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.

  

  

          CHAPTER FOUR

What is economics? Learn the fundamental principles of economics thoroughly!

 

 

Economy means the maintenance and protection of the life and security of the nation and society, its people, and the people in general. "Economics" is a word derived from the Greek words "oikonomia," from "oikos" (house, household) and "nomos" (to manage, control).

In Part II, Political Economy, of Anti- Dühring, published in 1878 under the name of Engels, we find the following passage.

Political economy, in the widest sense, is the science of the laws governing the production and exchange of the material means of subsistence in human society. …Political economy is therefore essentially a historical science. It deals with material which is historical, that is, constantly changing; it must first investigate the special laws of each individual stage in the evolution of production and exchange, and only when it has completed this investigation will it be able to establish the few quite general laws which hold good for production and exchange in general.

Economics is truly a social science, a historical science, and a study of the economic laws of human history.

This fundamental thought and philosophical principle must be the basic premises when discussing economics. Without this basic premises, economics will end up being just unscientific, ahistorical, fanciful, and desktop-idealism. 

It was in England in the 18th century that the theory of economics was systematically established. Classical economics was completed by Adam Smith (1723-1790), and he became its founder.

By the way, why did England become the birthplace of economics? It is because England was headquarters of world capitalism and monopoly capitalism in the 18th century. So how could England become the headquarters of world capitalism? First of all, we must look at the objective geopolitical conditions in which this country found itself. Surrounded by the sea, the country had relatively few large-scale conflicts, strife, or wars over borders, as on the European continent. As a result, there was less devastation and destruction of the land, loss of human resources, and other damage than witnessed on the continent. Since England was an island nation, it also had a high level of enthusiasm for overseas expansion, commerce, and trade, which led to the development of a commodity economy (commerce) that was more advanced than anywhere else. The technological reforms across all industries (the Industrial Revolution) that began in the 1770s (late 18^th century) transformed British capitalism. First came the mechanization of cotton textile mills, then the invention of the steam engine as a source of power, and eventually the railroads and steamships. And so, England became the great factory of the world.

The industrial revolution, mechanization, and large factory production were truly the advent of the age of mass production, the monopolization of the market, and the orientation toward imperialism in search of the market for large volumes of goods. At the same time, domestically, it was an accumulation of property, enriching intellectual property, as well as material goods. Learning, art, and intellectuals also became abundant. These historical conditions and their existence gave rise to Adam Smith and his thinking. British classical economics is the theoretical and ideological embodiment of British capitalism and British monopoly capitalism; a theory for that serves those purposes, and Adam Smith is its representative. Adam Smith’s (as a scholar) mental labor (theory) theoretically and ideologically arrived at the same conclusion British capitalism and monopoly capitalism had reached through the practice and action of industrial activity. Therefore, classical economics is an economics for capitalism, monopoly capitalism, and imperialism, those ideological principles, and the guide and compass for modern capitalism, monopoly capital, and imperialism. What must be well recognized is that although there are many schools of capitalist and bourgeois economics, each of which seems to have developed its own theories, they are all essentially based on Smith’s ideas and theories; all are fundamentally his in nature.   

Section 1

On Adam Smith and the place of classical economics in history, and its metaphysical and idealistic essence!

 

（１）

Adam Smith was born in Scotland, England. He lost his father at an early age and was raised by his mother alone. He had no siblings and remained a bachelor all his life, devoting himself to his studies. He studied at the University of Glasgow and the University of Oxford, and finally became president of the University of Glasgow. He put forward many theories, of which The Wealth of Nations (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations), published in 1776, is his masterpiece. This is the original work of classical economics and the classic of capitalist economics (that is, bourgeois economics). 

The theoretical and ideological principles of Smith and his classical economics are as follows. First, it is human labor that creates wealth and property in this world, which comes from human desire. Therefore, we must not suppress that desire. Freedom and laissez-faire nature of desire is the foundation of economic activity. Second, the fundamental condition for this is freedom and free competition, i.e. the market principle. Third, negative phenomena derived from free competition, such as individualism, exclusivity, and immorality, will be naturally eliminated and overcome by the mutual feelings, morality, and reason (the invisible hand of God) that arises from the relationships and interactions among people in the market.

The Wealth of Nations has the background in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was written in 1759. At the time he wrote this document, Smith was a professor of logic and philosophy at the University of Glasgow, where he lectured on the ‘Theory of Human Moral Sentiments.’ The basis of the philosophical thought developed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is as follows. Humans work based on their desire. Therefore, human desire must be laissez-faire. From freedom comes ingenuity. On the other hand, however, this laissez-faire also gives rise to individualism, ambition, vanity, immorality, breach of discipline, and so on. However, these cannot be eliminated under compulsion, but only through autonomous norms due to the moral sentiments that inevitably arise from human interactions in the marketplace. Only through such an ‘invisible hand of God’ can true harmony and order be created. A world of freedom and equality is born of the marketplace. This is the essence of Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.   

However, it is clear that Smith’s philosophy and economics are entirely metaphysical (that is, fixed formalism on arrived at via desk, paper, and numbers) and idealistic (that is, an empty theory and fantasy set apart from facts, history, actuality, reality, action and practice). The world of capitalism and monopoly rule is indeed a world of war, carnage, violence, crime, and greed, and there is no ‘invisible hand of God.’

(2)

The fundamental idea of The Theory of Moral Sentiments behind Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and of capitalist bourgeois economics is that human desire must be laissez-faire, that liberalism is the basis of economic prosperity, and that control and protection impede development. So even now, a book titled How to Protect Freedom: Rereading Hayek, written by Shoichi Watanabe, celebrates freedom, self-centeredness, and selfishness. On the other hand, in his Men Possessed by Desire Capitalism, Japan Eroded by Immoral Profit Supremacy, Mr. Hirotoshi Ito takes Takafumi Horie, Yoshiaki Murakami, and others as economic criminals full of mammonism, and loudly denounces a society, a quagmire of desire.

This is precisely the fundamental ideological issue at the root of economics. This problem cannot be solved by idealism. It cannot be answered except through historical science. In other words, desire is a matter of human beings and what human beings are, which can only be answered by tracing the history of human beings. Human beings are the product of history, and therefore human desire is always historical; changing, developing, and being transformed from the eternal past into the eternal future. Desires are not fixed, but change and are transformed according to history and the environment.   　

Humans have evolved through differentiation from animals (such as apes). Over mind-bogglingly long years, their appearance, form, and function have also evolved, developed, and changed. The brain, in particular, has developed according to the functions which only humans possess. And the desires, emotions, sensations, and intelligence produced by the brain have been decisively altered through evolution. Humans and their brains have been all products of the environment and been created by the environment. And humans and their brains, in turn, dominate their environment through their intellectual capacity. This can be easily seen in the history of mankind.

Smith and bourgeois economists, including Shoichi Watanabe and bourgeois liberalists, do not understand science, do not know what human beings are, do not know the history of mankind, and they are visionaries drowning in the world of metaphysics and idealism. They are like a modern Socrates who will eventually disappear historically.

（３）

As human history has proven, human desires and moral sentiments have always changed due to the environment. The first living groups created by mankind were primitive community societies that had existed from ancient to primitive times. There, they were still unable to produce food, shelter, and clothing as the desire to live, so they depended on Mother Nature for everything. In other words, food, shelter, and clothing were not produced, but were gathered from nature, hunted from the mountains and fields, and fished from the rivers. Moreover, at a time when tools could not yet be invented, the human body and limbs were tools for everything. This required cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity as a united human group to face the fury of Mother Nature and various obstacles. The historical period and such an environment created a society of cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity. Therefore, here, acquisition, ownership, and distribution were socially shared, and these were social moral sentiments. There was neither domination nor subjection, but a world of true freedom and equality. There was no need for conflict, strife, or war. That it was a peaceful society is testified by historians and anthropologists, and that the Jomon period (primitive age) was a peaceful time is even the established theory of the Japanese archaeological community.

It was only after the development of productive activities and creation of wealth and property in the world that such a peaceful society collapsed, social moral emotion disappeared, and conflict and strife between those who ruled and those who were ruled, war and civil war, crime, and violence emerged. Mankind has moved from economy of extraction from Mother Nature to an era of productive activity and material production. Wisdom and intelligence developed, tools were invented and improved, and productive capacity also increased. As a result, surplus production (stockpiles) was created, which became property. Initially this was jointly managed and owned by the community. But as surpluses increased, eventually the more powerful (intelligent, resourceful, and physically strong) people and their groups took it for themselves through their own instinctive desires and laissez-faire. Private ownership and private property were born. Through force of arms, they even took over land and mountains that had belonged to human society, which were created by Mother Nature, and turned them into private property, as if to say that those too belonged to them. And in order to protect their own property, or private property, they created a power institution, a governing body, which is the state. The first state of mankind, the ancient slave state (such as the city-state of ancient Greece or the ancient Roman Empire) is a prime example of how powerful it became.  In other words, the development

of productive forces created the relations of production (human interrelationships, class society, power and state). This is the economic law from the scientific point of view and historical materialism.

This historical period and environment changed human moral sentiments and created a human moral of a struggle for wealth and property in human society, class society, and class struggle. History and the environment have changed and transformed human desires, and their ideas and consciousness have dominated the world. In other words, the environment has created such a man, and such a man has dominated the environment.

After the collapse of the primitive community, human society became a slavery-based society. In Europe, this is the ancient Greek city-state (Athens and Sparta as polis) and the ancient Roman Empire, and states of the Yayoi Period in Japan. And from this period, wars and civil wars, conflicts and strife, violence and crime have become daily occurrences in human history. Since the dismantling of primitive communities, from slavery to feudalism, from capitalism to modern monopoly and imperialism, there has never been a time without war in human society. The causes of all these conflicts and strife, violence and crime, wars and civil wars are economic problems. In other words, they are conflicts over wealth, property, land, territory, and money, and at the root of these conflicts is laissez-faire nature of human desires. There is no ‘invisible hand of God’ at all. It is truly a world of ‘men possessed by desire capitalism.’ Smith’s liberal ideas, the bourgeois economics, and all religions in history have failed to resolve any of the conflicts and strife over wealth, property, land and territory, wars and civil wars, violence and crime that have pervaded human history since the collapse of primitive communal society. The ‘invisible hand of God’ is nothing more than illusion of an imaginary world. The history of mankind, which is constantly moving, developing, advancing, and transforming itself from the eternal past into the eternal future, will surely resolve this issue once and for all in the near future. That time is not so far away. Because human history has moved forward and forward, from primitive communities, to slavery, to feudalism, to capitalism, to monopoly capitalism and imperialism, it has no choice but to move on to the next new era without stopping here. It will be the era of mass society and people, and the era of highly developed modern communities. The compass that will guide it is scientific economics, or Marxist economics.

  

 

Section２

On Marxist economics as a historical science and social science!

 

In the 19^th century world, the modern working class entered the stage of history as a huge force. The development of modern capitalism correspondingly produced a large number of the labors (working people). They are faced with the contradictions of reality through the practice and experience of labor. They rose up in campaign and struggle to escape from this class contradiction (the contradictions of reality). At that time, at the same time and in parallel with this, Marx’s mind (his mental labor) produced ideas and theories as a lighthouse and compass for the movement and struggle of the working class. This is Marxism. The historical course is detailed in the first chapter of this book. The field of economics in Marxism is represented in Capital.  

But what must be well known here is that Marx used much of his brains to publish preliminary works before arriving at his magnum opus, Capital. In order to properly understand Capital, one must rather carefully read these preliminary works. The works are The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law Introduction (1843-44), The Holy Family (1844), Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher  (1944), The German Ideology (1845), Summary of Criticism of Economics (1857-58), A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), and Critique of Political Economy (1861-63). Thus, he arrived at Capital. Also, there are Engels’s works such as Anti-Dühring (1878) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1882) which can be seen as complementary works.   

And the important thing is the following statement in Engels' review on Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. “Marx’s economics is essentially based on a materialist view of history (historical materialism). The gist of this view of history is briefly stated in Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.”

This statement by Engels must be chewed over and understood. This means that the basis of Marxist economics (a discipline common to economics in general) must be ‘historical materialism’ (human life and its history). The core, in a nutshell, is the scientific law that “the power for humans to live, that is, the development of its productive forces changes human interrelationships, the state and social institutions.” Economics must be the history of human beings, i.e., their economic history, based on ‘historical materialism.’ The basic outline is as follows.

(Note: The famous passage from Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which formulated ‘historical materialism,’ is presented in full in section 5 of chapter 3 of this book.)

 

（１）The first human societies which had no productive forces and therefore no productive activities were all cooperative gathering economies that dealt with Mother Nature, and community, community societies, a world of social human morality, based on them!

 

In his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (see p. 70-71), Marx says the following: “In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.”  In other words, when humans first existed as humans, they encountered a life (economic conditions) provided by natural conditions, which was right in front of them. Therefore, we must start economics from that point.

So, in their jointly authored The German Ideology, Marx and Engels write the following:

we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence  

and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must

be in a position to live in order to be able to "make history". But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, housing, clothing and various other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed, this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life.

