Literary Theory Introduction to Marxism, Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
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Introduction to Marxism
Marxism is a political and social movement as well as a critique of capitalism. It presents an analysis of society, its problems and a solution. Its works were written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Let us understand how do Marx and Engels interpret literature. Marx’s major contribution was to the development of its ideas. Engels, on the other hand, contributed ideas and popularized Marxism. Marx and Engels announced a system in Communist Manifesto as Communism based on their ideas. They opposed the domination of one class over another and imagined a classless society.
The Marxist theory originated in the mid-nineteenth century and its development and systematization became possible in the 1920s after the October Revolution of 1917.
In the consequence of the revolution, the ‘socialist realism’ emerged as a literary tradition which focuses on the struggle of the socio-economic condition of the working class in relation to the suppressive power structure.
Marxism’s influence is not limited to the socialist realism of Soviet Russia only, it also glimpses in the works of eminent writers such as Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Bertolt Brecht.
Marxism analyzes society in terms of class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Marx’s Communist Manifesto explains the historical background that led to the development of modern capitalist society wherein the bourgeois (ruling class) exploits the proletariat (working class).
Marx gives the solution to social problems as a classless society whose development is theoretically based on the development of each individual. Marxism aims at achieving this goal through the revolutionary process, through the annihilation of the capitalist system.
Marxist literary criticism holds the view that a writer’s work is shaped by social institutions and prevailing discourse of his time. It does not regard writers as autonomous individuals. Marxist approach interprets a work of art by putting it into its historical context and analyses conflicts of historical forces and social classes.
The Marxist approach is based on ‘dialectical materialism’. The term was coined by German Marxist Joseph Dietzgen in 1887. This concept focuses on the material conditions of society. It emphasizes matter as the fundamental basis of nature. It, thus emphasizes that consciousness is determined by social existence.
Marx viewed that material conditions have contradictions. These contradictions are what Marxism resolves. The concept is inspired by Hegelian dialectics. Marx’s dialectics differs from Hegel’s in a way that Marx’s focus is on material while Hegel sees contradictions in ideas. Hegel holds the view that consciousness determines social existence.
Karl Marx
Karl Marx was a German philosopher. He was born in 1818 to Jewish parents in a petty-bourgeois family. In his varsity life, he studied law, history, and philosophy. In 1841, he completed his Ph.D. on the philosophy of Epicurus. His life of philosophy is marked by two lines of thought. Initially, he was Hegelian in his views. Later on, an epistemological break led him more towards science.
In 1843, Marx moved to Paris where he met Frederick Engels. Both planned to work together on their Marxist credo and came up with their first substantial work The German Ideology.
The major portion of the work was directed as a response to Feuerbach’s materialism. They put forth the concept of the materialist conception of history and critiqued philosophers like Bruno Bauer and Max Stirner. They believed that philosophers have had enough talk on philosophy but were unconcerned to change the world.
In the very book, Marx says, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it.” This attitude of Marx led him to formulate Communism as a practical solution to the problem of oppression in society.
Marx’s radical views became the reason for his banishment from Paris in 1845. Marx then moved to Brussels where he with Engels joined a secret society, the Communist League. Their association with the society resulted in The Communist Manifesto which was requested in League’s Second Congress (1847). The work reflects upon ideas such as materialism, class struggle, tasks of the communists and the revolutionary role of the working class.
Marx uses the materialist concept of history as an approach to the analysis of society. According to this approach, history is considered to be the result of material conditions. The approach is a rejection of the idealist concept of history which holds the view that history is driven by human consciousness.
Marx influenced generations of philosophers through his ideas which as a theoretical approach became Marxism. Marx’s view regarding all human civilization is that it is a result of class struggle. He explains it in his The Communist Manifesto, “history of all hitherto existing society is history of class struggles.” He sees in society a constant fight between the oppressed class and the oppressor.
Marx in The Communist Manifesto gives a solution to the problems of inequality and oppression in the form of communism. He wants to bring the people of the working-class together so that they do away with the capitalist society and establish a communist system.
“Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
As the eldest son and an heir to his father’s textile business in England and Germany, Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher and businessman. He was an author as well as a co-author of communist credo with Karl Marx. Engels and Marx were actively engaged with the philosophical group Young Hegelians.
However, conflict of ideas between Marx-Engels and other members of Young Hegelians led them to disassociate from the group. Beginning their collaboration in 1884, they wrote a joint work The Holy Family. One of Engels’ major works is The Condition of Working Class in England which he wrote on the basis of his personal experiences and his study of the cities in England.
Engels with Marx propounded ideas such as alienation theory and the materialist conception of history. The theory of alienation concerns with the distancing (estrangement) of people from their own self and from humanity.
The alienation from the self ceases people’s thoughts to direct their own actions. This condition happens because of living in a capitalistic society that compels people to direct their labor rather to mechanical processes of life than themselves.
The materialist conception of history holds the view that history is the result of not an individual’s consciousness and philosophical ideals but the material conditions. Thus, this approach towards the perception of reality is that reality is material creation. On the other hand idealist conception of history views that reality is immaterial that’s human reality is a mental creation.
Another concept that is considered to be the cornerstone of Marxism is the exploitation of labor. Under the purview of socialism and communism, there are principles for the distribution of welfare to each person according to their needs and work.
The Marxian idea of such distribution is for the development of each individual as the development of all. When society does not function on these principles, the exploitation of labor happens. It is the working class which is exploited. They are exploited because the amount of labor they put forth does not equate their wages.
On the other hand, it is the bourgeois class or the ruling class which exploits the working class (proletariat). The bourgeois class exploits in the way that it puts forth less labor but is benefitted more than the proletariat class.
Talking of the class struggle between the dominated and dominating class, Engels in his Preface to German Edition (1883) of Communist Manifesto writes:
“this struggle… has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time ever freeing the whole society from exploitation, oppression and class struggle.”
Friedrich Engels
However, Engels ascribes the development of basic Marxist thought to Marx, “the basic thought belongs solely and exclusively to Marx.”
