Dialectical Materialism

Abstract

Abstract Dialectical materialism became the dominant philosophy of Marxism during the Second International (1889–1917) and, in a different form, the official, formulaic philosophy of all communist parties during Joseph Stalin's dictatorship (1929–1953). Marx never used the term dialectical materialism. Nor did he write a comprehensive statement of ontology creating the opportunity to “finish” his incomplete project even though Marx had resisted attempts to convert his “materialist conception” into a totalizing philosophy. Marx's materialism centered on the labor process as the mediating activity between humankind and nature and the real departure point for understanding social formations and social change. To bring coherence to “Marxism,” Engels used Anti‐Dühring to link his work on nature with Marx's work to produce a single, comprehensive ontology. Seeking the credibility of “science,” other Second International Marxists sought to develop Engels' “dialectical materialism” further. Soviet theorist Georgi Plekhanov and Lenin pursued their own Engelsian‐inspired materialist philosophy which Stalin, as Lenin's heir, instituted as the official philosophy of Marxism–Leninism. Dialectical materialism (Diamat) brought together a simplistic notion of Hegel's dialectic with a crude materialism to constitute a single, allegedly coherent science that applied to all material, biological, historical, social, and political phenomena.