In essence, they say that since human beings must first eat to survive, economics must be begun from the question of how we should eat.

Now, in order to live, we must produce food, clothing, and shelter. For a productive activity, there must be productive forces (the power to produce). Regarding what the productive forces are, Marx writes in Capital, Vol.2, Chapter 1, Section 2, as follows.

Whatever the social form of production, laborers and means of production always remain factors of it. But in a state of separation from each other either of these factors can be such only potentially. For production to go on at all they must unite. The specific manner in which this union is accomplished distinguishes the different economic epochs of the structure of society from one another.

In other words, economic activity, production activity, and the production of things require the combination of the two: labor power (human working power, ability, and energy) and means of production (tools, machinery, land, buildings, and transportation). What is important is that the degree of productive forces (stages of development) characterizes the historical stage of the period (production relations, state and social institutions). These short sentences by Marx must be well understood and recognized. This is the starting point.

Then, how did humans obtain food, drink, clothing, and shelter in order to survive when they first appeared on the earth? In this regard, in his Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, Marx clarified the following points:

The original conditions of production cannot initially be themselves produced—they are not the results of production．What requires explanation is not the unity of living and active human beings with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolism with nature, and therefore their appropriation of nature; …

The chief objective condition of labor itself appears not as the -product of labor but occurs as nature.… [an objective mode of existence] is as much a precondition of his activity as his skin, his senses, for whole skin and sense organs are also developed, reproduced, etc., in the process of life, they are also presupposed by it. …the original conditions of production automatically include matter directly consumable without labor, such as fruit, animals, etc.

In other words, there was no productive activity in the primordial, primitive period when humans came into existence as human beings. Tools and machinery had not been invented, so wood and stone obtained from Mother Nature were used as 'tools' at best. In other words, there was no productive power. This condition of undeveloped productive forces defined the relations of production (human interrelations, the state and social institutions) in the primitive period (productive forces defined the relations of production).

On this subject, in The German Ideology, Marx and Engels write: “The first form of property is tribal property. It corresponds to the undeveloped stage of production, at which a people lives by hunting and fishing, by cattle-raising or, at most, by agriculture.”

In Japan, the Jomon period (primitive age) is described in the “Nihon Daihyakka Zennsho” (Encyclopedia of Japan) published by Shogakkan as follows: “At that time, the state had not yet been established and tribal societies were the mainstay, with an acquisitive economy based on hunting, gathering, and fishing.” Furthermore, it explains, “During the Jomon period, the economy was centered on hunting, fishing, and gathering tree nuts etc., and people depended on the products of nature for their livelihood.” This is in perfect agreement with the established theory of the Japanese Society of Archaeology that ‘the Jomon period was a communal society, a peaceful society with no state, no power, and no wars.’ 

Herein lies historical science, or historical materialism. Thus, history must be viewed as a science. In other words, the conditions of the development of productive forces, the stage of development of productive forces create social institutions as relations of production. The situations of productive forces in primitive times had created primitive social institutions, primitive communal society, and the world of social human morality.

 

(２) The leap in productive activity due to the growth and development of the productive forces creates surplus product (stockpiles), which becomes property. There, disputes over property based on personal desires, conflicts and strife, wars and civil wars erupted, and the state as an institution of power was established. The development of productive forces began the first step in transforming the production relations!

 

The universe and the whole world are in constant motion. The human world is also always in motion and moves forward. Population grows and intelligence develops, too. And in the field of economic activities, the development of land, the creation of irrigation facilities, the cultivation of grain, agriculture, and animal husbandry progress. And the development, improvement, invention and discovery of tools needed for this purpose progress, and the means of production moves from stone tools and wood to the age of bronze and metal utensils. In other words, human labor (intelligence and energy) and the means of production (tools, machinery, land improvement, and transportation called irrigation) develop, resulting in the improvement of productive forces. As a result, products increased, stockpiles grew, and this became surplus production, which became property. This, of course, belonged to the community, to communal society. However, this property was appropriated and privatized by the power (intelligence, talent, and ability) of man and his group, which has strong personal desires based on human instincts (animal instincts). Even the land and mountains, which were created by Mother Nature and belong to society, have been occupied and turned into private property. The social human morality that dominated primitive communal society by cooperation, collaboration and solidarity disappeared, and in its place emerged a world of "human morality" in which animal instincts and individual desires were laid bare. This world of desires, this system, and this society gave rise to wars, civil wars, and crimes as a means of competing for wealth and property. Power, the state, and social institutions were created as means to control and maintain wealth and property. The first such state was the ancient slave state.

The first class-based society of mankind was a slave society. What were class relations in this society like? There were powers, or slave owners (emperors, kings, and aristocrats) who possessed all products as property and ruled over land, mountains, and individual human beings as their private property, on one side and people (slaves) who could not own any property, products, or means of production, and labored under the control of their slave owners, just like cattle and horses, on the other. And the famous Spartacus Rebellion of 73 B.C. was the pioneering event of emancipation in history.  

The first class-societies, or slave states of mankind were the city-states of ancient Greece (Athens and Sparta) in the 750-700s B.C. and the ancient Roman Empire around 575 B.C. And as soon as power and the state were created, war broke out. In Greece, it was the Trojan War, and in Ancient Rome, it was a war for domination of the Mediterranean Sea as in The Story of the Roman People, written by Nanami Shiono.

In Greece, it was the Trojan War, and in ancient Rome, it was the case in many Roman Tales of the control of the Mediterranean Sea. In Greece, it was the Trojan War, and in Ancient Rome, it was just like many Roman tales of control of the Mediterranean Sea. The human world since then has been a history of wars. In Japan, slave states began since the Yayoi period in the 2nd century B.C. and was described in the Chinese history book, Records of Three Kingdoms and other works: “The Japanese nation was greatly disturbed and divided into more than a hundred nations, and they fought each other.”  From then until today, the human world has been a history of war, and there has never been a period without war. It is why small wars of crime, murder, violence, and strife have continued to this day. All are products of the annihilation of social human morality and the world of personal desire. It is clear that ideological principles of Adam Smith’s theory, bourgeois economics, liberal economy, market fundamentalism, “invisible hand of God,” and so on are utter metaphysics and idealism, so history cannot move forward any longer unless it escapes from the world of these metaphysics and idealism.

  

（３）Look carefully at the history of mankind, where the

development of the productive forces has successively changed and   

developed the relations of production (the state and social

institutions). Herein lies economics as a historical science, social

science!

 

As clarified in the previous sub-sections (1) and (2), when humans first emerged, there was no productive capacity, and the economy was one based on gathering from nature, where there was a primitive communal society of cooperation and collaboration. In the course of time, as tools and machines were invented, improved, and reformed, productive forces increased, and surplus products became property. Then the struggle by desirous humans for control of this property began, and here was born the first dominion and the state as power structure in human history. This was the ancient slave state. The development of productive forces was the first step in changing the relations of production (human interrelationships, state and social institutions). This law has been consistently followed throughout human history ever since. What has it been like after slavery? The basic law is as follows.     

 

History turned from primitive communities to slavery and then to feudalism. This was facilitated by the increase in productive forces based on the development of the means of production. Machines and tools as the means of production had been invented, discovered, improved, and reformed, first from wood to stone tools and then to metal, also developing from simple to complex. This led to a search for serfs (feudalism) instead of slave labor (slavery) that had been the norm. The transformation from a slave state to a feudal state was a historical inevitability. 

 

During the middle to late slavery period, conditions for the expansion of production evolved and developed, with population growth, land development, farmland expansion, and forest development. And it was the improvements, reforms, inventions, and discoveries of tools and machines that increased productivity. In other words, they developed from wooden to stone tools, then to metal, from simple to complex. 

At the same time, the development of productive forces including large-scale development, improvements, waterways and irrigation facilities, and weather-appropriate work inevitably called for changes in production relations (human relations, state, and social structure).  

In other words, slavery became inconvenient. Slave labor was inhuman, and like cattle and horses, they were only provided with enough food (and clothing) to labor, and of course, they could not have a family. This was no way to motivate them to work. This did not lead to any new ingenuity in how to use tools and machines and according to the weather. Thus, the improvement of labor capacity required serfdom, not slavery. 

Serfs were not human slaves. Each of them was recognized as a human being. They could have families, worked with ingenuity, and could own a certain percentage of their own possessions (property) as their output increased. Through these mechanisms, their motivation to work increased further. Feudalism was more humane and more progressive than slavery. But serfs were bound to the land, not allowed the freedom to leave the land, and had no real personality or human rights. In that sense, they were serfs. However, what is decisive here is that it was the emancipation from slavery, that it was a major change for the improvement of the productive forces, and that the development and advance of the productive forces changed the relations of production. Here have we historical progress and historical science, and scientific economics.      

What must be confirmed is that the Spartacus Revolt, which occurred in Rome in 73s BC, was a popular uprising calling for the emancipation of slaves, and the so-called “Great Migration of Germanic Peoples” of the 375s AD was a revolt of slaves seeking land where they could work and a place to live with their families. Thus, history moved in search of feudalism.

In 395 AD Rome was divided into East and West, the Western Roman Empire fell in 476, and the Eastern Roman Empire ended in 527, too. Thereafter, many feudal kingdoms were established throughout Europe. In China, the Song Dynasty unified the whole country in 979 AD. In Japan, the Kamakura Shogunate was established in 1192, and the way that the world was ruled shifted from slavery to feudalism. Here is the law of historical science that the development of productive forces changes and develops the relations of production, and here is economics as a historical science.　

 

With the further development of production tools (means of production), handicraft-based cottage industries become large-scale factory-based industries. As a result, products become mass-produced, and the economy of exchange gives rise to commodity distribution, where everything becomes a commodity. From here, money appears and the owner of money (the bourgeoisie) becomes the protagonist of society. At the same time, economic activity demands labor power (workers) as a free commodity and emancipation of serfs (emancipation of slaves). This is the advent of modern liberalism and capitalism.

 

Improvements, reforms, inventions, and discoveries in the means of production (tools, machinery, land, and transportation) led to an explosive growth of products, which inevitably became commodities, and the search for commodity exchange, sales, and sales channels led to the creation of money as a means of circulation, creating a commodity economy and monetary economy. This development of productive forces calls for changes in social institutions and state forms as relations of production. In other words, history moves for the emancipation of serfs bound by feudal borders, checkpoints, licenses, status systems, and land. In particular, the commodity economy demands freedom. It requires economic freedom and labor as free commodities. Labor powers that can freely use machines and tools must be able to move freely, because human resources must be widely available. Freedom is the absolutely essential social institution for commodity and monetary economies and factory-based mass production. History moves in search of freedom.

Of particular note is the law of value, which is what runs through commodity economies, money economies, capitalist economies, and laissez-faire economies that put desire and profit pursuit first. In other words, it is not tools and machines themselves that generate profit and gain, but the labor, that is, labor power that uses the tools. The value (price) of a commodities or goods is determined by the amount of work (labor time) used to produce them. Labor power itself is the source of profit and gain. Therefore, capital freely and widely seeks good quality labor (workers) from everywhere. This law rejects borders, checkpoints, licenses, and the system of serfdom that binds serfs to land. Including the laissez-faire of human desire, the commodity economy, the money economy, the capitalist economy, and bourgeois society demand total freedom and cry, “Freedom is our world.”

Literary revival movements (such as the Renaissance) that began in Europe in the 14^th century, the French Revolution of 1789, and the establishment of the Declaration of Human Rights were all the war cry of the liberal bourgeois revolution. And the history of the world has been transformed from feudalism to the modern capitalism through the Puritan Revolution in England in 1641, the issuance of the Emancipation of Serfs Decree in Russia in 1861, the Civil War and Emancipation of Slaves in America in 1861, the Meiji Restoration in Japan in 1868, and the Xinhai Revolution in China in 1912. All this is because the development of productive forces has changed the relations of production. This is the historical science that proves the correctness of the scientific historical view and the law of scientific economics.  

 

Modern capitalism which started from liberalism, and the laissez-faire of human desire and its liberal economy have now reached its zenith. The era of monopolies and imperialism is the last stage of human prehistory that has climbed up, reached maturity, been corrupt, and lost their capabilities, and been forced to move on to the next era. Let’s be aware of the contemporary understanding of the current times in which humanity is in a state of upheaval, seeking transition to a mass society, a people's world, and a modern community.

 

The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, which began in the 1770s, brought a leap forward in modern capitalism and moved the world into a new era of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism, and at the same time, it is a war of aggression aimed at conquering other peoples and other countries in order to seek maximum profit and monopolize the world market through market fundamentalism. Monopoly capital and imperialism are indeed killing machines for war and violence, looting and slaughter, domination and plunder. World War Ⅰ (1914-18) had 30 million casualties, World War Ⅱ (1939-45) had 85 million casualties, including civilians, and post-World WarⅡwars and civil wars, terrorism and violence have claimed more than 20 million victims in the last 30 years alone. Monopoly capital, imperialism and modern capitalism are precisely the mass murder weapon and violent institutions that have killed 200 million people, from which history must escape. The world is in upheaval for this reason.

