MARXISM

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• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03362A000500060004-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 21
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 14, 2009
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: OUTLINE

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25 YEAR RE-REVIEW ~..r
I. Introduction
91
A.the reasons for our interest in Communism are
1. Coamaaism as embodied in the Soviet Union constitutes the chief
pebple who do not reco ze it for*what it is. In order to discuss
it intelligently with them, we have to familiarize our ' selves
systematically with the substance and terminology ofrxism.
oonte~ora q threat to US security.
In order to defeat Communism, we shall have sometimes to deal with
II. The Philosophical Basis of Marxism
A. Marxism consists of a philosophy, an economic theory, and a political
theory.
B. The philosophy is basic to the economic and political theory. It
!c~arisists of three elements: a metaphysical position, a "philosophical
method, and a philosophy of history.
1. The metaphysical position of Marxism is Materialism, which holds
that
a. Matter is the ultimate reality.
b. Matter exists before and independently of mind, and apart from
our perception to it.
2. The philosophical method of Marxism is the dialectic, which holds
that nature and history have developed through a clash of opposing
elements. In conjunction *tth materialism, this yields dialectical
materialism, which holds that the dialectical clash'has occurred
in purely material terms. And the dialectic operates in a certain
predetermined manner, described by the so-called haws of the
Dialectics
a. The Law of the Unity of Opposites.
b. The Law of the Transfer of Quantity into Quality
c. The Law of the Negation of the Negation.
3. The philosophy of history developed by Marxism is an extension in
detail of dialectical materialism into human history. History has
developed by a process of conflict of physical forces. The ultimate
physical force in human life is economic production, which then
underlies all other human activities. This moans that:
a. A change in the productive forces means a change in the
productive relations between human beings.
b. A change in the productive relations means a change in all
other social relations.
c. Since primitive times the production relations have always
been relations of exploitation: Society has been divided into
two major groups, consisting of owners and nonr-owners of the
means of production, The conflict between these groups
constitutes the dialectic of human history.
d. This fhe theory of the class struggle.
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CfirI!TIAL
III. The Economic Theory of Marxism
A. If the basic human activity is economic production, a study of the
sconomic structure of contemporary society is called for.
B. Marx's economic theory is based upon the doctrine of the class struggle,
and is essentially a critique of nineteenth-century Capitalism in an
effort to discover the method of capitalist exploitation.
1. In hie effort to do this, he incorporated into his thinking elements
of Riccardo's Labor Theory of Value, which held that the irreducible
measure of value in a commodity was the amount of labor embodied in it.
2. Labor Power is equivalent to the average number of labor hours
necessary to support life. This value is represented to the laborer
by the'amount of value which he receives as wages.
3. What then is the source of profit to the employer? He must be
depriving the laborer of some of the value he creates; this value
can only be created by hours of labor; therefore the laborer must
be working more hours than are necessary to support life, in order
to create a margin of profit for his employer. This is lux V&Jue.
C. The Development of Capitalism
1. The desire of the capitalist is constantly to increase his margin
of profit.
2. He can do this by making his workers work longer hours; but this
has obvious limitations. Or he can do it by increasing their
efficiency through machinery.
3. But more and better machinery means fewer laborers are necessary;
consequent competition for jobs, thus lower wages and decreased
purchasing power in society, tending toward economic disorder.
4. On the other hand, competition will wipe out most enterprisers, and
those remaining will combine in trusts, cartels, monopolies of
various kinds.
5. Thus the poor will get poorer and more numbrous, and the rich fewer
and richer.
6. Capitalism will collapse, after recurring crises.
IV. The Political Theory of Marxism
A. The Communist theory of the state, like their theory of economics, is
based upon the doctrine of the Class Struggle.
1. The state is the machinery used by the dominant class to exploit
the propertiless.
2. It is the very function of the state to resist change.
3. The modern state has produced bourgeois democracy as the machinery
of exploitation.
4. But the economic contradictions inherent in Capitalism will
precipitate a revolutionary change in spite of the state.
5. After the revolution, there will be no state because there will be
no classes.
6. Immediately after the revolution however, the remnants of bourgeois
society will have to be suppressed; this will necessitate a
proletarian state for a time. This is to be the Dictatorship of
the Proletariat.
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V. Leninism and Stalinism
A. Lenin's chief contributions to Marxism were:
1. The concept of a limited, disciplined party of professional
revolutionaries.
