Fundamental Principles of Marxism

It has been asserted that Marx in all his works followed certain fundamental principles and Kolakowsky puts it more categorically in the following words. There are certain “fundamental principles of Marx’s theory, from which he never departed. The whole of his work, down to the last page of Capital, was a confirmation and elaboration of these ideas”.

Let us briefly state (following Kolakowski) these fundamental principles:

1. Both Hegel and Marx have dealt with a basic question – How is man to be reconciled with him and with the world? Hegel was of opinion that mind of man passes through history and finally comes to realize what is the world. This realisation is truth. Hegel also speaks of Spirit and man understands it through his realisation of the world. But Marx did not support the contention of Hegel. The opposite view of Hegel was first formulated by Feuerbach and Marx borrowed it from him. According to Marx man is not concerned with Absolute Idea or Spirit but with the stark reality. This he tries to understand and explain in the background of his own life. He always interprets the world around him.

2. Both Hegel and Marx thought that man was the product of self-knowledge and he goes on reconciling with the world. But to Hegel the concept of self- knowledge is associated with Spirit or Absolute Idea. Marx has rejected it and has laid down the famous doctrine of alienation. That is, he tries to understand himself or the world around him through the alienation. The theory of alienation is the product of the alienated labour. In fact, alienation occupies a very important place in Marx’s theory.

3. In capitalist economy there is a division of labour which means that a labour produces a single or small part of an article. The capitalist system has introduced this division of labour to have better results. But its harmful consequence is with the passing away of time man is gradually alienated from the whole production system and finally the society.

He is ultimately converted into a machine. The division of labour no doubt helps the progress of industry of capitalist society. But man is the victim of its harmful effects. Again, this alienation is responsible for dehumanisation. According to Marx this dehumanisation is the greatest evil of capitalist society.

4. The general meaning of alienation is that it is the “subjugation of man by his own work, which has assumed the guise of independent things”. The entire economic process including production and distribution is beyond the control of workers. They work just like machine.

In other words, the workers are alienated from the mainstream of productive process and from here the dehumanisation starts. Hence alienation and dehumanisation are closely related and the entire capitalist system is absolutely responsible for this.

5. In the opinion of Marx, since alienation is the greatest evil of capitalist system the workers must be freed from this evil. But he has warned us by saying that there is no scope of freeing individuals from the curse of alienation because it is an integral part of the capitalist system. The only way is the curses of alienation are to be removed. But in a capitalist system there is no possibility of freeing man from alienation.

6. If we go through Marx’s analysis we shall find that the only way of freeing man from alienation is the establishment of communism or communist society.

Let us put it in the words of Kolakowski:

“Communism puts an end to the division of life into public and private spheres and to the difference between civil society and the state, it does away with the need for political institutions, political authority and governments, private property and its source in the division of labour. It destroys the class system and exploitation; it heals the split in man’s nature and the crippled one-sided development of the individual”.

Hence communism and disappearance of alienation is almost same thing. That is why it has been rightly observed that the transcendence of alienation and communism are identical. The building up of a communist society will completely transform the existence of men and women.

7. Only in communism man gets the full opportunity to flourish his latent qualities and this makes him a perfect human being. In a capitalist society he is deprived of this. Man has many good qualities and abilities.

Capitalism suppresses them. But in communism he gets full scope to develop them and ultimately he arrives at the stage which he desires. Only in communism man frees him from all sorts of exploitation and bondage.

Communism creates an atmosphere which ensures the “realization of freedom, not only from exploitation and political power but from immediate bodily needs. It is the solution to the problem of history and is also the end of history”.

8. The Utopian socialists “imagined” that communism could be achieved through the repeated and fervent appeal to the capitalists. But Marx did not accept it. He thought that only through an intense struggle against the bourgeoisie a communist society can be finally built up. In his opinion the present age (when Marx was writing 1845-1883) is quite ripe for an intense struggle.

It is the duty of the working class to fully utilize the situation. The contradictions within capitalism have achieved the stage of maturity. There was maximum dehumanisation and this is intolerable.

A worker is no more than a commodity. He gets no respect as a human being. In other words, the capitalists treat him as a commodity. This is an unimaginable humiliation only communism can save him and to achieve it workers will have to fight.