The economic law of monopoly capital and imperialism is the pursuit of maximum profit based on the laissez-faire nature of its unlimited desires, all for the sake of profit first, production first for that, that is, mammonism.

  If the way to achieve these is free competition and the market principle, then the result is the law of jungle, disparity society, and the impoverishment of the masses.

Thus, modern monopoly capital and imperialism have made the earth and the human world a supremely material and an animal world. Personality and humanity have been lost, and the earth and the environment have been destroyed.

All the wars and civil wars, violence and terrorism, ethnic conflicts and border confrontations, religious and racial riots, all forms of crime and murder, corruption and depravity that have emerged in the modern world are what was produced by the economic law of monopoly capital and imperialism. Here is a philosophical principle. Existence (monopoly and imperialism) gives rise to consciousness (social phenomena), which is inevitable.

Like Run, Meros (a small work by Osamu Dazai), monopolies and imperialism, possessed by desire, have just kept on running on and on, and climbed to the last summit, so there is nothing more beyond that. In other words, where they have dominated, expropriated, and plundered, a world that has nothing to do with their will, i.e., a world of popular poverty, rebellion, insurrection, war, civil war, all forms of crime, confusion, and unrest have been created. There is no longer an endless market for maximum profit either.

Thus, human history has reached a point where they cannot remain stuck in the same place forever, and there is no progress unless they escape. As we can see from the history of mankind, history has always undergone change and development through explosions and convergences. In particular, monopoly capitalism and imperialism self-destructed through the self-initiated wars. In World War One, the Russian and German empires, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires disappeared. Through World War II, three fascist states, Japan, Germany, and Italy disappeared, and French and British imperialism lost their standing. And the last empire on earth, US imperialism, is collapsing due to the Iraq war. Thus, one after another, we are moving into a new era. It is all a product of the economic law that the development of productive forces changes the relations of production (state and social institutions).

Monopoly capitalism and imperialism are the last stage of the highest development of modern capitalism. They are now old and decayed, and there is no more for them. What emerges beyond that is a new era of human history, a historical era of new community that has ended class conflict and class struggle. Thus, humanity is moving into a next new struggle, a new era of space exploration. The new mission of economics must be this struggle, the pursuit of the development of the universe.

 

On the Law of Value

 

The capitalist economy is a commodity economy. Everything in this world is a commodity, and there is nothing that is not a commodity. Workers also live by selling their labor as a commodity to capitalists. Therefore, workers are also commodities.

Also, economic activity or economic life takes place through the exchange of commodities. Therefore, the capitalist economy is based on the exchange of commodities. This is buying and selling, and capitalism is driven by the buying and selling of commodities.

The buying and selling commodities are an equivalent exchange. They are exchanged for the same price. It is money that expresses the price. At the beginning of human society, barter was used, but even then, equivalent exchange was naturally realized by empirical rules (customs).

Equivalent exchange means buying and selling at the same price. Then, what is the measure or criterion for recognizing products that are completely different in appearance and shape as the same price? Since any commodity is a product of labor, and since labor (working power, ability, energy, and technology) is used in any commodity, this labor that governs all things is the measure or criterion for price determination. This is the value of labor.　

The criterion for commodity prices is the value of labor. The standard for determining the value of a commodity is the amount of labor time (labor hours used) spent in the production of that commodity. This value is expressed as a price.　

So, what determines the value of labor? It is the total cost of living required by the history era for the workers who produce the labor.

In a capitalist society, however, the payment (wages) paid by the capitalist to the worker is not the total value, but only a part of it, even if the commodity is bought and sold based on the amount of labor used in its production (value, price). In other words, wages received by a worker is just enough to barely eat, and most of the rest of value becomes profit for the capitalist. This is surplus value and surplus labor.  　

This is the law of value, and as long as this law of value exists, the widening gap between rich and poor is inevitable in a capitalist society, and it is natural that the rich will get richer and the poor will stay poor.

In the socialist system, the commodity economy disappears, and since everything is a production activity within the community, it is operated as joint production, joint distribution, and joint labor. Although the law of value still partially remains in the agricultural sector in the initial stage of socialism, it will disappear completely when the differences between industry and agriculture, between urban and rural areas, and between intellectual and physical labor disappear due to the development of mechanization and the improvement of production capacity. At that time, communism where people will work according to their abilities and receive according to their needs will be realized.

 

CHAPTER FIVE

What is socialist economics, i.e. socialism? Confirm the great triumph of Lenin-Stalin’s Soviet socialist construction. And we must sublate it correctly!

 

 

Marx was branded a dangerous element by the German government in 1843 and was deported. Marx moved to Paris, where he launched a new revolutionary movement, publishing The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher in 1844. Engels learned of this and contributed a valuable document, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, which analyzed the current state of British capitalism. Marx highly valued this document, which led to Marx’s interest in the criticism of economics, which evolved into Capital. 

In this document, Engels outlined the following: “Capitalism becomes increasingly mechanized large-scale industry. A large number of workers and their labor inevitably take on cooperative, joint and solidarity work, that is to say, a social character. The production will also be large and will have to take into account wide spread social demand. Here too, the social element becomes stronger. Nevertheless, British capitalism is all individualism, only personal desires and pursuit of profits. As a result, all economic activity becomes blind and anarchic. The working people (laborers) engaged in productive activities get less while their products increase, and social injustice and inequality grows. The solution to this contradiction is to shift the means of production (land, factories, buildings, machinery, tools, and transportation) to social ownership, public ownership, that is, socialism.”

In the Russian preface to the Manifesto of the Communist Party, written in 1882, Marx also wrote as follows:

Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of communist common ownership? ... The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development.

Marx and Engels consistently advocated social possession, communal possession, and socialization of the means of production (land, factories, buildings, machinery, tools, and transportation).

And Engels, in his Principles of Communism (1847), argued that true freedom and democracy, true equality and fairness, and the richness of humanity, require that the state and society itself must be a community of cooperation and collaboration, and that productive activity must also be purposeful, conscious, planned production and a planned economy that meets social desire (society’s demands) and social human desire (general public demand), rather than individualism.  　

In Socialism: Utopia and Scientific (1880-82), Engels writes, “The capitalist economy is a desire liberalism, which inevitably becomes haphazard, unplanned, and anarchic. Contrary to this, socialism is purposeful, conscious, and planned economic activity for the good of society, for the good of the people, and for the enrichment of the community. Socialism is planned economy.” And in Principles of Communism, he also outlines the following:

When industrialization, mechanization, and chemical technology are developed through a socialist planned economy, and the productive forces are highly developed, the differences between industry and agriculture, urban and rural, intellectual and physical labor will disappear. At that point, we will have reached from socialism as lower stage of communism to communism as a higher stage of socialism. When this becomes an international scale, then the state will die rather than be abolished.  

Marx also outlines the following in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, published in 1875.

Liberalism and free competition in capitalism are exclusive competition based on personal desire. The result inevitably creates a world of the weak and the strong. In contrast to this, competition in socialism, socialist competition, is competition and encouraging each other for the good of society, for our community, for everyone. The fundamental question is what competition is for, what its purpose is and what its character and nature are.

Marx further emphasizes the following points in the same paper. “Socialism is precursor to communism, so there are yet leftover scraps (dregs) of capitalism. This is inevitable. In other words, both the commodity economy and the law of value are alive here. Therefore, it is the age of ‘work according to ability and receive according to work.’ In the communist era, when the productive forces are highly developed and products are more abundant, then we will reach the era of ‘work according to ability, and receive according to need.’”

As Marx and Engels made clear, the economical law of monopoly capitalism and imperialism is really blind and anarchic. It is, as Smith’s classical economics teaches, the inevitable law by laissez-faire and liberalism of human desire. It is proved by the actual capitalist world itself. The history of the world has been filled with conflicts and struggles over land, territory, and property; wars for them have never ceased, each time destroying nations and societies, and through these wars, small peoples and small nations have been dominated by large powers.

As you can see from the history of capitalist economies, capitalism has repeatedly destroyed, through which mass exploitation and impoverishment of the masses have progressed, and the rule of huge monopoly has been realized. Recent examples include the New York stock market crash on October 24, 1929, Black Thursday, which triggered the Great Depression, and the largest stock market crash in history on October 19, 1987, Black Monday. These repeated economic events large and small, have become routine. And today, financial and economic instability, confusion and chaos on a global scale based on the “subprime mortgage crisis” which began in the summer of 2007, are products of the liberal, blind, and anarchist economic laws of capitalism. The crucial point here is that such liberal economic laws inevitably result in thoroughgoing mass deprivation, impoverishment of the masses, and monopoly domination and monopolization in all sectors as a reflection of this, and that economic and social disparity will become endless.

This is proven by the fact that the United States, the most powerful country in the world today and dominated by giant monopoly capital, is the society with the greatest inequality and poverty. In fact, on October 9, 2007, the International Monetary Fund released the results of its World Economic Outlook analysis, which clearly stated: “Income inequality is growing ever wider in all countries and regions with globalization. While absolute incomes have increased, the amount acquired by the wealthy has increased at a much faster pace than the amount acquired by the poor. The United States is the representative of the inequality society, but China is widening the inequality with the momentum to overtake the United States.”　

Human history raises the fundamental question: liberal, blind, and anarchist economy or purposeful, planned, socialist planned economy? History demands that we follow the scientific law and is bursting for change.

 

 

Section 1

Marxist economics is a purposive and conscious, scientific, and social (socialist) planned economy. Forty years of Lenin-Stalin’s construction of Soviet socialism has clearly proven its correctness as a great triumph. Make sure of that historical and objective fact!

 

The scientific economics of Marxism has been brilliantly proven correct in this world through their 40 years of Soviet socialist construction by Lenin and Stalin. Those 40 years of Soviet socialism were 40 years of the triumph of the Marxist planned economy. History has proven how wonderful the 40 years of Soviet socialist construction during Lenin-Stalin eras was. It must be frankly confirmed as a fact of history, not in terms of idealism, but in light of the many witnesses and testimonies. 

Russia was a very backward agricultural country. Russia’s transition to capitalism began in 1861 with the promulgation of the emancipation of the serfs by the Tsar. At that time, however, the world was already in the developmental phase of the capitalist era. In England, serfs were liberated in the 1300s, the Puritan Revolution was realized in 1641, and the country had become a fully capitalist society. Because Russia was such a backward country, it was defeated by Japan, a small country in Asia, in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Moreover, it continued to lose to Germany in World War I, which began in 1914. Then Russian Emperor abdicated. In the process, the Russian Revolution was realized, and the socialist era of Lenin-Stalin emerged.

 

Lenin’s era was one of fierce wars and victories against foreign armed intervention and domestic rebels and the triumph of the basic socialist construction through “communist Saturday labor” (socialist competition).

 

At the beginning of 1918, immediately after Lenin's Soviet socialism was established, sixteen capitalist countries around the world, mainly the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, invaded the Soviet Russia all at once. In response to them, generals of old times in the country also organized a rebellion and rose up in arms. Thus, the harsh domestic war continued for five years. Lenin and the Soviets launched "War Communism," organized a volunteer army (guerrilla forces), and under the slogan "Defend the first socialist homeland of mankind," fought through and won the war at the cost of 14 million lives. In this historical fact lies the greatness of socialism, its strength, and its superiority.

In order to build socialism in this utterly destroyed country, young men rose up in the difficult economic construction. This was “Communist Saturday Labor.” This movement, which involved giving up half day off on Saturdays to serve the motherland and socialist construction through unpaid work, spread throughout the country. Lenin highly praised this as the true competition, “socialist competition.” In "War Communism" during the war and "Communist Saturday Labor" in peacetime, here lies the difference between free competition of the law of the jungle in capitalism and socialist competition in Soviet society.

At the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, held in December 1920, Lenin issued the appeal: "Socialism is Soviet Power plus nationwide electrification. Let’s achieve industrialization and modernization of the country through an energy revolution.” He immediately established the "All-Russian Electrification Committee," which was reorganized into the "Gosplan" (the State Planning Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers) the following year and began working on a full-scale planned economy.

 

Look at the world record and the many testimonies that prove the great triumph of Lenin and Stalin's Soviet socialist construction. Let’s confirm the correctness of the socialist planned economy from objective facts.

　      

Stalin, who succeeded Lenin, implemented a planned economy to transform Russia, a backward agricultural country, into a modern, heavy industrial and chemical-technological industrial nation. The First Five-Year Plan begun in 1928 was implemented followed by others in succession, in which new socialist competitions developed. One of them was the Stakhanov Movement. During the Second Five-Year Plan, which began in 1933, Stakhanov (1906-1977), working in the Donbass (a coal mine in southern Ukraine), realized an increase in production of 14 times above the previous level through research and improvement of technology, and careful study and streamlining of work procedures. Stalin launched the Stakhanov Movement across the country, claiming that this was a model for socialist competition.

The enormous development of Lenin and Stalin's socialist economic construction has been attested to by newspapers, magazines, statistical data, statements by scholarly intellectuals and so on around the world. Among the most representative examples is the 1985 edition of the Kyodo News Agency World Yearbook. It is recorded in that Yearbook that the Soviet economy, "achieved a high rate of high growth of at least 10% since the First Five-Year Plan (1928) until 1959, except during World War II.”

