فلسفة التاريخ - المفهوم المادي للتاريخ

by Georgi Plekhanov

Socialist essay.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Politics, Nonfiction, Russia, Theory

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

About the author

Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (Russian: Георгий Валентинович Плеханов) was a Russian revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. He was a founder of the Social-Democratic movement in Russia and was one of the first Russians to identify himself as "Marxist." Facing political persecution, Plekhanov emigrated to Switzerland in 1880, where he continued in his political activity attempting to overthrow the Tsarist regime in Russia. During World War I Plekhanov rallied to the cause of the Entente powers against Germany and he returned home to Russia following the 1917 February Revolution. Plekhanov was hostile to the Bolshevik party headed by Vladimir Lenin, however, and was an opponent of the Soviet regime which came to power in the autumn of 1917. He died the following year. Despite his vigorous and outspoken opposition to Lenin's political party in 1917, Plekhanov was held in high esteem by the Russian Communist Party following his death as a founding father of Russian Marxism and a philosophical thinker.

Reviews

[Reid tries to read]

This rocks
“The Gracchi tried to check the process of appropriation of the public domain by the wealthy Romans which was so fatal to Rome. The wealthy Romans resisted the Gracchi. A struggle ensued. Each of the contending sides passionately pursued its own aims. If I wanted to describe this struggle, I might depict it as a conflict of human passions. Passions would thus appear as “factors” in the internal history of Rome. But in this struggle both the Gracchi and their adversaries took advantage of the weapons furnished them by Roman public law… and thus Roman public law would also appear as a factor in the internal development of the Roman republic. Further, the people who opposed the Gracchi had a material interest in preserving a deep-rooted abuse. The people who supported the Gracchi had a material interest in abolishing it. I would mention this circumstance, too, and as a result the struggle I am describing would appear as a conflict of material interests, as a conflict of classes, a conflict of the poor and the rich. And so I already have a third factor, and this time the most interesting of all: the famous economic factor. If you have the time and inclination, dear reader, you may discuss at length which of the factors in the internal development of Rome predominated over the rest; you will find in my historical narrative sufficient data to support any opinion on this subject”

“For this purpose I have to establish a certain, even if only outward, connection between them, and to arrange them in a certain perspective. If I mention the passions that stirred the contending parties, or the system prevailing in Rome at the time or lastly , the inequality of property that existed there, I do so with the sole purpose of presenting a connected and lively account of the events. If I achieve this purpose, I shall be quite satisfied, and shall unconcernedly leave it to the philosophers to decide whether passions predominate over economics, or economics over passions, or, lastly, maybe, that nothing predominates over anything, each “factor” following the golden rule: Live and let live! All this will be so as long as I stick to the role of simple narrator to whom all inclination to “subtle speculation” is foreign. But what if I do not stick to this role, and start philosophising about the events I am describing? I shall then not be satisfied with a mere outward connection of events; I shall want to disclose their inherent causes; and those same factors – human passions, public law and economics – which I formerly stressed and gave prominence to, guided almost exclusively by artistic instinct, will now acquire a new and vast importance in my eyes. They will appear to me to be those sought-for inherent causes, those “latent forces,” to whose influence events are to be attributed. I shall create a theory of factors.”

“The theory of factors, moreover, grows with the growing division of labor in social science. All the branches of this science – ethics, politics, jurisprudence, political economy, etc investigate one and the same thing: the activity of social man. But each investigates it from its own special angle.”
“We hope that what is meant by the historico-social factors and how the idea of them originates will now be clear. A historico-social factor is an abstraction, and the idea of it originates as the result of a process of abstraction. Thanks to the process of abstraction, various sides of the social complex assume the form of separate categories, and the various manifestations and expressions of the activity of social man – morals, law, economic forms, etc. – are converted in our minds into separate forces which appear to give rise to and determine this activity and to be its ultimate causes.”

“Once the theory of factors had come into being, disputes were bound to arise as to which factor was to be considered the predominant one.”

“The “factors” are subject to reciprocal action: each influences the rest and is in its turn influenced by the rest. The result is such an intricate web of reciprocal influences, of direct actions and reflected reactions, that whoever sets out to elucidate the course of social development begins to feel his head swim… Since bitter experience has taught him that the view of reciprocal action only leads to dizziness, he begins to seek for another view: he tries to simplify his task. He asks himself whether one of the historico-social factors is not the prime and basic cause of all the rest. If he succeeded in finding an affirmative answer to this basic question, his task would indeed be immeasurably simplified. Let us suppose that he reaches the conviction that the rise and development of all the social relations of any particular country are determined by the course of its intellectual development, which, in its turn, is determined by the attributes of human nature (the idealist view). He will then easily escape from the vicious circle of reciprocal action and create a more or less harmonious and consistent theory of social development. Subsequently, as a result of a further study of the subject he may perhaps perceive that he was mistaken, and that man’s intellectual development cannot be regarded as the prime cause of all social movement. Admitting his mistake, he will probably at the same time observe that his temporary conviction that the intellectual factor dominates over all the rest was after all of some use to him, for without it he could never have escaped from the blind alley of reciprocal action and would not have advanced a single step towards an understanding of social phenomena”

