Marxism: Critique of Marxism – Literary Theory – UGC NET – Notes

What is Marxism?

• Marxism typically denotes the theories of the German thinker, Karl Marx. However, Marxism encompasses more than just the concepts of Marx. It includes the beliefs of Friedrich Engels and their followers, who identify as Marxists. In this way, Marxism encompasses primarily the ideas of Karl Marx while also extending beyond him. Marxism remains a vibrant philosophy, as Marxist intellectuals consistently add to its development. Therefore, although Marx himself is no longer living, Marxism continues to thrive.
• The ideology of Marxism predated the arrival of Karl Marx into the world. David McLellan has written three books on Marxism: Marx before Marxism (1970), The Thought of Karl Marx (1971), and Marxism after Marx (1980). In the same way, Leszek Kołakowski, a Polish philosopher, has also written three books on Marxism. The main idea is that Marxism encompasses more than just the views of Karl Marx.
• Marxism offers a sociological perspective and analysis of cultural expressions, whether a movie or a book. It places all cultural forms within the social and economic circumstances of a specific society. Therefore, it argues that cultural expressions mirror societal realities, with novels or films frequently exposing class dynamics, conflict, and power structures within a community.
• Karl Marx (1818–1883) was mainly known as a theorist and historian, not the nefarious communist threat feared during McCarthyism. By analysing social structure scientifically, he developed a method for political science and recognized human history as a sequence of conflicts between social classes — the oppressed and the oppressors. While Freud believed in the power of “sexual energy” as the driving force of human actions, and Nabokov prioritised artistic inspiration, Marx viewed historical materialism as the ultimate motivator, focusing on resource distribution, profit, and production.
• The alleged political progression includes feudalism, bourgeois capitalism, socialism, and utopian communism. In capitalist society, the bourgeoisie depend on the proletariat, the working class essential for their existence. Marx proposed that if profits are not used to improve conditions for workers but to expand factories, workers will become increasingly impoverished until temporary solutions no longer work. At a critical moment, revolution can result in a reorganisation of the system.
• For a political system to qualify as communism, the lower classes must possess the means of production, rather than the government or police force. Hence, apart from specific early Christian groups and temporary communal societies, true communism has not been fully realised. The Soviet Union functioned instead as state capitalism.
• Marx is famous for stating that “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” highlighting his critique of ideological control — a concern later addressed by Lenin. Lenin believed that workers are not fully aware of their oppression because the state manipulates them into being unselfish. Many distractions in political systems can divert attention from unfair economic conditions, often described as “opiates of the people.”
• Marxism contends that capitalism involves an exploitative and unequal relationship between a ruling class, who control production and wealth, and a working majority, whose labour is exploited. Marxism further argues that the economic base shapes the superstructure, which includes institutions such as the government, law, and criminal justice system. In this sense, Marxism is often considered a structuralist theory, as these institutions function to uphold the interests of the ruling class and maintain class inequality.

Marxism as a Theory

• Marx’s theory primarily focuses on the conflicts present in capitalist society during his era. He expressed that the most important aspect of society is production. To survive, a person needs to consume food, which is why they engage in production. He viewed production as a social process, not an individual activity.
• Within this system of production, individuals enter into social relations of production that are not based on their personal consent. These relations exist prior to the individuals themselves and tend to persist over time unless they are fundamentally transformed.
• To understand this framework, it is necessary to examine the foundation of society — often referred to as the economic base — and then consider how class divisions and class conflict emerge from this structure.

Fundamental Principles of Marxism

• The fundamental principles of Marxism include dialectical materialism, historical materialism, surplus value theory, class conflict, revolution, proletariat dictatorship, andcommunism. Now, let us delve deeper into these principles.

Dialectical Materialism

• Dialectical materialism is the method of scientific inquiry created by Marx and Engels to understand history. Marx drew extensively from earlier thinkers, especially the German philosopher Hegel. Dialectics, an ancient philosophical method, seeks to uncover truth by exposing contradictions through the clash of opposing concepts.
• Hegel refined this method by formulating the trilogy of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, commonly known as the Dialectical Triad. According to this model, development or advancement occurs through a dialectical process in which contradictions are central at every stage. These contradictions generate transformation, growth, and further development.
• In this framework, a thesis is confronted by its opposite, the antithesis. Each contains elements of both truth and error. During their conflict, the valid elements are preserved while the false or contradictory aspects are discarded. The resulting synthesis integrates the truthful components of both thesis and antithesis.
• Over time, this synthesis becomes a new thesis, which is again challenged by another antithesis, producing a new synthesis. This cyclical movement of thesis–antithesis–synthesis continues throughout historical development.
• Ultimately, the dialectical movement aims toward the realization of ultimate truth, a stage where contradictions are entirely resolved. Since contradictions are the driving force of the dialectical process, their complete elimination would signal the end of development itself.

Historical Materialism

• Historical materialism involves applying dialectical materialism to the study of history. It analyses world history through an economic lens, following the Marxist method of interpreting social development. In other words, it represents the traditional Marxist perspective on historical change.
• In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels explains that the aim of historical materialism is to identify the primary cause and driving force behind major historical events. He argues that these forces lie in economic development, particularly in changes in production and trade, which lead to the formation of distinct social classes and ultimately to class conflict.
• Although Marx and Engels describe historical materialism as a scientific and empirical theory, it functions more accurately as a framework or roadmap for interpreting historical processes. Its value lies in the coherent explanation it provides and in the research tradition it has generated.
• Historical materialism asserts that transformations in a society’s productive forces create social unrest, and that social institutions reflect the underlying means of production — often described as the relationship between base and superstructure.
• A major difficulty in understanding Marxism is distinguishing historical materialism from historicism, the belief that history unfolds according to a fixed and predetermined path. While historicism implies a deterministic or fatalistic interpretation of events, Marx was careful to argue that historical materialism does not necessarily entail such fatalism.