As for the testimonies of scholars and intellectuals, John K. Galbraith (1908-2006) can be mentioned first. He was a major figure in American Economic Association, president of the American Economic Association in the 1970s, and he was considered a giant of 20th century economics and a representative of the American intellect. In April 1989, he published a book entitled Capitalism, Socialism, and Coexistence, in which he admits the following facts:

While capitalist countries were suffering from the Great Depression and recession in the 1930s, the socialist economy of the Soviet Union continued to advance with great strides and became the second largest industrialized country in the world after the United States. It also achieved full employment and social security. And in the 30s and 40s, the Soviets led the world in modern science and technology, weapons and military technology, atomic energy and space exploration, transatlantic and jet aircraft development, etc.

Moreover, in the book, Galbraith says that it was only after the 1970s (after the Soviet party and state had been qualitatively changed by Khrushchev's revisionism) that this Soviet economy began to collapse.

And I can give you another statement by a Japanese scholar, Koizumi Shinzo (1888-1966). He was a famous Japanese economist, the former president of Keio University, an educator to Emperor Heisei when he was crown prince, recipient of the Order of Cultural Merit, and one of the most well-known intellectuals of Showa Japan. He was well known as an anti-Marxist fighter who consistently criticized Marxism. In his Fifty Years after Marx's Death ~ The Theory and Practice of Marxism, published in 1933, however, he wrote the following while marveling at the enormous development of Stalin's Five-Year Plan.

The development of the Soviet economy has often surprised the expectations of outside observers. In particular, the results of the successive Five-Year Programs since 1928 have often surprised skeptical critics. In this respect, the author must admit that he too has made a mistake or two in his observations of the Soviet Union. …Of course, the Soviet economy was not developed by the power of a few key Soviet figures, and there is no disputing the fact that these individuals were already a product of their own environment. Moreover, it is undeniable that the Soviet politicians themselves, who are themselves a product of their environment, have in the most important respects influenced the development of the Soviet economy through their insight and ability to carry it out. I have made mistakes in my predictions of the unforeseeable more than once.

Dr. Koizumi thus admits his own lack of recognition, humbly acknowledges the astonishing development of the Soviet economy, and frankly takes his hat off to Stalin's prowess. Only a first-rate person can recognize facts as facts, while a second- or third-rate person cannot.

It was this triumph of Stalin's planned economy and socialist construction that produced the great victory of the Soviet army in World War II. This is clear from facts. The product of Soviet chemical heavy industry, the "Katyusha," a multiple rocket launcher, astonished not only the Germans but also the world. The "T34," the strongest steel heavy tank, repelled every bullet from the German anti-tank guns. It eventually gave birth to the world's fastest fighter aircraft, the MIG, and the Kalashnikov (AK), the premier automatic infantry rifle in ground combat around the world even in the 21st century. This gun is light, trouble-free, unbreakable, and most powerful, and remains first class even today.　

In 1949, the Soviets succeeded in developing the atomic bomb, which put them on par with the United States, and in 1957, ahead of the United States, they successfully launched Sputnik I, the first man-made satellite. In 1961, the world's first human spacecraft with Major Gagarin aboard orbited the earth, and he left a message that the earth was bluish. The whole world was completely gripped by "Gagarin Shock" and "Gagarin Fever.”

The victory of the Soviet Union in World War II was guaranteed not only by the material victory of the heavy industrialization of the country and the enrichment of the chemical industry, but also by the high ideological consciousness of the Soviet people. This was symbolized by the slogan "Party members, come forward!” During the decisive battles against the Germans, during hand-to-hand combat, and when the assault troops were dispatched, the commanders always shouted, "Party members, come forward!” and Communist Party members always stepped forward, leading non-Party members and not minding dedicating their lives. It was a revolutionary tradition that appeared at every stage of World War II. One example is the Resistance in France (a resistance movement against Nazi rule). The French people fought the Nazis at great cost. The French Communist Party Members were at the forefront of this movement. As a result, the French Communist Party suffered the greatest number of casualties, and it is a historical fact on record that the French Communist Party at that time was called "the party of those to be shot dead."

 

Check on the fact that Liddell Hart, a British military scientist, also took notice of the enormous development of Soviet socialism.

 

I would like to introduce one more record that testifies to such enormous development and progress of Lenin-Stalin's Soviet socialism, and its advanced achievements in science and technology. It is the work of Liddell Hart (born in Paris in 1895 and died in England in January 1970), History of the Second World War (London, Weidenfeld Nicolson, 1970; Japanese edition, published in two volumes by Chuokoron-sha in September 1999). Liddell Hart studied at Cambridge University, served as an officer in World War I, was seriously wounded, and thereafter devoted himself to the study of military science, publishing many works on military science. His scientific research on military issues was highly regarded in many European countries, and he was knighted by the Queen of England for his achievements. In the above-mentioned work, he writes the following about the advanced science and technology of the Soviet military as an objective fact.

Its (the Russian Army's) tanks were at least as good as those of any other arms most German officers considered them better. While they suffered from a lack of supplementary fittings, such as wireless equipment, they reached a high level of efficiency in performance, endurance, and armament. The Russian artillery was excellent in quality, and there had been a large-scale development of rocket-artillery that was remarkably effective. The Russian rifle was more modern than the German, and capable of a higher rate of fire, while most of the heavier infantry weapons were equally good.

As we wrote earlier, the tank was a "T34", the rocket was a "Katyusha," and the infantry rifle was a "Kalashnikov." Liddell Hart also clearly confirms the superiority of these weapons.

He writes also about the combat capabilities of the Soviet people and the Soviet Red Army soldiers as follows: The Soviet public was much more rigid than their leaders with the name steel (Stalin).... They volunteered to go to the front forming a long line.” Furthermore, he notes,

The improvement (of The Red Army) began at the top. A drastic elimination of the original leaders had made room for the rapid rise of a generation of dynamic young generals, mostly under forty, who were more professional and less political than their predecessors. The average age of the Russian higher commanders was now nearly twenty years less than the German, and the lowering of the age level brought a heightening of efficiency as well as of activity.

In this, too, we can see the great results of Stalin's purge of the Soviet Red Army through the Tukhachevsky affair, and the radical reorganization of the Red Army. (For more information on this incident and its detailed historical facts, please refer to chapter 2 of this book.)

Furthermore, Liddell Hart writes about the unity of the Soviet people under Stalin's leadership as follows:

The Russians could live where any Western army would have starved, and continue advancing when any other would have been sitting down to wait for the destroyed communications to be rebuilt. German mobile forces that tried to put a brake on the advance by raiding the Russian communications rarely found any supply columns at which to strike. Their impression was epitomized by one of the boldest of the raiding commanders, Manteuffel: The advance of a Russian Army is something that Westerners can't imagine. Behind the tank spearheads rolls on a vast horde, largely mounted on horses. The soldier carries a sack on his back, with dry crusts of bread and raw vegetables collected on the march from the fields and villages. The horses eat the straw from the house roofs--they get very little else. The Russians are accustomed to carry on for as long as three weeks in this primitive way, when advancing.

Liddell Hart is, of course, a general in the capitalist camp. Politically, therefore, he is a man of the anti-Soviet camp, but like Dr. Shinzo Koizumi of Japan, whom I introduced earlier, he was forced to recognize the greatness of Stalin and Soviet science and technology and the heroism of the Soviet people as facts, and this is recorded in his book. Unlike idealists, we emphasize objective facts, because it is in facts that the truth and the essence of the problem are hidden.

 

 

Section 2

It was a result of the bourgeois transformation of Party and State of the Soviet through Khrushchev's "criticism of Stalin," an anti-Marxist bourgeois idea, that the great triumph of Soviet socialism and its achievements collapsed. And this was what Marx predicted, Lenin foretold and warned about and the contingency within the inevitability of the whole historical process necessary for the final triumph of socialism!

 

We discussed in detail in Chapter 4 that economics is a social science. At the same time, we elaborated that capitalist bourgeois economics is laissez-faire of human desire, individualistic freedom, and blind anarchism, while Marxist economics is based on a scientific, purposeful, planned economy and socialist economy.

And in the previous section, the correctness of Marxist economics and its great the Soviet years of Lenin-Stalin's Soviet economic construction. This was also confirmed by recorded economic statistics and the testimony of leading economists and intellectuals. Through these proofs and testimonies, it also became clear that the collapse of the great socialism led by Lenin and Stalin was actually the result of qualitatively changing and tarnishing party and state of the Soviet into capitalism by Khrushchev's bourgeois ideas called "criticism of Stalin." There are many testimonies that reveal that it was after Khrushchev that Soviet socialism went haywire and collapsed, but I would like to mention a couple of representative ones here.

The Mainichi Shimbun published a special article entitled "What Will Happen to Soviet Economic Reforms" on September 24, 1990, in which the following passage was included: "The postwar Soviet economy continued to make remarkable progress, but economic growth came to a halt in the second half of the Brezhnev era, and production facilities have become increasingly dilapidated.” In other words, the article discusses this way the qualitative change of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the nation that began with Khrushchev and continued under Brezhnev.

In addition, the March 1991 issue of the monthly magazine "World” (Sekai) carried a discussion titled, "Where is Socialism Going?” The following passage appeared in the article.

As it was the Soviet Union that was the first to launch the artificial satellite Sputnik, until the mid-1960s, people in the capitalist camp also equally believed that a planned economy or Soviet-style socialism would be more effective in terms of expanding the productive forces. As a result, Keynesian theory was born, or to put it another way, it was modified capitalism. What on earth does it mean that the economy of such socialism began to collapse this way sometime in the 1970s?

Here, too, the article testifies that the socialist economy of the Soviet Union went crazy after the qualitative change of the Soviet party and state by Khrushchev- Brezhnev.

And on March 6^th, 1990, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun published an article titled "Rebuilding the Soviet Economy," which included the following passage.

In the 1930s, while the capitalist countries were in turmoil with economic downturn, unemployment, and slumping production and trade, the Soviet economy alone continued its high growth and became the star of hope for the underdeveloped countries. And it is an undeniable fact that the Soviet Union built a huge heavy industry, second only to that of the United States and Germany, and withstood Hitler's invasion well.

Again, the article praises the greatness of Lenin-Stalin's Soviet economic construction, and it is exactly in line with the words of Shinzo Koizumi.

Here, it is important to take note that although every commentary, article, or document writes in the same vein that it was good before, but something went wrong later, no one can answer the question of why things went wrong in the middle of the process.　

Since they can neither understand it, nor find an answer, they take the quickest way out of it and bring up the old anti-communist and anti-socialist slogans, concluding that the Soviet-style planned economy is a failure and that Marxism is in error. The bourgeoisie is always spouting the same old methods under a new guise.

We have consistently fought against this kind of bourgeois discourse for a long time, so this is nothing unusual. It is because we are sensible and not influenced by current trends, and we have scientific knowledge and the ability to see history as a science that we are clear on this issue, too. The following are our views and conclusions.

 

Khrushchev was the greatest revisionist, the greatest renegade, the greatest traitor in the history of the Marxist movement. Look at his theoretical, ideological, and political essence! As a result, the Soviet party and state changed qualitatively (intrinsic cause theory), which led to the subsequent transformation of the Soviets to capitalism. Therefore, socialism has not been defeated.

 

On February 24, 1956, at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, First Secretary Khrushchev, head of the Party, made a secret report, the so-called "Criticism of Stalin," which was announced by the US State Department on June 4 and sent a huge shock throughout the world. It was truly astonishing, and it stunned everyone by saying that Stalin had been a dictator by blood purge. Khrushchev notified and contacted the U.S., which, with Khrushchev's approval, made the story public.

Now then, as the contents of the U.S. State Department's announcement ("Criticism of Stalin") became known all over the world, a great uproar broke out in every field. All of the right, the left, and the middle wondered what on earth this meant. At this time, however, we orthodox Marxists and genuine communists were truly calm and resolute. This is because we correctly recognized the theoretical principles of Marxism, the principles of scientific thought, and the Marxist philosophy, which is the fundamental principle that recognizes and governs all things, and we had the ability to understand and judge everything from this philosophy. We also knew that Lenin had warned us that someone like Khrushchev would one day emerge, so we realized that this was the emergence and revival of bourgeois ideology in the Soviet Union (the literature on Lenin’s predictions and warnings will be introduced later). Therefore, we decided that we must brace ourselves and prepare for the struggle. And at the same time, that's why we call on you all to return to philosophy and study philosophy from the beginning once again.

Engels wrote in The Peasants' War in Germany (1850), “without German philosophy, Marxism would not have been born.” Similarly, Lenin wrote in The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (1913), "Marxism was the correct inheritance, development, and perfection of nineteenth century German philosophy.”

Marxist philosophy consists of "materialism," "dialectics," and "historical materialism.” The details of this philosophy are developed in chapter 3 of this book, but in a word, it is "dialectical materialism.” The core of "dialectical materialism" can be summarized in the following three items.

First, the universe and all things are matter in motion. Herein lies the objective fact. The essence of matter in motion is reflected in the human intellectual brain, and what is realized through the brain is the subjective of every political thought, principle and theory, cognition, and awareness. The objective and the subjective are two completely different things, but at the same time they are two unified aspects of what is in motion.

