There are many other doctrines that are part of the
Marxist position (like equality between the sexes, self-
determination for national minorities, the desirability
of trade unions and cooperatives) that are easily deriv-
able from the above propositions and some implicit
value judgments about the desirability of human dig-
nity, freedom, and creative self-fulfillment, even though
they are obviously not uniquely entailed by them.
Marxism, in this its original version, was primarily
a social philosophy. Its spokesmen as a rule adopted
positions in philosophy and religion only in opposition
to those metaphysical or theological doctrines whose
suspected impact obstructed the growth of the working
class movement and the development of its socialist
consciousness. Philosophical and religious freedom of
thought were extended to all thinkers who accepted
the complex of social and economic propositions
enumerated above which defined the theoretical
Marxist orthodoxy of the German Social-Democratic
Party and the majority of the members of the Second
International. Dialectical materialism, for example,
despite its espousal by Engels in his
Anti-Dühring
(1878) and
Ludwig Feuerbach... (1888; trans. as
Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical
German Philosophy, 1934), was of peripheral impor-
tance in the Marxism that flourished up to 1917. The
attack on Eduard Bernstein as a revisionist of Marxism
was motivated primarily by his criticism of the first
four of the complex of propositions identified above,
and of the party programs of the political movement
based on Marxism. It was only because he rejected the
economic analysis of his party comrades and the politi-
cal program presumably based on it (he approved its
day-by-day activities) that attacks were made on his
philosophical views.
The predominant characteristic of Social-Demo-
cratic Marxist thought is its determinism, its reliance
upon the immanent processes of social development
to create the conditions that would impel human beings
to rationalize the whole of economic production in the
same explicit and formal way in which an efficient
industrial plant is organized. Formulated during an era
in which the theory of evolution was being extrapo-
lated from the field of biology to all other fields, espe-
cially the social and cultural areas of human activity,
the laws of social development were considered uni-
versal, necessary, and progressive. The vocabulary was
not very precise, partly because of the popular audi-
ence to which the teachings of Marxism were ad-
dressed. But even in Capital, as well as in his more
popular writings, Marx used the term “inevitable” in
describing the laws of economic change in heralding
the collapse of capitalism. Engels was particularly
addicted to the vocabulary of necessitarianism. Al-
though aware of the differences in the subject matter
of the natural and social sciences, and opposed to the
reduction of the latter to the former, Marxists regarded
the laws in both domains as working themselves out
with an ineluctable “iron” necessity.
The concept of social necessity remained unex-
amined by the Marxist theoreticians and could not be
squared, when strictly interpreted, with the recognition
of alternatives of development, alternatives of action,
and objective possibilities presupposed in the practical
programs of the Marxist movement of the time. None-
theless it possessed a rational kernel of great impor-
tance. For it stressed the importance of social readiness,
preparedness, and maturity as a test and check on
proposals for reform and revolution. It served as a
brake upon the adventurism and euphoria of action
induced by revolutionary rhetoric, and also as a conso-
lation in defeat when objective conditions were proved
to be unripe.
On the other hand, belief in the concept of social
necessity tended psychologically to inhibit risk-taking
actions, especially as the Marxist movement and its
political parties increased in influence and acquired a
feeling of responsibility. Belief in determinism, and in
the heartening conviction that the structure of the
socialist society was being built within the shell of the
old even by those opposed to socialism, could not
obviate the necessity of making choices in economics
and politics, whether it was a question of supporting
a call for a general strike, or voting for welfare and/or
war budgets. But it naturally tended to reinforce in
practice, if not in rhetoric, the choice of the moderate
course, the one less likely to provoke opposition that
might eventuate in violence and bloodshed. And why
not, if the future, so to speak, was already in the bag?
This attitude of caution and restraint was reinforced
by the implicitly teleological interpretation of evolu-
tionary processes. What came later in time was as-
sumed to be “higher” or “better”; setbacks were only
temporary, the reverse stroke of an historical spiral that
had only one direction—upward to a higher level. This
led in practice to a commitment to the inevitability
of gradualism so that the very pace of reforms tended
to slow down as a sense of the urgent, the critical,
and the catastrophic in history eased, and became
replaced by a feeling of security in the overall devel-
opment of history. Even the outbreak of the First
World War in 1914, which destroyed the belief in the
necessarily progressive character of change, failed to
dispel the moderation of the Social-Democratic variant
of Marxism. It was unprepared not only to take power
but to exercise it vigorously when power was thrust
upon it—at the close of the first World War in
Germany. It moved towards the welfare state very
slowly, partly in fear of provoking civil war.
Beginning with the last decade of the nineteenth
century, as Social-Democratic movements gained
strength in Europe, an enormous literature has been
devoted to the exposition, criticism, and evaluation of
Marxism. At first neglected, then refuted, then reinter-
preted, modified, and qualified, Marxism in all its
varieties has become at present perhaps the strongest
single intellectual current of modern social thought.
It has left a permanent impress upon economic histori-
ans like Max Weber and Charles Beard, even as they
disavowed belief in its basic ideas. Here we shall offer
only a brief review of the principal interpretations of
the historical role and validity of the central notions
of Marxism.
