Historical Materialism

Also known as “materialist conception of history”. The science on the universal laws of development of the history of human society, indissoluble important component part of Marxist philosophy, known as Marx’s two great discoveries together with the theory of surplus-value.

Historical materialism was founded by Marx and Engels in the mid-19th century. It is a product of the specific history of society of the capitalist large-scale industry in the 19th century and its corresponding socio-economic and class relations, and is the inevitable result of the development of human knowledge. Mao Zedong pointed out that it was not until the modern proletariat emerged along with immense forces of production (large-scale industry) that man was able to acquire a comprehensive, historical understanding of the development of society and transform this knowledge into a science, the science of Marxism. Marx and Engels participated personally in the revolutionary practice of the proletariat, summed up its practical experience, inherited the excellent achievements of human thought, carried through materialism in the sphere of the history of society and founded historical materialism.

In works such as Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The Holy Family, Theses on Feuerbach, The German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy and The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels criticized the idealist conception of history, and formulated their thought of historical materialism that gradually formed. The German Ideology, co-authored by Marx and Engels, was the very first to systematically deal with the basic thought of historical materialism, pointing out that this conception of history differs from the idealist conception of history in that it does not interpret practice from ideas but interprets ideas from material practice. In 1959, in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx made an incisive summary of the basic views of historical materialism; he pointed out that 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 people’s consciousness that determines people’s existence, on the contrary, it is people’s social being that determines people’s 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. Marx also pointed out the historical course of the evolution of several social formations. The contents of historical materialism were further elaborated in works such as Marx’s Capital and Engels’ Anti-Dühring, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. In the 1880s and 1890s, against the erroneous view that distorted the materialist conception of history as “economic materialism”, Engels further elaborated the laws of the dialectical movement of the history of society in a series of letters, and enriched and developed historical materialism.

Under the new historical conditions of imperialism and proletarian revolution, Lenin summed up the experience of the international proletarian revolutionary struggle and the early socialist construction in the Soviet Union, fought against the opportunism of the Second International and the Russian Narodniks, Economists and Mensheviks, and defended and developed historical materialism. By combining the fundamental principles of Marxism with China’s concrete realities, the Communist Party of China has achieved two historical leaps of the Sinicization of Marxism, and produced two major theoretical achievements, i.e., Mao Zedong Thought and the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and a series of important expositions on the revolution and the socialist construction in China, enriching and developing historical materialism.

Historical materialism for the first time scientifically answered the basic question of the conception of history, i.e., the question concerning the relation of social being and social consciousness, pointed out that social being determines social consciousness, that social consciousness is a reflection of social being, and that social consciousness also dynamically reacts upon social being. Historical materialism explained that: the activity of production of material means of life is the premise for the human society to survive; the development of human society is a process of natural history, and social movement is a particular state of motion of matter, with its own unique objective laws; the productive forces and the relations of production, the economic foundation and the superstructure constitute the organic system of society, there is a relation of dialectical unity between the productive forces and the relations of production, and between the economic foundation and the superstructure, the mode of production of material means is the determining force of the development of society; the fundamental contradictions of society, i.e., the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure, are the intrinsic driving force of the development of society; in class society, the fundamental contradictions of society manifest themselves as class contradictions and class struggles, and class struggle is the immediate driving force of the development of class society; history is made by men themselves, the masses are the creators of history, each contributes to the formation the historical resultant, and outstanding figures play an important role in history.

Historical materialism and historical idealism are the two fundamentally opposing conceptions of history. The establishment of historical materialism was a great revolution in the conception of the history of society. It laid the study of the history of society on a scientific basis for the first time, proclaimed the bankruptcy of the idealist conception of history, transformed socialism from utopia into science, provided a powerful ideological weapon for the proletariat and the masses to know the world and change the world, provided a theoretical basis for the proletarian parties to formulate their strategies and tactics, and provided a scientific world outlook and methodology for the various concrete social sciences. Engels said that this new conception of history was of supreme significance for the socialist outlook. Lenin evaluated historical materialism as “scientific sociology”, “the only scientific conception of history”, “the only scientific method of social science”, “a great achievement in the development in scientific thinking”.