Second, the existence of matter is motion, and motion is development, progress, leaps, and conversion. The energy for the motion is heat, electricity, chemical action, and life instincts contained within matter. In the life and social movements of humankind and human beings, political thought, principle and theory, cognition and consciousness become their intrinsic causes and dominate their movements.

Third, the basic law (method) of material movement is "sublation.” Sublation (Aufhebung) is to start from the old, the past, and the present (something out there), and while taking them over, at the same time, to draw out, foster, and develop what is progressive, advanced, and revolutionary within it, and in this way to acquire something new through leaps forward and conversion in the movement.

The above three are the fundamental principles and core of dialectical materialism. This principle and core actually govern and are through the movement of this universe and all things.

 

Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin are a series of the Marxist movement.

 

How should we view Khrushchev's "Criticism of Stalin" from the first principles and core of Marxist philosophy? It is a complete denial of Marxism, of the socialist and communist movements, which is inevitably a degeneration into bourgeois ideology and a fall to capitalism.

Why? The universe and all things are matter in motion, which is objective existence. It is political thought, principle and theory, cognition and consciousness that this existence of material motion produces. Therefore, existence and consciousness are two unified aspects. When looking at Marxist, socialist, and communist movements from this principle, it is clear that the material movement as its existence was Marx-Engels and the First International, Lenin and the Russian Revolution and the Third International, Stalin and the building of Soviet socialism and the Cominform. This one line is the material expression of the Marxist, socialist, and communist movements, and their ideological and political principles and theories are Marxism and Leninism.　

Viewed from this philosophical principle and core, "Criticism of Stalin" was really a denial of the Marxist, socialist, and communist movements, and by denying the material movements, it also denied the ideology and politics as the conscious expression. Therefore, its content is a fabrication of history.

The material existence of the Marxist movement is Marx-Engels and the First International, Lenin-Stalin and the Soviet socialist construction, i.e. these persons, political movement (organizations), states, societies and power. In history, this is the only material expression of Marxism, socialism, and communist movements. There was no material movement of objective existence shown by philosophy other than this series. So, whether or not the existence of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin as the material movement is recognized is decisive. Khrushchev denied this series as a material movement through his "Criticism of Stalin.” At that time Khrushchev left his own attributes and this series, dropped out, deserted, and fell out into other attributes and camps (the capitalist camp). Thus, Soviet socialism was qualitatively changed from within, betrayed, and fell away into capitalism. The post-Khrushchev history of the Soviet Union and Soviet socialism has ably demonstrated the correctness of this.

As for Trotskyism, although this is just a supplement, such political thought, ideology, and theory did not exist anywhere as a substance, i.e. as a movement in history. That was only a fantasy. In the world of the material movement, Trotskyism was nowhere to be found as a material movement. One man named Trotsky personally just proposed the logic of so-called Trotskyism.

Finally, we would like to clarify the interrelationship between theory and practice. Ideas and theories are created after practice (material movement) is reflected in the intellectual brain. Therefore, whether or not the theory is correct must have already been proven by the practice of material movement. And any practice and action will not triumph unless they are guided by the right theory. It must be clearly recognized that theory and practice are the two unified aspects of the movement.

 

Recognize philosophical intrinsic cause theory. The fate of material motion is all determined by its inside, intrinsic causes.

 

How should we view the "Criticism of Stalin" from the perspective of "intrinsic cause theory," the second core of Marxist dialectical materialism? Intrinsic cause theory is that the energy of material motion (development, progress, leaps, and transformations) is within the matter, and it is the heat, electricity, chemical action, and life instincts that are born from the process of movement and contained within it. In human beings and human society, it is political thought, ideology, theory, consciousness and awareness as a reflection of material movement. In human history, the political idea that arises from the interaction of opposing classes (class struggle) becomes its energy. It is precisely that "Ideas become material forces" (Marx). All external conditions (extrinsic causes) will act upon through intrinsic causes (internal energy).

In July 1853 (Kaei 6), Perry, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. East India Squadron, came to Uraga with four warships and pressed Japan to open the country to the outside world, which became an external pressure and stimulated the political situation in Japan. The historical fact that this led first to internal pressure (intrinsic causes) to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate under the unified slogan of "Revere the Emperor, Expel the Foreigners" and culminated in the Meiji Restoration in April 1868 (Keio 4) is also a sample of the endogeneity theory historical science teaches us.

As Lenin writes in a document to be introduced later, under the siege of monopoly capital and imperialism, there was always ideological and political external pressure from the bourgeoisie, which affected the weaker parts within the Soviet Union and finally exploded through Khrushchev. This was the development of the bourgeois ideology in the name of "Criticism of Stalin," and from then on, the Soviet Union was on the road to capitalism.

In July 1957, Khrushchev convened an international conference of representatives of each country's Communist Party, at which they confirmed that each national communist party in the world would be free to follow their own paths (liberalization) and adopted the new Moscow Declaration. At this time, the spirit of Marx's Manifesto of the Communist Party and the noble proletarian internationalism of "Proletarians of all countries, unite!” were completely abandoned. Then, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that shook the world in October 1962, Khrushchev surrendered to American imperialism and withdrew from Cuba. Only ten years later, in October 1964, Khrushchev was expelled from the party.

Khrushchev's "anti-Stalinism," however, was carried on. The Brezhnev era was the era when Soviet socialism finally collapsed in earnest. In June 1973, Brezhnev visited the U.S. and issued a joint statement of U.S.-Soviet reconciliation, confirming the Soviet Union as a member of the capitalist camp. In June 1976, he held a meeting of representatives of all European Communist parties, confirming the diversity and liberalization of so-called socialism and renouncing the essence of Marxism. In March 1985, Gorbachev appeared on the scene, and in October of that year, the Central Committee of the Party held a general meeting and adopted "perestroika" (the bourgeoisie liberalization called reform and opening up). In 1989, he declared the end to the Cold War with the United States between the two. In November 1990, the Supreme Soviet decided to abandon the system of socialism. In August 1991, Gorbachev dissolved the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and himself retired from his position as party supreme leader. Thus, on December 26, taking advantage of the confusion caused by the collapse of the regime, Yeltsin, a representative of the bourgeoisie, appeared and declared the dissolution of the USSR at the Supreme Soviet, and each republic (each ethnic group) went their separate ways.

As the above historical facts show, everything was intrinsic cause theory, everything was ideology and politics, everything was the revival of bourgeois ideology and the realization of bourgeois rule, within the Soviet Union, and the revival of capitalism based on it.　

Thus, the collapse of the USSR was not the defeat of Marxism or the failure of socialism, but the root cause was the abandonment of Marxism and socialism due entirely to internal betrayal. This was what Marx predicted and Lenin foretold.

 

The law of motion of all things is "sublation.” The opposite is "denial.” And denial is denied.

 

We must correctly understand the epistemology of "sublation," which is the third core and principle of the law of motion about the development and advancement of dialectical philosophy. In other words, we confirm and recognize the old, the past, and what is there now, and starting from them, and taking over them, we recognize what is new, advanced, and revolutionary within them, nurture it, make it grow, make it leap forward, and in this way create something new. This is iron law that governs all things.

The universe and the human world were also products of the law of sublation. As the latest physics teaches, the universe was created by the Big Bang about 13.7 billion years ago. But it was the Big Bang, caused by inflation caused by the motion of unseen vacuum energy (dark matter) in an earlier world, a world of nothingness. The universe is truly a world of sublation. And this universe is still expanding in an infinite world, taking over the past and the present. Sublation is infinite.

We, human beings, are also the product of sublation. The earth was born, life was born, organisms emerged, and humans evolved from animals (apes). The human world and its societies have also been growing and transforming themselves in the relations of production in response to the development of the productive forces and have entered the present era. (For more information, see Chapter 4, Economics, of this book.)

As we can see by looking at each individual human being, there are parents and there are each of us as individuals. If we deny our parents, our very existence is denied. Marxism is also a product of sublation. In The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, written in 1913, Lenin writes:

Marxism is the system of Marx’s views and teachings. Marx was the genius who continued and consummated the three main ideological currents of the 19th century, as represented by the three most advanced countries of mankind: classical German philosophy, classical English political economy, and French socialism combined with French revolutionary doctrines in general.

In other words, Marxism was completed by sublation.

And Marxism, as its material movement, continued to exist as one series from the communist movement in Europe and the First International, to Lenin's Russian Revolution and the Third International, and Stalin's Soviet Union socialist construction and the Cominform. Therefore, true Marxists are to continue to fight within that movement based on endogeneity theory, in order to take over this series of movements, develop it and advance it, based on the law of sublation, the third principle of the law of motion of dialectical materialism. Denial of this, denying Stalin in the name of “Criticism of Stalin,” is denial of Marxism and self-denial. The result is a capitulation to the bourgeoisie and a fall from socialism to capitalism. In reality, after Khrushchev, the Soviet Union completely fell into capitalism due to Brezhnev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin. Eurocommunism that followed Khrushchev, Deng Xiaoping and his subsequent party and state in China, and Kenji Miyamoto and his party in Japan have all suffered the same fate as Khrushchev.

Marx in the introduction of his A Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law (1844), and Lenin in his Philosophical Notebooks (1914) say: "Anything that denies will be denied. It is the negation of the negation." In reality, Khrushchev denied Stalin, and therefore he too was denied by history. He lived the next seven years, but his last years were truly miserable. In this way, his life itself was denied by history.

 

 

Section 3

The great Soviet socialism of Lenin and Stalin collapsed due to transformation from within. It was because of the emergence of traitors, such as Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping in China. Thus, socialism had to start over again from the beginning. All these were what Marx and Lenin had predicted, foretold, and warned about from early on, and we must understand the historical significance well!

 

In the introduction and section 1 of this chapter, we have clearly established through all records, testimonies, and history the historical fact of the great triumph and development of Soviet socialism by Lenin and Stalin, who actually realized the theory of Marxist economics in this world. Human history and its future will soon clearly confirm this as history. The present historical age assures us that this moment of confirmation is not far off.

And history shows that the collapse of these great victories of Soviet socialism and its achievements was the result of the bourgeois transformation of the party and state of Soviet socialism by Khrushchev's "Criticism of Stalin" (an anti-Marxist bourgeois ideology), i.e. philosophical intrinsic cause theory. And early on, this was also foretold and warned of by Lenin, and predicted by Marx as well. And yet, history should also confirm that this was a necessary step for the eventual triumph of socialism, contingency within inevitability in the entire historical process.

 

Lenin's words that foretold and warned of Khrushchev's emergence.

 

In his article Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, written in October 1919, Lenin strongly warned us as follows:

Socialism means the abolition of classes. The dictatorship of the proletariat has done all it could to abolish classes. But classes cannot be abolished at one stroke. And classes still remain and will remain in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship will become unnecessary when classes disappear. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat, they will not disappear. Classes have remained, but in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat every class has undergone a change, and the relations between the classes have also changed. The class struggle does not disappear under the dictatorship of the proletariat; it merely assumes different forms.…The class of exploiters, the landowners and capitalists, has not disappeared and cannot disappear all at once under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The exploiters have been smashed, but not destroyed. They still have an international base in the form of international capital, of which they are a branch. They still retain certain means of production in part, they still have money, they still have vast social connections. Because they have been defeated, the energy of their resistance has increased a hundred and a thousandfold. The “art” of state, military and economic administration gives them a superiority, and a very great superiority, so that their importance is incomparably greater than their numerical proportion of the population. The class struggle waged by the overthrown exploiters against the victorious vanguard of the exploited, i.e., the proletariat, has become incomparably more bitter.… In relation to this class—or to these social elements—the proletariat must strive to establish its influence over it, to guide it. To give leadership to the vacillating and unstable—such is the task of the proletariat.

Lenin warned us that until the world revolution was victorious, we must not let up on the class struggle, and that the party and the masses should always refine their struggle in preparation for the emergence of traitors.

In his keynote address to the Third Congress of the Communist International held in June 1921, Lenin also called on and warned communists throughout the world as follows:

We must not rest on our laurels because we have won the revolution. There are still many survivors of the old world, those who have not abandoned the old ideology, descendants of the old ruling class, dropouts who have not made the transition to socialism, and traitors who have connections with capitalism abroad in our midst and within the socialist state. They are always aiming at the revival of capitalism. The pressure and attacks of international capitalism will not end until the world revolution is over, so the proletariat, its state and party must never let down their guard and forget the class struggle.

Thus, Lenin strongly insists on fighting according to theories and principles until the day of the triumph of the world revolution and not forgetting proletarian internationalism and the international. We must not forget Lenin's desperate cry.

 

Be familiar with Marx's prophecy, "Start over again from the beginning," and recognize its historicity.

 

Marx also had predicted that there would surely be such a historical age when the socialist and communist movements would have to stop and start over from the beginning in their history.

In Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany (1851-52), which Marx co-wrote with Engels, and in his own famous article The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte written in the same year, Marx outlined the proletarian revolution as follows:

As history shows, there are various types of revolutions, but many of them short-lived. However, the proletarian revolution is the last revolution in human history, and the proletariat is the last class and the last victor in human history. Therefore, this revolution in any era of triumph or peace, without going into rapture, stops once in the middle, learns deeply from its victories and defeats, and sometimes thoroughly destroys, demolishes, and starts over again from the beginning. Sometimes they get lost, hesitant, and upset. But history will solve this. History demands a proletarian revolution, it demands a proletarian decision, and the proletarians will answer it and rise up for the final revolution.

In other words, even a scientifically correct law does not always proceed in a straight line. The path to true victory opens through many experiments, verifications, failures, and defeats. The proletarian movement and struggle are also not exempt from the law. Being the final victor, it is necessary even to start all over again from the beginning, without going into raptures. Move forward while learning, Marx advises. We must recognize and understand this meaning deeply and seriously. And we must be convinced that the contemporary Marxist, socialist, and communist movements are advancing as Marx predicted.

                                                         

The keystone of the socialist construction and socialist victory is the Party, that is, a party that is faithful to theoretical (ideological) principles, a party with leadership unified in theory and practice, and a party capable of exercising power on two legs to properly run the socialist state.

 

Here what we should especially pay attention is Lenin's predictions and warnings. Lenin strongly appeals to us: “In the period of socialist construction class struggle in its different forms would become more and more intense and severe. The Party must resolutely not let up on the class struggle.” Such a party must exist. Lenin, who realized socialism for the first time in history, learned from his own practice and actions and strongly insisted on that. While strongly warning us that apostates, renegades, and traitors would surely appear in the era of socialism as mentioned above, he further emphasized the importance of the Marxist Party's historical mission and its responsibility as a party, in the era of socialist construction. So it was precisely for this reason that Lenin strongly advocated building and strengthening the party, and the principles of party work. And in his famous What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of our Movement (1900-2), he discusses in detail what the party is and what it should be. The core is that we should adhere to the theoretical principles of Marxism, never let go of basic theory, and let the theory guide all our practical activities, because without the theory there would be no victory for the revolutionary movement. 

Lenin also strongly insisted that the theoretical, political, and ideological struggles were struggles in their own field, separate from the military and economic struggles, and that these struggles should be practiced and acted upon as the party's own struggles and tasks.

And it was the "Military Commissar" within the Soviet Red Army that Lenin presented as its embodiment, concrete practice. In the deadly struggle against foreign intervention military and domestic rebels, he established the commissar system in order to maintain the Red Army, the main pillar of Soviet Power, and to enhance its capabilities. Along with the organ of the chain of command from top to bottom as the military organization (administrative organ), commissars (political commissars) representing the party (party organization as the ideological and political command, party organs) were assigned (organized). On this subject, in Chapter VIII of the official Short History of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Soviet Union (1938), before Khrushchev's emergence, it is written that Lenin said that if there had not been the military commissar system, there would not have been our Red Army. Then, throughout the Soviet socialist construction period, Lenin proceeded to create his own party of the Soviet Communist Party (Bolsheviks), its organization and institutions, parallel to the state administrative apparatus and agencies, and to develop its own activities (ideological struggle, political activity, socialist and communist movement among the popular masses). In other words, it is the two-legged execution of power in a socialist state. When this Leninist principle of two-legged power enforcement collapses, power becomes bourgeois and socialism collapses. In the Soviet Union after Khrushchev, this has completely collapsed.

Here is one reference document. It is "Moscow Secret Document from Tokyo" by Itsuro Nakamura, published by Shinchosha Inc., on June 15, 1995. The author is a researcher on Soviet affairs who studied in Moscow from 1988 to 1990, and approached the subordinate organizations and district committees in order to investigate the actual situation of the Soviet Communist Party, and obtained and examined internal documents or materials. The conclusion is that the Soviet Communist Party was actually only the caretaker of a neighborhood association like that of Japan, and all of its daily operations were similar to those of a ward or village office in Japan.

This is no longer a party at all.

What are the tasks of the Marxist-Leninist Party in the period of socialist construction? As we have already shown, on the one hand, there is the state administrative apparatus. Until socialism triumphs over humanity as a whole (on a global scale), the state and administrative agencies in a country must function as practical administrative bodies based on laws and institutions for economic construction and the maintenance of social order. On the other hand, there is the party as an ideological and political organization completely separate from these (people, places, and organizations there), and the party must function solely as a political organization freed from practical affairs. Its main task is socialist construction under the theoretical principles of Marxism and propaganda and educational work on Marxism-Leninism for the people--that is, propaganda and education on the internal and external situation, the tasks of the Soviet people, the tasks of the Soviet socialist construction and the immediate plan of action, and ideological education for all party members. The Party and the administrative organization, while separating their tasks from each other, advance complementing each other toward the unifying goal for the triumph of Soviet socialism.

As a Marxist vanguard party, a political and ideological organization as a scientific nucleus, we must completely fulfill our unique duties and responsibilities in our daily activities (mass movements and mass maneuvers, political movements and political maneuvers, the struggles and tasks we face, leadership maneuvers in groups and organizations, etc.). In particular, we have a unique mission to carry out that is separate from the activities of administrative executive agencies and the organization that are always tasked with carrying out urgent issues, such as economic construction, organizational construction, and social construction. This is the two legs of power enforcement, and its crucial aspect. The party that was established by Lenin during the period of socialist construction was precisely the ideological and political section (led by commissars) within the two legs. Soviet socialism collapsed from within, unable to prevent Khrushchev's betrayal. And the Chinese Revolution was also transformed and defeated from within by Deng Xiaoping's betrayal. Even though these things were unavoidable in terms of historical science, there were lessons and challenges for the socialist and communist movements here too. We must never forget these historical principles and laws.

 

 

Section 4

Grasp firmly the ideological (theoretical) significance of the "council" (soviet), the material expression of the proletarian dictatorship (rule of the working class and the people and their power), the key to the triumph of socialist construction, which Marx proposed, and Lenin realized, adhere to it and exercise the power relying on it!

 

 

What is a proletarian dictatorship?

 

The proletariat is the working class. The proletarian dictatorship is a ruling system, a dominion, state power based on an alliance between the working class and the masses of the people (small and medium-sized non-monopolistic commerce and industry which are deprived by the rule of giant monopoly capital, farmers, and many other people). So, this is not a personal dictatorship, but class dominion. It is the proletarian dictatorship that is established by the working class and people who oppose capitalists to overthrow the class dictatorship which the giant monopoly capital (bourgeoisie) realized through the political forces of their ruling party. It is therefore an instrument of class struggle and class rule.

Proletarian dictatorship is an academic and theoretical expression and term first proposed by Marx in the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848). In summary, Marx says as follows: "The first step in realizing socialism is to establish the dominance of the working class. By using the power of the working class, the capitalist relations of production have to be transformed, step by step, into socialist ones. As the means of such revolutionary transformation is the proletarian dictatorship.”

And it was in The Class Struggles in France written in 1850, that Marx used the term "proletarian dictatorship" precisely as a theoretical expression. In this book, Marx wrote the following: “This Socialism is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social relations.”

In his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), Marx wrote as follows; “Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Engels also says the same thing as Marx. In a letter Engels sent to his friend August Bebel between March 18 and 28, 1875, he wrote,

Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist.

Therefore, Lenin concluded:

Those who recognize only the class struggle are not yet Marxists; they may be found to be still within the bounds of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois politics. To confine Marxism to the theory of the class struggle means curtailing Marxism, distorting it, reducing it to something acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat (The State and Revolution, August 1917).

And again, Lenin writes the following, “You forget that the new authority does not drop from the skies, but grows up, arises parallel with, and in opposition to the old authority, in struggle against it. Unless force is used against tyrants armed with the weapons and instruments of power, the people cannot be liberated from tyrants” (A Contribution to the History of the Question of the Dictatorship, October 1920).　

This proletarian dictatorship cannot exist without a true Marxist vanguard party. Marx writes

Economics

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement (Chapter 2 Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848).

And Lenin also writes the following: “Not a single class in history has achieved power without producing its political leaders, its prominent representatives able to organize a movement and lead it” (The Urgent Tasks of Our Movement, November 1900).

Lenin then goes on to explain,

“But the essence of proletarian dictatorship is not in force alone, or even mainly in force. Its chief feature is the organization and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard; of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man” (Greetings to the Hungarian Workers, May 1919).

Finally, Lenin proposed a decisive principle of thought. Lenin strongly insisted as follows,

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. …we wish to state only that the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory” (What is to be Done, 1901-2).

 

Councils (Soviet) as the material expression of proletarian dictatorship

 

The above is “What is a proletarian dictatorship?" The material thing, its power, its weapons, and its system, through which practices and acts according to this principle, idea, and theories, and brings about the actual socialist revolution and socialist construction, is precisely the "council" (soviet). It was the socialist revolution in Russia which was realized for the first time in history and the material form and expression of the first proletarian dictatorship in human history that emerged under the leadership of Lenin.

The First Revolution in Russia, which occurred in 1905, was a rehearsal for the socialist revolution in Russia that triumphed in 1917. The “Soviet” was born in these revolutionary wars, which began with the strike at the Putilov plant in St. Petersburg on January 16^th and "Bloody Sunday" on January 22^nd, followed by the revolt on the battleship Potemkin on June 27^th, the uprising of armed workers and urban warfare with government troops from December 23^rd to 30^th, and the suppression by government troops.

On October 26^th, the first workers' representative soviet was formed at the Putilov plant in St. Petersburg, which expanded to Moscow, Baku, and other major Russian cities. Plant by plant, soviets progressed to regional soviets and then to by industry soviets. It was the soviet as an institution that was truly representative of the masses, resolved and approved by the common will of all those who worked and lived there, regardless of trade union or non-union, political party, political faction, or religion. This model spilled over into the military, creating "soldier representative Soviets" within the military and "peasant Soviets" among the peasants. Thus, under the leadership of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, it spread throughout all of Russia, from the regional Soviets to the nationwide Soviets. These Soviets as bases, in Russian Socialist Revolution of October in 1917, were transformed into Russian Socialist Revolution under the unifying slogan, "All Power to the Soviets."

As the facts have proven, the "Council" is a form of "direct democracy" by the popular masses. Wherever the masses of the people produce (work) or live, they consolidate their common will and common perceptions as a collective will and policy, which are then confirmed in the "Council" as an organ and executed as the will of power.

Learning from the First Revolution in Russia, Lenin published his article, The State and Revolution in August-September, 1917, just before the October Revolution, in which he clearly stated: “The proletarian revolution in the imperialist phase of the early twentieth century must be of the commune type created by the workers in Paris. Its embodiment in Russia is the Soviet.”

In his opening address to the First Congress of the Third International (Comintern), founded in March 1919 after the Revolution, Lenin said:

All that is needed is to find the practical form to enable the proletariat to establish its rule. Such a form is the Soviet system with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Dictatorship of the proletariat—until now these words were Latin to the masses. Thanks to the spread of the Soviets throughout the world this Latin has been translated into all modern languages; a practical form of dictatorship has been found by the working people.

Furthermore, the Comintern Statute, adopted at the Comintern's Second Congress in July 1920, confirms: “The Communist International considers the dictatorship of the proletariat an essential means for the liberation of humanity from the horrors of capitalism; and regards the Soviet form of government as the historically necessary form of this dictatorship.”

We must clearly confirm that the rule of the working class and the people, the power of which Marx proposed and Lenin realized, is precisely the direct democracy of the "council," and not the parliamentarianism of stupidity and deception.

 

Make it clear that parliamentarism based on voting is mobocracy (government by a mob) and ochlocracy (mob rule).　

 

The transformation from capitalism to socialism, the state in the period of socialist construction, the nature and form of the proletarian dictatorship as ruling power of the working class and the people for that purpose, etc., have been explained above. Then, the question that always comes up is parliamentarianism. How should the working class and the people think about parliamentarianism and parliamentary politics which is the sample of bourgeois liberalism and bourgeois politics? As is clear, this is indeed ochlocracy and mobocracy, a coat on armor which conceal the true nature of the bourgeois dictatorship and its rule of power.

In the Theses on the Communist Parties and Parliamentarism of the Second World Congress of the Comintern quoted above, this issue is clearly prescribed as follows:

Under the present conditions of unbridled imperialism, however, parliament has been transformed into a tool for lies, deception, violence and enervating chatter.…At present, parliament, for communists, can in no way become the arena for the struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the position of the working class, as was the case at certain times in the previous period. The center of gravity of political life has at present been removed finally and completely beyond the bounds of parliament. …Therefore, it is the immediate historical task of the working class to wrest this apparatus out of the hands of the ruling class, to break and destroy it, and to create in its place a new proletarian apparatus.…. The form of the dictatorship is the soviet republic.

As Lenin clearly stipulates above, we must not be led astray by parliamentarianism, the sample of bourgeois ochlocracy. Bourgeois power is exercised entirely outside parliament through the “collusive structure of politics, bureaucracy, and finance” –"stealth complex" (Hidenao Nakagawa, The Collapse of the Bureaucratic State). There is no other way to counter this than through the "council" (soviet) as a proletarian dictatorship.