2. The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat not as a democratic
regime, but as a minority dictatorship.
3. The theory of the Imperialist Stage of Capitalism, in rich
competition (war) will proceed among capitalist states, rather
than among single companies and corporations.
B. Stalin's additions have been the prolongation of the state because of
what he called Capitalist encirclement; and the idea of socialist
construction in one country.
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Marxism
The principal reason we consider '`arxism here is that we consider
it the principal contemporary threat to U.S. security. As an idea it is
not worth a _ore than many of the other ideas of the nineteenth century,
which were brought into existence by the peculiar conditions of that century
and have fur-since gone their way as conditions have changed. It so
happened however, that Marxism, Communism, did get established as the
official ideology of one of the great twentieth century world powers; and
assuch has, as we all know, become one of -)ur chief contemporary dangers.
How arc we to face this danger in a practical way? In the first place,
we must remember that Americans are in a peculiar geographical and temporal
situation, Not everyone in t'e world is as convinced as we are that Commun-
ism is erroneous. And we are going to have to deal with such people in the
course of our work. We may look upon Communism as intellectually as well
as riorally weak. We may look upon Communists as at best misguided, and at
worst fraudulent. But the time may come when we'll hive to convince other
people of this; others to whom it is not at all obvious that Communism is
simply erroneous, and that Communists are only trying to get them on their
side to use them for the purposes of Soviet Russia. Now such people may
know the Qorimunist position extremely well. They will know the dialectic;
at least they will have heard of it. They will know the ideas involved in
historical ii terialism, and those ideas may seem to them utterly convincing.
But to argue with people in that position, and to convince them that we, as
well as the Communists, have something to say, we have to familiarize ourselves
systematically with the substance and the terminology of Marxism.
Another reason why we undertake these lectures is that they can help
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Marxi n to many differe^t k;nu1 of people. Communists are not all disagree-
able people who hide in back rooms and make silly threats. Some of them
are highly intelli-ent, some of them are intellectuals. They are sold on
this doctrine for reasons which we may find it diffict=lt to understand.
o be prepared to face
But wben we're dealing with human beings, we have to-be.
the fact that not everybody thinks the way we do. Also, Communism promises
explicitly and specifically more than we as Americans are prepared to propnise
to the world. We simply do not have a program, and th? Communists do; and
programs, however er,?oneous they may be, do appeal. Finally, it should he
studied by pe-,ple in our position with the seriousness it deserves, and with
the seriousness that is given to it by the people whose profession it is to
further the aims of Communism.
Consider, then, that Marxism consists of three elements: a philosophy,
an economic theory, and a political theory. We will consider the philos3phy
first, because it is basic to the economic and political theory and because
it occurred to Marx first. Philosophy may be defined loosely as the study
of reality, and it treats the question of the ultimate nature of reality.
Philosophers set thtmselves to find out what things really are. What is
the world? Does it require an explanation or doesn't it? Is it self-
sufficient or isn't it? What is the human race, etc? Now ":arx was a
philosopher before anything else. He studied philosophy in the universities
he went to, and he considered himself a philosopher during his early produc-
tiveyears. An understanding of his philosophical position is necessary,
then, if we are to comprehend the political and economic developments in
his later life. his metaphysical assumptions, in connection with the
us to'realize that it is extremely coolish to undere times+;e'the appeal of
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hietocy. We will consider his philosophy then in three sections: his
tsp ysice Xpoait.en.9 his method, and his philosophy of history.
4e may define metaphysics as the study of ultimate reality (whereas
philosophy is the study of reality in its totality). And the metaphysics
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~aet_od which.,irtss then popular, gave him his philosophy of
'a0 materialism, Now we may state the position of materialism in
the fgllowing propositions: First of all, the ultimate reality is matter.
Second, the existence of matter precedes the existence of mind. Mind, in
fact, is a manifestation of matter, a product of the material processes of
the h man nervous system and brain, much as light is a product of certain
physical transformations within the external world. Matter is bosio, then,
and mind derives from matter. Third, matter exists objectively apart from
ouur pd'rception of it. (Here of course, materialists in general disagree
I
with idealists, who insist that mind is the ultimate reality and matter is
anything ranging from an illusion to something which is perhaps real but
basically unimportant.) And f urth, complete knowledge of the material
t
world is difficult and complex but not impossible. And derived from that
fourth point, though it is not really central, is the belief that there are
no ultimate mysteries, there cannot be by definition: anything real is
knowable, anything knowable is understandable. In other words, there are no
ultimately inexplicable phenomena - they can all be explained.