“It would be unfair to condemn such attempts to establish some hierarchy among the factors of historico-social development. They were just as indispensable in their time as the appearance of the theory of factors itself was inevitable… But however legitimate and useful the theory of factors may have been in its time, today it will not stand the light of criticism.”

Materialist conception of history
“It has shown that man makes his history not in order to march along a line of predetermined progress, and not because he must obey the laws of some abstract (metaphysical, Labriola calls it) evolution. He does so in the endeavour to satisfy his own needs, and it is for science to explain how the various methods of satisfying these needs influence man’s social relations and spiritual activity. The methods by which social man satisfies his needs, and to a large extent these needs themselves, are determined by the nature of the implements with which he subjugates nature in one degree or another; in other words, they are determined by the state of his productive forces. Every considerable change in the state of these forces is reflected in man’s social relations, and, therefore, in his economic relations, as part of these social relations. The idealists of all species and varieties held that economic relations were functions of human nature; the dialectical materialists hold that these relations are functions of the social productive forces.”

“[We] would first of all have to rebuke the so-called economic materialists for the inconstancy of their “predominant” factor; the modern materialists do not know of any economic system that would be alone conformable to human nature, all other social economic systems being the result of one or another degree of violence to human nature. The modern materialists teach that any economic system that is conformable to the state of the productive forces at the given time is conformable to human nature. And, conversely, any economic system begins to contradict the demands of human nature as soon as it comes into contradiction with the state of the productive forces. The “predominant” factor is thus found to be itself subordinate to another “factor.” And that being the case, how can it be called “predominant”?”

“Man is without doubt an animal connected by ties of affinity to other animals. He has no privileges of origin; his organism is nothing more than a particular case of general physiology. Originally, like all other animals, he was completely under the sway of his natural environment, which was not yet subject to his modifying action; he had to adapt himself to it in his struggle for existence… But our ideas of “primitive man” are merely conjectures. All men who inhabit the earth today, like all who in the past were observed by trustworthy investigators, are found, and were found, already quite a long way removed from the moment when man ceased to live a purely animal life”

“Thus, man makes history in striving to satisfy his needs. These needs, of course, are originally imposed by nature; but they are later considerably modified quantitatively and qualitatively by the character of the artificial environment. The productive forces at man’s disposal determine all his social relations. First of all, the state of the productive forces determines the relations in which men stand towards each other in the social process of production, that is, their economic relations. These relations naturally give rise to definite interests, which are expressed in Law… The development of productive forces divides society into classes, whose interests are not only different, but in many – and, moreover, essential – aspects are diametrically antagonistic. This antagonism of interests gives rise to conflicts, to a struggle among the social classes. The struggle results in the replacement of the tribal organisation by the state organisation, the purpose of which is to protect the dominant interests. Lastly, social relations, determined by the given state of productive forces, give rise to common morality, the morality, that is, that guides people in their common, everyday life.”

“Thus the law, the state system and the morality of any given people are determined directly and immediately by its characteristic economic relations. These economic relations also determine – but indirectly and mediately – all the creations of the mind and imagination: art, science, etc.”
“it is not the forms of man’s consciousness that determine the forms of his social being, but, on the contrary, the forms of his social being that determine the forms of his consciousness. But once the forms of his consciousness have sprung from the soil of social being, they become a part of history. Historical science cannot limit itself to the mere anatomy of society; it embraces the totality of phenomena that are directly or indirectly determined by social economics, including the work of the imagination. There is no historical fact that did not owe its origin to social economics; but it is no less true to say that there is no historical fact that was not preceded, not accompanied, and not succeeded by a definite state of consciousness… People get accustomed to the prevailing beliefs, concepts, modes of thought and means of satisfying given aesthetic requirements. But should the development of productive forces lead to any substantial change in the economic structure of society, and, as a consequence, in the reciprocal relations of the social classes, the psychology of these classes will also change, and with it the “spirit of the times” and the “national character.” This change is manifested in the appearance of new religious beliefs or new philosophical concepts, of new trends in art or new aesthetic requirements.”