The method of electing governments and politicians by voting emerged in ancient Greece in the fifth century BC. Athens was one of the many city-states (polis) that sprang up in Greece, where civic participation in politics developed early on, eventually leading to the adoption of a method of electing political leaders through voting. The voting tools used were shards of pottery. As a result of the voting, leaders who were not popular with the citizens were ousted. From this practice, the term "ostracism" was born in history. As a result, this system eventually became a popularity contest, from which the evil custom of populism was created. And from there, this method soon became a political tool among political leaders and political parties to gain popularity. It created political incompetence and division in Athens, and the country's power declined, eventually losing out to neighboring Sparta.

But this system has been more skillfully being taken over as a means of mass rule and an ornament of bourgeois liberalism. In other words, it has become the very root of bourgeois politics (anarchism, a folly politics, and a folly policy), in which the masses are not rational and conscious, but rather use their instincts, are driven by their instincts, cry liberalism, and vote as the wind blows, as they feel like and according to their personal feelings at that moment.

At this point, we must once again think clearly about what voting is. What drives people to vote? It is ultimately a matter of individual liberalism and free action. It is all based on personal circumstances. The reason for voting is whatever mood one is in at the time, whatever one leaves to the wind, or a blind following. For some people, the person they vote for is a personal acquaintance, someone from the same hometown, someone from the same academic background, a member of the same interests, or same religion, and for other people, they go to vote for their desire for honor, money, and goods, or by coercion. Here is egoism, liberalism, and anarchism. Thus, voting is an action based on the lagging part of the masses, the isolated individual disconnected from society, personal illusions, delusions, and dreams, and here lies the essence of mobocracy and ochlocracy.

Many living and historical examples of such mobocracy and ochlocracy occur daily throughout bourgeois parliamentary politics, but the most representative and easy-to-understand examples can be found in the cases of Nazis-Hitler in Germany and Kakuei Tanaka in Japan. The emergence of the Nazis-Hitler, the main culprits who caused World War II, was created by the German National Assembly. In the December 1933 parliamentary general election that gave full power to the Nazis-Hitler, they received the highest voter turnout in the world history, 96% of the voters and 92.2% of the votes, and the Nazis-Hitler regime was born.

And the highest victory in Japan's general election history was the 220,000 votes, or 46.5%, obtained by Kakuei Tanaka under the medium-sized constituency (5 seats) in the December 1983 general election. Moreover, this was the so-called "Lockheed general election" immediately after the conviction of the first incumbent prime minister in Japan's history in the Lockheed scandal, and it took place in a social climate in which 80% of the domestic public opinion called for Tanaka's resignation. As these historical facts prove, we must be conscious of how parliamentarianism by ballot is mobocracy and ochlocracy. This is a tradition that has continued since the advent of bourgeois politics, and although it is not understood by those poisoned by bourgeois ideology, history will surely be broken by the working class and the people.

And we must also consider the turnout in elections. As you can see in any election, the average voter turnout is roughly 50 percent. Therefore, even if a party wins 70 percent of the vote and becomes the leading party, the party in power represents only 35 percent of all voters (the entire nation). Can this be called mass participation, public support, and electoral victory? Does it deserve the name of democracy? No, it does not. Here, too, lies the foolishness and folly of the electoral system.

True democracy is the establishment and confirmation of policies based on the joint will, common understanding, and cooperative action of the conscious masses of the people. The masses of the people cooperate and collaborate with each other in the sphere of production and life, that is, in their labor and livelihood, and build their own communities through solidarity and exchange in movements and struggles based on common demands. Herein lies true democracy. The culmination of this is the Council.

Finally, I would like to add a word of caution. We must never forget the many examples (Eurocommunism, Miyamoto's revisionism in Japan, revisionism in Russia and China, etc.) of socialist (communist) parties that have forgotten this fundamental theory of Marxism and have themselves degenerated into bourgeois parties as a result of being drowned in mobocracy and ochlocracy of bourgeois parliamentarianism.

 

Adhere to Leninism regarding the proletarian dictatorship, never forget it.　

 

Lenin, who actually won the Russian Revolution and the Soviet socialism, in his What is to be Done? (1902), laid down the ideological principles of the proletarian dictatorship as follows:

◎Solid unification of theory and practice (development of practical activities guided by revolutionary theory).

◎Unification of proletarian dictatorship and democracy (adherence to the theory and ideology of the proletarian dictatorship and adoption of democratic methods necessary for this purpose).

◎Unification of strategy and tactics (pursuit of consistent strategic objectives and execution of various tactics according to the situation and conditions).

◎Unification of ends and means (clarifying the objectives and formulating the tactics that are necessary to achieve them and that should be employed at that time).

◎Unification of the inevitable and the accidental (the inevitable path to goals and objectives surely encounters the accidental. The decisive force that transforms the accidental into inevitability is the determination and courage of the leadership.)

As stated above, everything has its key in the unity of the two aspects. Everything is a unity of opposites. We must not divide these two or become biased towards one side; when that happens, existence disappears. Here, too, is philosophy.

 

 

Section 5

We must "sublate" the triumph and achievements in building the great Soviet socialism by Lenin and Stalin. In other words, we must resolutely inherit the fundamental triumph based on the principles of Lenin and Stalin. At the same time, we as their successors must surely face the challenges that could not be solved nor attained in that era, and complete them by adding something new. This is the philosophical principle, scientific law, i.e. "sublation”! 

 

 

The principle of philosophical and scientific law is "sublation.”

 

The ideological principle of Marxism is philosophy, which is "dialectical materialism” (See chapter 3). At its core, everything is a material movement, and ideas, politics, and ideology are also connected to and reflect this material movement.

The Marxist, socialist, and communist movements are also linked to the modern labor movement and the class struggle in capitalist society, and the socialism of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin as a series of that material movement exists.

The core of this development and progress is "sublation.” It means taking the old as a foundation, inheriting it, and creating something new out of it. Here is the law of dialectical motion.

If we start from this scientific and philosophical principle of dialectical materialism, we must precisely "sublate" the socialism of Lenin and Stalin for the development and progress of the Marxist, socialist, and communist movements. In other words, inheriting their great victories and achievements in building socialism, we, their successors should definitely solve what could not be solved yet in their time. Anyone that violates this philosophical and scientific law will surely be denied by history, in accordance with the philosophical principle, "Those who deny are denied.” This is evident when we look at Proudhon, Blanqui, Lassalle, and Bakunin, who denied Marx, Kautsky, who denied Lenin, Khrushchev, who denied Stalin, and their companions, Eurocommunism, etc. Everything follows a scientific law.

On the basis of this philosophical and scientific law, we would like to clarify how we should "sublate" Lenin-Stalin’s socialism.

 

▼ Everything is decided by the proletarian dictatorship.

The proletarian dictatorship proposed theoretically by Marx, actually realized by Lenin, and faithfully inherited by Stalin, is discussed in detail in the previous section 4. The key to everything is to learn these contents carefully, which discusses both theory and practice, and to faithfully put them into practice. At any time, it is the duty and the lifeline of an orthodox Marxist to adhere to and to faithfully implement and practice this thought.

 

▼ In implementing the proletarian dictatorship, we must never forget to walk  

on two legs.

This issue is already discussed in detail in section 3 of this chapter. This two-legged power enforcement was based on the system of "military commissars" (political commissars) that Lenin created during the harsh five-year war against foreign armed intervention and domestic insurgents from 1918 to 1922, immediately after the victory of the Russian Revolution, and eventually became the basis of the Soviet system in the construction of socialism. We must faithfully adhere to and implement Lenin's teaching that the two functions of power institutions-practical administrative bodies and political and ideological departments-should be complementary.

 

▼ The method of socialist economic construction is a planned economy, and herein lies purposive consciousness.

This issue is discussed in detail in the introduction of this chapter as the theory of planned economy developed by Marx and Engels in their writings. Based on Marx's teachings, Lenin organized the "Gosplan" (the State Planning Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers) based on the resolution of the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviet in December 1920, and worked toward a socialist planned economy, which was then carried over directly into Stalin's planned economy. The superiority of this socialist planned economy and the historical facts of its actual triumphs are presented in detail in the section 1 of this chapter. From both these theories and practices, we must be deeply aware of the superiority of the socialist planned economy.

 

▼ Inherit the eight items of experiences and lessons in Lenin-Stalin's triumph in socialist construction.

As revealed earlier, the basic laws of triumph in the construction of socialism were the proletarian dictatorship, the two legs in the execution of the proletarian dictatorship, and the purposive and conscious planned economy. Based on these basic principles, what must be paid particular attention to and consciously inherited are the following eight items.

 ① Everything is the party of the working class, the purification of the communist party like Bolshevik, the maintenance of the ideological and political unity of the party based on theoretical principles, and the iron solidarity (1921.3 - Resolution of the Tenth Party Congress).

Lenin strongly insisted that everything depends on the party, that it must be theoretically, ideologically, and politically pure, and that an iron unity and solidarity based on that is its life.　

② Ideology and politics dominate the state, ideology and politics mobilize the popular masses, and ideology and politics dominate the economy. Examples of this were "War Communism," which won the civil war against foreign intervention military and domestic insurgents from 1918 to 1922, "Communist Saturday Labor," which helped rebuild the devastated country after that, and Lenin's "NEP" (new economic policy).

③  “Socialism is Soviet power plus the nationwide electrification" (1920.12 - Lenin's speech at the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets). Lenin stated in a speech that the greatest task for the victory of socialist economic construction was the nationwide electrification, the electrification of all industries including agriculture, mechanization, heavy industrialization, and scientific and technological improvement. And he established the "All-Russian Electrification Committee (Gosplan)," putting himself in charge.

④  Practice based on the correct ideological and political recognition of "NEP." In other words, the socialist policy toward agriculture and peasant problems (small and medium bourgeoisie) was to educate (tell them) and practice (show them how to do), and to steadily realize (let them try) communalization-socialization according to their awareness and recognition.

⑤  Founding of the Third International (Comintern) as the realization of proletarian internationalism (1919.3). Without the victory of the international revolutionary movement, there will be no final victory of socialism.

⑥　Socialism is a purposive and conscious planned economy (1929.4 - Stalin's speech at the 16th Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party). The country's heavy industrialization was achieved through a planned economy that continued from the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932), and World War II was won with this force.

⑦　Socialist construction is a new form of class struggle and political struggle, the power of which is the ideological and political mobilization of the popular masses, and it was realized in the "Stakhanov movement" as a true socialist competition. This was a reproduction of Lenin's "Communist Saturday Labor" (1935.11 - Stalin's speech at the First National Congress of the Stakhanov Movement).

⑧　The final decision will be made by the cadres (executives and activists). The key will be the placement of cadres and activists who adhere to the Russian spirit of revolution (ideology) and American practical ability (science and technology) (1935.5 - Stalin's speech at the graduation ceremony of the Red Army University).

All these are the socialist construction created and realized by forty years of genuine socialism of Lenin and Stalin. We must firmly protect, maintain, and further develop this historical legacy.

 

 

Section 6

Another aspect that the great socialism of Lenin and Stalin must be sublated: what are the issues that have been left unresolved due to historical constraints in the socialist movement after Lenin, and what are the problems that history has asked us to solve and “sublate,” entrusting us with the further development and advancement of the Marxist movement?

 

As discussed in detail in section 4 of chapter 3 of this book, the law of "sublation" is presented as an important item among the laws of motion of all things, the laws of their dialectical development. What exactly this means is discussed in detail in section 2 of chapter 5 of this book. In other words, it is that we must defend the progressive and developmental core of the past, taking over the past (history), and at the same time, we successors must solve and accomplish the issues that have not yet historically unresolved or accomplished by ourselves. Therefore, "sublation" also has two aspects.

And the assignments we must inherit from Lenin-Stalin's socialist construction of the two aspects were clarified in section 4 and 5 of this chapter.　

  In this section, therefore, we will clarify some tasks that were unresolved and unfulfilled in the history of the post-Lenin period (the Stalin and Mao eras), which is the other aspect of "sublation."

Of course, it is historically clear that this is an assignment that should be much discussed and debated in the future, internationally, in the new International. That is why we would like to make our views clear here. The assignments to be added on a page of history to be sublated are as follows:

 

(1) The key to the final triumph of socialist construction is proletarian dictatorship. Therefore, its theoretical principles must be faithfully adhered and faithfully implemented.　

 

It is precisely the theory and practice of the proletarian dictatorship that determines the victory or defeat of the socialist, communist, and revolutionary movements. This is raised in detail theoretically, practically, and concretely in section 4 of this chapter.

In particular, we thoroughly revealed the deceptiveness of bourgeois parliamentarianism, and we argued in detail that the Council (Soviet) are direct democracy under the proletarian dictatorship, the true democracy. Voting and elections are a bourgeois folly politics and a stupid policy so if a socialist regime implements this folly politics and stupid policy, then from that point on, the party will degenerate into a bourgeois party.　

Therefore, a true socialist party must faithfully adhere to the theory and practice of this proletarian dictatorship.

 

(2) Proletarian internationalism, i.e. the International must be persistently adhered and faithfully put into practice. We must know that if we forget internationalism, we will degenerate into nationalism.