Now materialism is of course a very old idea; there's nothing
revolutionary or startling about it, It goes back to the ancient world where
many eminent philosophers were materialists. Such names as Democritus and
Lucretifus will of course immediately suggest themselves to your minds. How-
ever, it was almost totally submerged by the triumph of Christianity at the
and ofthe decline of the ancient world, and was hardly heard of during
medieval times
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at all. It was revived rather strongly however, in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth century, as a result of two things. First of all, the
weakening of the humanist tradition which was part of the Christian tradition
and accepted the Christian presuppositions about man and human nature,
including the Christian idea that the nature of man consisted of an immaterial
soul resident in a material body. Second, by the end of the eighteenth
century and the beginning of the nineteenth the popularity of the scientific
method had by implication given philosophical materialism a great deal of
prestige. So materialism began to boco.i:e popular, and the point of view
spread that nothing that we cannot perceive can be taken for granted,
that the only thing we can depend upon is the perception of our senses
playiri u~)on physical matter. The rise of science also reopened philosophi-
cal questi)ns which had ap?)eared settled for centuries. What is the exact
nature of reality? What is man's place in the scheme of reality? Does he
have a place at all? If so, what is it? Is he just an accident? Is the
world an accident or was it deliberately planned?
We have considered the elements of materialism and that is Marxist
metaphysics; and now we will consider the dialectic, which is his method.
Dialectic is also a vc;ry old word in ?uhiloso_hy, and it describes a method
of ar*ument which most of you will be familiar with, and which would run
some-ghat as follows: soL--eone would make a statement and someone else would
make an equally true antithetical statement; and out of those two anti-
thetical statements a third statement could be derived which would be closer
to the truth than either of the first two statements. Now that seems quite
abstract, but an example often given is the derivation of a definition of
man. We can say that man is an animal, which is observably and demonstrably
true. He has all the characteristics of an animal. - some more than others,
co;
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of course. The opposition point of view could be stated, however, that man
is rational, and no animals are rational. We now have two antithetical
statements, equally true. This is a cont-adiction which has long been realized
about human nature and can only be resolved'by the apparent contradiction
that man is a rational animal, the only one known. Now t'e fact that man is
a rational animal is a statement closer to the truth-than either the si-.ule
statement that he is an animal or the simple statement that he is rational;
both of which are true but neither of which is coopletely the. Tl' is is the
dialectic in argument.
Now one or the ele..:e _ts of Hegel t5 philosophy is this: that the world
and human history has evolved i:precisely through just such a clash of opposite
ideas. The world, nature, exists in a constant state of clash of opposites,
and this clash of opposites results in third elements which are closer to
reality than the original two clashing elements; and human history too has
developed as a clash of opposite ideas. Hegel's idea of history was that it
was evolving towards what he called the absolute Idea - he was an idealist,
believing that ideas were the ultimate reality, ?,.d that they were constantly
in conflict with each other. Marx accepted Hegel's idea about the way history
had developed. That is, he believed it develops through clashing of opposite
forces, that is the method; but he did not accept Iiegcl's irleal_ sm. He
admitted that hr'story was es::entially a dialectic process, but in material,
not in idealistic terms. This was Marx's revision of Hegel, that although
history was a dialectical r.rocess, the clash of opposites yielding third
forces which then clashed with their opposites was not a conflict of ideas
but of material forces.
The dialectic itself breaks down into several elements; and we call
these elements the laws of the dialectic. :mod there are three of them -
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that law can be stated somewhat as follows: Every unit in exl;,tence - any
physicr;l object or arrangement of physical phenomena - a table, a mfan, a
light bulb, a clock, a molecule, has within itself interacting opposite
elements. Now if this inter-operation of the opposite elements of a physical
The first law of the dialectic is the law of the unity of opt)osites. Now
unity were static, that is, if those elements just equally balanced each
other out, then that unit would maintain its identity endlessly. In other
words, a molecule not acted upon by any forces within itself, or outside
itself, would remain a molecule of precisely its own substance indefinitely,
forever. And the same is true of human society. If it had not set up within
itself basic contradictions we'd still be in the primitive hunting stage.
