On Engels' metaphysical dialectics: A foundation of orthodox ?Marxism?

Abstract

The philosophical foundations of what has come to be known as orthodox Marxism were laid not by Marx but by Engels in Anti-Duhring and Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy. Here is to be found the first formulation of that conception of Marxism as 'dialectical materialism' ? an all-embracing materialist ontology, which dominated the thinking of the Second Inter? national and even more of Soviet Marxism [ 1 ]. Anti-Duhring appeared first as a series of articles in the new official journal of the German Social Democratic Party Vorw?rts, beginning in 1877. In 1876, for political reasons, Engels had decided to settle accounts with Eugen Duhring who was competing with Marx for the theoretical leadership of the German party. Only after its publication did a real Marxian school develop in Germany. Anti-Duhring became the key formative book for the leaders of the Second International. While it met much opposition within the party, it convinced Kautsky, Bebel, Bernstein, Plekhanov, and others of the superiority of Marxism [2]. This gave Marxism a foothold in the German labor movement which would eventually lead to its official incorporation in the party's Erfurt program of 1891. The leaders of the German party assumed that Engels' views were a faith? ful presentation of Marx's and began to ascribe to them the status of Marxian orthodoxy.