 

Marx and Engels wrote in the concluding slogan of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" In this single phrase, various thoughts of Marx and Engels are condensed.

And Marx and Engels consistently led the formation, organization, and movement of the International as the embodiment and practical activities of internationalism. The founding declaration of the International Workers Association (the First International), founded on September 28, 1864, was written by Marx, where he strongly emphasized the following: “Past experience has shown how disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries, and incite them to stand firmly by each other in all their struggles for emancipation, will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts.”

Lenin faithfully followed and implemented Marx's teachings. As soon as he won the Russian Revolution in 1917, he founded the "Third International" (Comintern) in March 1919 and achieved solidarity and unity among revolutionary movements worldwide. Lenin then asserted: 

…proletarian internationalism demands, first, that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale, and, second, that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international capital. (Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Questions, 1920)

 

(3) Regarding the socialism of agriculture (rural areas) (socialism of the small and medium bourgeoisie), we must adhere to the theoretical principles of Marxism and learn from Lenin's practice. And the political method (style) of "dictatorship of content and democracy of method" must be firmly implemented.

 

First of all, we must start from the principle of what socialism is. In The Principles of Communism, written in 1847, Engels wrote the following. In human society, true freedom and democracy, true equality and fairness, and the richness of humanity require that the state and society itself must be a community of cooperation and collaboration, and that productive activity must also be purposive, conscious, planned production and a planned economy that can answer social desires (social demand) rather than personal desire.

What Engels says about socialism in Socialism: Utopian to Scientific (1880-82) can be summarized as follows: When industrialization, mechanization, and science and technology develop through a socialist planned economy, and the productive forces are highly developed, when the differences between industry and agriculture, urban and rural, intellectual and physical labor disappear, then communism as an advanced community is reached. Then the state will not be “abolished”, but will “disappear.” The essence of what Engels says is that the final destination of human society is community, i.e. communalization, that economic construction as the foundation for this is the mechanization and modernization of all production activities (especially in rural areas), and that mechanization and modernization will eliminate the differences between urban and rural areas, between physical and intellectual labor, and between industry and agriculture.

By the way, socialism in the urban and mining industry sectors is relatively easier than in the agricultural and rural sectors. The urban and mining industry sectors are, by necessity, highly mechanized and modernized, and are objectively socialized. In contrast, in agriculture and rural areas, due to their historical and social nature, mechanization and modernization have been very slow, extremely individualistic and isolated, and the peasants and small and medium bourgeoisie are far behind socially. Therefore, working class government and power need to be very careful in their policies and methods of leadership toward this small and medium bourgeoisie.

Engels discussed this issue in detail in his article The Peasant Question in France and Germany, published in Neue Zeit during 1894-95. Here we should note that Engels' article, while discussing peasant issues, is basically discussing socialization of the small and medium bourgeoisie. In this, Engels emphasizes the following three basic points.

First, the land of large bourgeois landowners (absentee landlords) will be confiscated and turned into state-owned farms (Lenin, during the Soviet era, used these as sovkhoz, bringing together small farmers and rural proletarians to create large, mechanized state farms).

Second, the land of small and medium-sized landowners will not be confiscated; instead, they will be allowed to aim for communalization and cooperatives based on their own awareness through persuasion, education, and field observation of state farms. (In Lenin's Soviet, socialism for small and medium-sized landowners was promoted as kolkhozes, cooperative collective farms.)

Third, the small farmers and rural proletarians should be allowed to become aware and conscious that there is no other way to live than to rally to the communalized farms, and they are allowed to decide for themselves as their own will whether they want to be on state farms or cooperative collective farms. (In Lenin's Soviet, they were organized into either kolkhoz or sovkhoz).

This is a socialist policy toward agriculture and peasants (the small and medium bourgeoisie) theorized by Marx and Engels and practiced by Lenin.

Lenin published a number of guidelines on the problems of agriculture and peasants in Soviet socialism, all of which adhered the three basic directions of Engels, which we have just discussed, and were aimed at their materialization. In other words, he fully propagandized and educated the peasants in socialism ideology (first of all, he told and taught). And he let them see, hear and experience through sovkhoz that communalized, large-scale farms, not small-scale operations, were the way of life for farmers (he created a state-run farm called sovkhoz and showed them how it was done). In this way, step by step, the peasants promoted collaboration and cooperation on their own. Lenin's style was a thorough implementation of democracy: tell them, show them by really doing, and then let them try. In other words, it was the style of the Marxist Party, “dictatorship of content (socialism must be implemented), democracy of method (the means and methods for that purpose thoroughly operate democracy).”

In his speech at the First All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Representatives held on May 12, 1917, Lenin said the following,

To be sure, joint cultivation is a difficult business and it would be madness of course for anybody to imagine that joint cultivation of the land can be decreed from above and imposed on people, because the centuries-old habit of farming on one’s own cannot suddenly disappear, and because money will be needed for it and adaptation to the new mode of life.

In his speech on agricultural and peasant issues at the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) held in March 1919, Lenin makes the following points: “The work of reforming all the foundation of agriculture is a long and arduous task. The transformation of agriculture must not be carried out from above. Nothing is more absurd than the socialization in the countryside by force.”

And at the 8th All-Russian Congress of Soviets held in December 1920, Lenin gave a speech, "Socialism is Soviet Power plus the nationwide electrification," in which he insisted that the basis of socialism victory in all industries, agriculture, and rural areas was electrification and mechanization. By eliminating the urban-rural gap through mechanization and modernization in agriculture, socialist productive activity and productive forces will develop and advance. We must never forget the teachings of Engels and Lenin regarding the victory of socialism in agriculture and the countryside.

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

The history of mankind has no choice but to proceed according to the laws of Marxism, which are philosophical and scientific truths. And the history era of the 21st century clearly proves this. For this reason, history demands the cleanup and purification of Marxism as the absolute truth, and a fresh start from the original point of view. History will inevitably reach where it is meant to reach!

 

 

The greatest events in human history in the 20th century were the collapse of Soviet socialism, followed by the decline and decay of socialist and communist movements, and the fall of leftist movements worldwide. The term "the end of history" spread throughout the world.

At this time, we orthodox Marxists did not panic, we were not in a hurry, and we faced history with a calm and composed attitude. It is because we orthodox Marxists can view history as a science, and we know that history is driven by scientific laws. In other words, it is because we know the law of the material motion (from the beginning of the universe to the birth of the earth and mankind) and the law of the historical development of human society (from primitive times – to slavery – to feudalism – to capitalism, to monopoly and imperialism to the collapse of imperialism to community). In reality, American imperialism has been collapsing economically, politically, and militarily, and the world thereafter aims for community through turmoil and upheaval. Modern wars and civil wars, conflicts and strife, terrorism and riots are all the birth pains and thus humanity is moving toward its ultimate goal. The entire history of the universe, the earth, and humanity since the Big Bang has been such a history.

Marxism is a summary of such human history and a systematization of its philosophical and scientific laws of development. This "Recommendations of Learning” which clarified philosophical principles, political idea, and theoretical principles of Marxism throughout all five chapters is the basic literature of orthodox Marxism.

This entire five-chapter development of the philosophical principles, the historical science (historical materialism), and the theoretical principles concerning Marxism is a product of history. History demands its purification and purity for the ultimate triumph of Marxism, calls for the fresh start of socialism and communist movements from the origin of Marxism, and calls for the revival of a new Marxist movement. All five chapters have been created as a guideline for that purpose.

Within the total five chapters of “Recommendation for Learning” are philosophical principles, political idea and theoretical principles of Marxism, and here are the purification, purity, and origin of Marxism. History will inevitably follow this path and powerfully re-launch the socialist and communist movements and make them triumphant.

At the end of this section, we call upon you to read entire "Recommendation for Learning" carefully and to be convinced of the historical triumph of the great Marxist movement!

The core of this book (all five chapters) is "sublation." History is sublated, and all history without sublation will be denied by history!

Distinguish well between the two aspects of "sublation," recognize well its positive and negative sublation, and learn well the negative sublation as a lesson of history!
  Sublate history, sublate it, and sublate it!

Our future outlook and slogans

 

We call for everything to be addressed from a philosophical-historical-scientific worldview. We consistently propose the following scientific view of the world and view of historical science.

 

①  Humanity and its societies advance, in motion, developing, exploding, and converging from the eternal past to the eternal future. Its energy is living power of the human, the productive forces as concrete expression.

 

②  The development of the productive forces has created human society (nation) as the relations of production according to its degree of development. First of all, it was primitive community, changing first into slavery, then feudalism, then capitalism, and finally socialism. The development of productive forces has consistently changed the relations of production, and it will continue to be that way from now on.

 

③  As physics proves, all living things have been created by the environment. The human race is also a product of the environment and has evolved. The environment changes human beings. A new environment and a new society create a new type of human beings.

 

④  As you can see from human history, no single ruling power or national form has ever lasted forever. History has always been in motion, changed, developed, converted, and created new eras one after another. And as you can see from history, historical change is neither quiet nor straight forward. Explosions and convergences are a law of history. History inevitably goes forward, but in the process, it always comes with contingencies. Contingency is not only the product of inevitability but also the food for inevitability. And the inevitable world is the world by the people, for the people, and of the people: a more highly developed community society. History reaches where it should without fail.

 

⑤  What is Community? What is the world by the people, for the people, and of the people? There the operating purpose of the nation, the society, and production activities aims not only for the maximum profit and the profit pursuit, but also for the safety, the security, and the stability of people's lives, the cultural level, and the social environment.

 

⑥  Community does not aim for the nation and the society of production first principle, material universalism, mammonism, or the law of the jungle, but the nation and the society based on solidarity and symbiosis where richness of humanity and human dignity are treasured.

 

⑦  In Community, money and things are not everything, but the richness of the human mind and nature come first. Not beauty of figure and form alone, but the beauty in lifestyle and mind of the working people comes first. Instead of hurrying forward just alone, everyone moves forward together, even if it is slower.

 

⑧  Humanity and its societies have been products of the environment, and historical being since birth. If the environment changes, humanity and its societies will also change. So, if nation and power change, the human society will also change.

 

⑨  Force for that is the power by the people, for the people, and of the people, which is people's council as a concrete expression. Organize the council everywhere in the movement and the fight. Claim here as people’s demands and people's will. And as power, let it carry out its responsibility and duty demanded by the historical era.

 

⑩  Although it was primitive, the first society which humanity created was a human society which was based on collaboration, coexistence, and solidarity. And although humanity has made many of detours, but meanwhile it has grown up and is reaching a more developed modern community nation and society. From here, the human society, the society for the people, which is based on a real democracy, will be born. Thus, humanity will advance to the battle with macrocosm, the fight for exploration and development of space with all its force.

 

  

AFTERWORD

　

Reiichiro Otake, Chairman of the Japanese Communist Party (Action Faction) published a series of important papers titled "Recommendation for Learning" over a total of 17 times and 5 chapters in the People's Front's journal, "Under the Banner of the People's Front!” beginning in the February 25, 2007.

Chapter 1: Marx, Engels, and their lives. Chapter 2: Marxism's philosophical and scientific worldview. Chapter 3: Marxist Philosophy - Materialism, Dialectics, and Historical Materialism. Chapter 4: Economics. Chapter 5: Socialist Economics and Socialist Planned Economy. The great triumph of Lenin and Stalin in building Soviet socialism and their lessons are developed in detail based on a unified philosophical and scientific thought in theory and practice. It is a clear formulation of the philosophical principle, political principle, theoretical principle of Marxism, and here lies the whole of orthodox Marxism.

In particular, the fifth chapter, "The great triumph of Lenin-Stalin’s Soviet socialist construction," is a decisive counter argument against the false propaganda of the bourgeoisie that "Soviet socialism failed and the planned economy was a fantasy." It is also a historical proof of the superiority of the socialist economy in both theory and practice and it gives the people confidence in socialism. We sincerely hope that all of you will study this document carefully. 　　(Central Committee, Secretariat)

 

 

                                        Author Profile

 

Reiichiro Otake（1924～2019）

 

Born in Oita Prefecture in 1924. From 1948, he was a member of the Oita Prefectural Committee of the Japanese Communist Party. Member of the Kyushu Regional Committee. Member of the Chugoku Regional Committee. Member of Kansai Regional Committee. Director of the West Japan Bureau of the Central Committee.  Director of the Propaganda and Education Department.

 

In 1956, Khrushchev emerged in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and in 1958, Kenji Miyamoto took control of the JCP (Japanese Communist Party). Thus, the international Marxist, communist, and socialist movements were dominated by revisionism, and all movements became influenced by the bourgeois. From this point on, action in defense of Marxism and for the revival of the communist and socialist movements has been begun, and The National Council of the Marxist-Leninist Movement was organized. The Japanese Communist Party (Action Faction) was reconstituted in July 1980, and he was elected Chairman of the Action Faction Party. He died in March 31, 2019  at the age of 95.

His major works include "Recommendation for Learning", and "Basic Documents of the Japanese Communist Party (Action Faction)," a five-volume encyclopedia of Marxism that serves as a unified reference work on Marxist theory and practice.