• WHAT IS DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM?

In a previous section on “Philosophy and Class Struggle” it was argued that dialectical materialism is the only logical and consistent philosophy for a revolutionary today to hold. Understood concretely and applied creatively, dialectical materialism has a crucial role to play in helping revolutionaries formulate their strategy and tactics in such a way that they reflect the needs of the situation and take all the relevant factors into account.

Those who stress materialism at the expense of dialectics in their political practice will ignore the pressures for change steadily building up (witness the dramatic street battles in the South African cities and townships since June this year), while those who see only dialectics and neglect materialism, inevitably overlook the concrete realities of the situation and the particular stage of the struggle. This is why a proper understanding of dialectical materialism is a necessary part of our correct political practice: it furnishes the Communist Party and the liberation movement with an essential weapon in the on-going struggle and is a vital ingredient for success.

My basic objective in this article is to show that dialectics and materialism—the two aspects of Marxist philosophy which give it its name—form the two halves of a single whole. Just as a chemist mixes hydrogen and oxygen to form water, so Marx and Engels reworked the theories of dialectics and materialism which previous thinkers had developed, in order to create a revolutionary philosophy of a new type. For the first time in history a materialist theory of the universe was worked out which was thoroughly dialectical in character, and a conception of dialectics developed that was squarely based on materialism.

The result is a highly explosive revolutionary mix!

To explain how this took place and why it was necessary, we must first of all get to grips with [...click "Next"]