However, such is not the case. The inter-action within a unit is a dynamic
action. The opposite poles of being affect each other dynamically and
actively; they act upon each other, and thus force a crisis. In other words,
they conflict. Thus nothing is static, nothing stays the sane. Everything
has within itself the contradictions that make it conflict with itself
and ultimately change itself. No unit in existence can remain static, but
must undergo a conflict within w,;- i-will resolve into a new unit
a new entity, and this in turn will set hp within itself intern!-,.1 contra-
dictions and will further evolve. The original entity in this dialectic
activity is referred to as the thesis. The contradiction within itself that
conflicts with it and destroys it is the antithesis. And the third element,
which derives from that conflict, is called the synthesis. Thesis, conflicts
with antithesis, and resolves into synthesis. Then the synthesis, of
course, is itself a new thesis, and sets up within itself a contradiction
which conflicts internally with it. So much for the unity of opposites.
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J3 aqM law of the 3i .1 rcE 1r r 1,,w ,r ii,e, transfer of quantity
lity. Nature is not riirnpli an ,f quantitative changes,
it just docsnn't uc su rrxa] :, i.c, E
r,x~~; ~a-r"1 ~:r:rsly, cornething else
is going on, a deve lopaent in a ; -1 von 1,1,4:1, r-1Ut1 e f rt:tstj on. A very simple
example is the question of temperature T a body of water and
eucce pively add more and more heat -to It, tent; 1. 1, goes off into steam.
Steam is not water; it is chemically Vie ,.:me as water but it is physically
different. In other words, there has been a qualitative cht nrre brouj'ht
about by a quantitative change of so : ,any degrees of heat. "'tart taking
unit.- of heat away from it, and th . .;team condenses a{r, n Into .,rater; and
if you keep on reducing the temperature, it hec;omee ice. NOW, !according
to Marx, history obeys the ;ame law. It does not resolve into an endless
eerier of mere quantitative changes.
The third law of the dialectic is the ne,t,ti.?n of the negation. 1hI
law simply says that the synthe;;j.s in the dialectic process is the
negation of the conflict between thesis and antithesis. In other words,
the synthesis will be something completely different from the conflict
which venerated it.
We have so far examined the metaphysical position of Marxism, its basic
assumptions about the world and what it is. We have seen that this position
is dialectical materialism. Marx believed that history was a sequence of
physical conflicts Working their way out through a ,rocess of conflict and
change. But what exactly are the physical 'orces involved? In order to
answer this question, we have to apply the dialectical materialist method
to history. It is materialistic, therefore we must look for material forces.
Now, Feuerbach, a materialist who influenced Marx during his residence in
Paris, maintained that man's basic social (therefore material) needs were
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productions reproduction, and communication. Marx rejected reproduction
and cormiunication as basic human necessities, and retained production.
The common end of all men, he said, is production of the physical means
of existence, of the physical necessities of life. This is an activity
in which all men have to engage or have other men engage for them. Such
being the case, production being the basic human activity, all other human
activities are based upon it. Marriage, for instance, is a means of
transmitting and conserving property. Religion is a technique for keeping
the lower classes in line.
But if production of material goods is man's basic activity, what are
the elements of this production? The forces of production are, on the one
hand, man's labor and practical skill; that is, actual physical activity;
and on the other hand, what are called the implements and tools of produc-
tion: tools and techniques. Those are the elements of the productive pro-
cess. What they reduce themselves to is tools, and people - men - to do the
work. Now when these productive forces are changed in any way, when either
the tools and techniques or man's labor and practical skill are changed in
any way, then the productive relationships, as the Marxists call them, are
changed. And when the productive relationships are changed, all other human
relationships are changed. The industrial revolution, for in~;tance9
changed the techniques of production. Therefore, it changed the relation-
ship between the producing people, the owners of the means of production
and the non-owners of the means of production. Therefore, it changed all
other human' relationships. The disintegration of the family in modern life,
for example, may be regarded as a result of industrialization, and consequent
urbanization. The family is no longer the ultimate unit of society as it
was long considered to be. The substructure of society, as Marxists call
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it, consists of the economic relationships. The superstructure consist*
of all other relationships - state, family, religion, philosophy, education,
and so forth. Marx himself and his followers never went so far as to say
that it's only the substructure that affects the superstructure. They admit
that the superstructure also has a great deal of influence on the substructure.