The state
“According to Labriola, the state is an organisation for the rule of one social class over another or others. That is so. But it scarcely expresses the whole truth. In states like China or ancient Egypt, where civilised life was impossible without highly complex and extensive works for the regulation of the flow and overflow of big rivers and for irrigation purposes, the rise of the state may be largely explained by the direct influence of the needs of the social productive process. There can be no doubt that inequality, in one or another degree, existed in these countries even in prehistoric times… But the ruling classes we meet with in the history of these countries held their more or less exalted social position owing to the state organisation called into being by the needs of the social productive process. There is scarcely room for doubt that the Egyptian priestly caste owed their supremacy to the highly important part which their rudimentary scientific knowledge played in the system of Egyptian agriculture”

“This, of course, did not prevent the state from being at the same time an organisation of the rule of a privileged minority over a more or less enslaved majority. (Just as in certain cases it did not prevent it from being an outcome of the conquest of one people by another. Force plays a big part in the replacement of old institutions by new. But force can in no way explain either the possibility of such a replacement or its social consequences.) But it must not be lost sight of under any circumstances, if an incorrect and one-sided idea of the historical role of the state is to be avoided.”

Racism
“Social science will gain greatly if we at last abandon the bad habit of attributing to race everything that seems incomprehensible in the spiritual history of a given nation. It may be that racial characteristics did have some influence on its history. But this hypothetical influence was probably so minute that it were better in the interests of the inquiry to regard it as nonexistent and to consider the peculiarities observed in the development of the given nation as the product of the special historical conditions in which that development took place, and not as a result of the influence of race. Needless to say, in quite a number of cases we shall be unable to indicate what exactly were the conditions that gave rise to the peculiarities in which we are interested. But what does not yield to the methods of scientific investigation to-day may well yield to them tomorrow. As to references to racial characteristics, they are inconvenient because they terminate the investigation just at the point where it should begin”

“When we say that the view we are contesting as to the influence of race on the history of ideologies is an old one, it is not without good reason. It is nothing but a variation of a theory which was very prevalent in the last century, and which endeavoured to explain the whole course of history by the characteristics of human nature. This theory is absolutely incompatible with the materialist conception of history. According to the new view, the nature of social man changes as social relations change. Consequently, the general characteristics of human nature can offer no explanation of history”

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short and simple.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderful examination of Marxist materialism, delivered through a critical (but not profoundly negative) interaction with the ideas of Antonio Labriola. Essential reading for anyone developing an interest in Marxism, and a tool of invaluable direction for Marxists who find themselves in the trap of "economic materialism" and who overemphasize the importance of the economic base to the point of neglecting the tremendous importance of the superstructure in the analysis of social relations, as has become so common.

[Versusdavid · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read it again and i was still able to learn new things that i didn’t see the first time. brilliant and short summary of the method historical materialism

[Mohammed. · Rating 5 out of 5]

( إن أسلوب إنتاج الحياة المادية يكيف سير الحياة الاجتماعي والسياسي والفكري بصورة عامة. فليس وعي الناس هو الذي يحدد معيشتهم، بل على العكس من ذلك، معيشتهم الاجتماعية هي التي تحدد وعيهم. وعندما تبلغ قوى المجتمع المنتجة درجة معينة في تطورها، تدخل في تناقض مع علاقات الإنتاج الموجودة، أو مع علاقات الملكية — وليست هذه سوى التعبير الحقوقي لتلك — تلك العلاقات التي كانت تتحرك ضمنها القوى المنتجة إلى ذلك الحين. فبعد أن كانت هذه العلاقات أشكالاً لتطور القوى المنتجة تصبح قيوداً لهذه القوى، وعندئذ ينفتح عهد ثورات اجتماعية.)


إذا أخذنا بوجهة نظر المفهوم المادي الحديث للتاريخ، فإن (العوامل) التاريخية تظهر كموجودات بسيطة، وعندما يتبدد ضبابها يصبح واضحاً أن البشر لا يصنعون تواريخ متمايزة: تاريخ الحقوق، وتاريخ الأخلاق، وتاريخ الفلسفة… إلخ، بل تاريخاً واحداً هو تاريخ علاقاتهم الاجتماعية التي تكيفها في كل وقت حالة القوى المنتجة. وما يسمى إيديولوجيات ليس إلا انعكاساً متنوع الأشكال في دماغ البشر لهذا التاريخ الواحد الذي لا يتجزأ.

[Keith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hunted this down as part of my reading in the extremes of governance because Plekhanov is mentioned or quoted by everyone from Averich in The Russian Anarchists to Solzhenitsyn in GULAG I, because I wasn't familiar with him at all, because I wanted to know what "historical materialism" looked like before Lenin got his grubby mitts on it, and because Pomper suggests, in Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin if I recall correctly, that this particular essay was somehow clever enough to have snuck past the Russian censors and gotten published where people could read it without going into exile. So now I'm familiar with Plekhanov, but I still couldn't really tell you what historical materialism is, as differentiated from any other Marxian approach.