The stages of society according to Marx were (and will be) the
following: first of all, primitive society. And primitive society, he
says, was communal society. The second stage was slave society; the
third stage of development was feudal society; then capitalist society;
and finally, the highest stage of society, socialist society, in which we
return to communal ownership of the means of production. The way this
works, according to Maxon, and according to the nineteenth century
anthropology that he was familiar with, is somewhat as follows: In the
primitive state of man, however that came about, nobody owned the means of
production. This may have been true, particularly in ancient Germany,
the tribes as a whole owned certain parts of the land, and within that
tract of land, every member of the tribe had equal hunting rights; or,
when they got around to an agricultural. economy, in many areas they split
up the land, re-distributed it every year so that one man didn't get the
choice plots of land every year. Thus the means of production of the
physical necessities of life, food, clothing, and shelter were omed in
common by the community, and were exercised by the community. However,
since human society is an element in the physical universe, it had within
itself certain contradictions, which immediately came into conflict. Little
by little, some men would secure the land for themselves, find means of
transmitting that property to their descendants, (hence marriage with
all its attendant difficulties) and of making other
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 dictions which could no longer be endured bb the time of it decline and
collapse, at which time slaves did secure certain rights from their forcer
world. The ancient worlds, however, had also. tself certain basic contra-
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people r,ork for them, end then after a while of exchanging those people
it
who did'the work. So ultimately certain people were owners and other
people gere slaves. And this was the typical situation in the ancient
t1 i)
masters. And this is the origin of the feudal system. Now the feudal
system was not slavery. It had many drawbacks, but it was still not
slavery. The landed peasant had some rights: He could not be bought and
sold; his family couldn't be split up. If the land was sold, he went
the new owner of the land, but he could not be separated from his
family and from the place where he was born.0 without his consent, Lit?-.le
by little, however, certain of these peasants got squeezed off the land or
drifted into towns on their own volition. The towns began to grow and a
rising class of economically independent people began to form in the towns,
to set up shoT)s, and go into businesses. And here you have the origin of
the bourgeoisie.
Now you see what has been happening all along: two forces in society
conflicting with each other and creating a third element. The primitive
communal situation created slavery - a qualitatively higher form of social
organization; feudalism created bourgeois capitalism. Captialist society,
however, according- to Marx, is going to set up within itself, has in fact
done so by our time, the same sort of intolerable contradiction that exist-
ed in all. other forms of society. In other words, the owners within
capitalistic society, althour-h originally the oppressed medieval bourgeoisie,
had by Marx's time become the dominant class in society. They had
destroyed the power of the old aristocracy (land-owners) and had become the
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dominant grass of the early nineteenth century. They were
VM a 94~11erirg to them elver. all the property there was. but certain
other paople ahowed u4, in t},e morning and worked until ni;-ht~ and they had
notbl to cuay about the disposition of the product - they were the workers,
Who dirt trait own anything excep their own labor power, for which trey were
paid a w' go and s out home. Capitalist society, then, is f;o ng to s ;t up
certain ,stresuo too, and there's going to be another conflict by which
we must ru:jtore thu primitive communal organization of society; although
now wo - ;ui do it on a roach hi.; her plane, since the historic process has
released productive forces which were formerly not known. So the next
social-o a true democracy, a rule by all
the people. Bit Lenin again realized that the ordinary man is pretty well
content, and Would slip back into bourgeois ideas. But the state after
the revolution, he said, would lave to be -overned by his small party of
revolutionaries, who really know what's going on and who can guide the
working class. A revolutionary minority, in other words, with no pretense
of majority rule. He developed also the concept of imperialist capitalism.
Now Marx had pointed out that !apitalism would ;-o through a series of ever
more severe crises until the capitalist fabric would disintegrate. That
had not happened by the time Lenin appeared on the scene, and he found the
answer to that difficulty in imperialism. He said that instead of the
old situation in which capitalist companies within capitalist countries
used to compete with each other, we now have competition between different
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capitalist countries. This is the imperialist phase of capitalism,
competing for world markets. Stalin, to bring the theory up to date,
has further modified Harxism since Lenin's death. he has attempted to
*4spt it to changing conditions which the Soviets had to recognize, The
thing that Stalin has been most concerned with for obvious reasons was
pt question of the persistence of the sta,e after the revolution. He did
[ t ways: first' as an answer to capitalist encirclement; the
sin it very consistently in terms of Marxist doctrine, He justifies
J10'iaiism in
onee country,
ezE.sicn the Soviet Union as surrounded on all sides by capitalist
rtes Mho are eager to destroy it; and dependent upon that is the doctrine
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