Now I'm reading in translation, of course, so I can't really draw too many accurate conclusions about the original, but my guess is that this got past the censors because it never mentions Marx or socialism, and is everywhere and always written in the most oblique and obscure manner: always alluding, rarely naming. The sole exception to that—perhaps as a cover story—is the extended critique of Labriola, and presumably his Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History in particular. Plekhanov, in what I take to be his characteristic style, goes on at length about how the Italian continually, but not utterly, fails to grasp historical materialism properly, and offers some correctives, which I found difficult to follow without the context of the original. Perhaps I could have had a job in the Czar's censorship office; I certainly would fail to get a position in the Supreme Soviet.

I still found it all quite interesting, and though I still reject Marx and his heirs (and, for the most part, their forerunners in Hegelian dialectics, old or young) as the failures the imperative of history has demonstrated them to be, there remain those stooped-clock moments of insight worth retaining, such as Plekhanov's contentions that "All positive law is a defence of some definite interest" and that the general characteristics of race or "human nature" (if there is such a thing beyond mere chemistry) can offer no explanation of history.

[Alyosha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing short read (I finished it in a month :) ) I've been a materialist for so long and only after reading this that my beliefs are finally untangled. Plekhanov mostly took inspiration from Labriola to explain historical materialism in this pamphlet, with a few of Labriola's faulty arguments straightened by himself.

The basics of how materialism is applied to the analysis of history starts by identifying the most fundamental component of society, i.e. a person, which is an entity with needs and who lives to satisfy their needs. Then from there we can start analyzing how we interact with nature, and with each other, which from there eventually creates a new artificial environment (human society). This human society transforms by undergoing internal conflicts (e.g. between the development of productive forces and the economic system, which also involves psychology). The pamphlet also touches on race (Plekhanov believes race has very little to do with the development of society), psychology of society in relation to its economic relation, morality, and the nature of law.

The pamphlet is perfectly concise, coherent, and informative without abandoning rigorousness.

[Jack]

Sassy Plekhanov

[Ali Ziraoui · Rating 4 out of 5]

ممتاز ، في وقته طبعا : بأسلوب علمي زمانه و سجالي أحيانا يبسط بليخانوف المفهوم الماركسي للتاريخ مموقعا إياه بين المفاهيم السابقة على غرار المثالية محاولا إبراز سمته الثورية المتمثلة في المادية ، غير ان النهر الماركسي جرت فيه مياه كثيرة بأعمال لوكاش و التوسير و ترونتي تم تقويض الحتمية الماركسية التي تعتبر نقطة من نقاط ضعف طرحه

[Matt Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the most significant Marxist works.If you want to understand the history of historical materialism and socialism,then you must read this work-It is required reading.

[Juan Pablo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a concise but thorough read. It seems as if it was written as a brief polemic against competing trends, at least one of which the materialist conception of history was confused with or intentionally conflated with so as to make a straw man to attack in support of competing philosophical idealist ideologies. The other against theoretical mistakes of a contemporary socialist, Antonio Labriola.

Plekhanov lays out just what history is comprised of, what makes it come about, careful to explain what it is not & what distinguishes the difference.

Each chapter is anywhere from 3-5 pages & the writing is accessible without diluting the ideas. It’s a shame that Plekhanov later strayed from Marxism in support of the imperialist World War 1 & helped with acts against the Bolsheviks.

I’ve read that “Development of the Monist View of History” is where he really lays out the materialist conception of history. This text can serve as a primer. Overall a good book if you’re pressed for time as it’s only 40 pages.

[Abel Janssens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een heldere uiteenzetting van wat het historisch materialisme genoemd kan worden. Een prettige uiteenzetting van de geschiedenis van de geschiedschrijving vanuit marxistisch oogpunt. Onvermijdelijk voor de marxistisch georiënteerde student geschiedenis.

[Feargal McGovern · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read as it was part of the Lutte Ouvrier list, but nothing really struck me that I didn't already know from reading Marx and Engels.

[Solal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il mériterait le triple de page mais reste intéressant

[Moaz Elshinawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

على الرغم من قدم الكتاب (1891) وصغر حجمه إلا أنه من أفضل الكتب التى توضح النظرة المادية للتاريخ .

[علاء ابوغليون · Rating 4 out of 5]

يوضح الكتاب النظرة المادية للتاريخ وسبب حركة التاريخ من منظور ماركسي او شيوعي
وان الاقتصاد هو محرك الرئيسي للتاريخ

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abstraction of social complexity as the means to understand historical processes, nice.

Economic structure -> Social relations -> All social manifestations

[nailik Winter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je comprends mieux ce que les marxistes entendent par la conception matérialiste et marxiste de l'histoire.