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What is dialectical materialism

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

This article argues that dialectical materialism is not an abstract philosophical optional extra for Marxists, but the indispensable theoretical foundation of the entire Marxist outlook. The central claim is that the working class cannot achieve its emancipation without a scientific philosophy that grasps the world as a process of constant change, contradiction, and transformation. Formal logic and "common sense" are adequate for everyday practical tasks but break down when confronted with complex, drawn-out processes — precisely the kind of processes that constitute history, class struggle, and social revolution. Dialectical materialism provides the working class with a "philosophy of action" — a method for understanding the underlying laws of motion of nature and society, and therefore a guide to intervening consciously in the class struggle.

The article insists that philosophy is inescapable: everyone has a philosophy, whether they know it or not. Under capitalism, without a conscious scientific outlook, workers unconsciously absorb the ruling class's ideology — the fatalism of "things will never change" or the empiricism that mistakes surface appearances for reality. Dialectical materialism is therefore a weapon in the class struggle, not a matter of academic curiosity.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the classical Marxist tradition as developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and Plekhanov. It draws on the three "component parts" framework Lenin set out in The Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism: dialectical materialism (philosophy), historical materialism (social history), and Marxist economics. The article situates itself within the materialist tradition stretching from the ancient Greek atomists through Bacon, Hobbes, and the French materialists, to Feuerbach, and then to Marx and Engels' revolutionary synthesis.

The key theoretical moves are:

  • The critique of formal logic: The article follows Engels and Trotsky in arguing that formal logic (the logic of identity, non-contradiction, and the excluded middle) is valid within limits but becomes a barrier to understanding when things are in motion. Dialectical logic is to formal logic as higher mathematics is to lower mathematics — it does not abolish the lower form but transcends it.

  • The materialist inversion of Hegel: Hegel rescued dialectics from the ancient Greeks but encased it in an idealist framework where the movement of the concept was primary and nature was a mere "alienation" of the Idea. Marx and Engels "turned Hegel on his head" by demonstrating that the dialectical movement of thought is a reflection of the dialectical movement of the material world.

  • The three laws of dialectics: The article systematically presents the law of the transformation of quantity into quality (and vice versa), the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, and the law of the negation of the negation. These are presented not as abstract formulas to be imposed on reality, but as laws discovered in nature, history, and thought.

  • The unity of theory and practice: Following Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, the article insists that the point is not merely to interpret the world but to change it. Dialectical materialism is not contemplative but active — it provides the working class with the theoretical tools to understand its own historical mission.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article was published in 2005, a period when the ideological offensive against Marxism was at its height following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The "end of history" thesis was still dominant in bourgeois discourse. The article directly confronts this conjuncture:

  • It notes that "since the collapse of the Berlin Wall" there has been a "ferocious ideological offensive against Marxism, communism, revolution, and such like," with bourgeois ideologues repeatedly proclaiming that "Marxism is dead."

  • It argues that the growing crisis of capitalism is objectively demonstrating the validity of Marxism to millions of people, and that "life teaches" — a Leninist formulation meaning that experience itself drives workers toward revolutionary conclusions.

  • The article makes a concrete political intervention regarding the British Labour Party and trade unions. It argues that the leftward shift within the trade union bureaucracy (after two decades of attacks on the working class) would inevitably be reflected within the Labour Party, leading to the demise of the Blairite right wing. This is presented as a direct application of dialectical method: the ultra-lefts who wrote off the Labour Party as permanently unreformable were guilty of formal logic, seeing only the surface appearance rather than the underlying contradictory processes.

  • The article also takes aim at "state capitalist" theories of the USSR, arguing that they applied a mechanical either/or logic (either socialist or capitalist) and therefore failed to understand Trotsky's analysis of a degenerated workers' state. This is presented as having had concrete political consequences: supporters of the state capitalist theory ended up supporting the reactionary mujahideen in Afghanistan and remaining neutral during the actual capitalist counter-revolution of 1991.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is explicitly the first in a planned series of study guides. It points forward to:

  • Future study guides on Historical Materialism and Marxist Economics: The article states these will be dealt with in subsequent issues, completing the three component parts.

  • The recommended reading list: The article directs readers to Engels' Anti-Dühring, Dialectics of Nature, and Ludwig Feuerbach; Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism and Philosophical Notebooks; Plekhanov's The Monist View of History; Trotsky's In Defence of Marxism; and Woods and Grant's Reason in Revolt.

  • Trotsky's ABC of Materialist Dialectics: This is reproduced in full within the article and serves as a concise summary of the dialectical method, particularly the critique of formal logic and the concept of "tolerance" in scientific thinking.

  • The discussion group format: The article includes questions for discussion and a suggested reading list, indicating that the text is designed as a pedagogical tool for organised Marxist education.

The argument about the Labour Party and trade unions — that quantitative changes in consciousness would lead to a qualitative shift — is a concrete political claim that would need to be tested against subsequent developments. The article does not develop this into a full analysis of the British labour movement; it uses it as an illustration of dialectical method.

Connections

This article connects to:

  • Engels' Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature: The primary sources for the three laws of dialectics and the critique of metaphysical thinking.

  • Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks: Particularly the "On the Question of Dialectics" fragment, which Lenin wrote while studying Hegel during the First World War. Lenin's insistence that dialectics is the theory of knowledge of Marxism — not merely a set of examples — is central to the article's argument.

  • Trotsky's ABC of Materialist Dialectics: The article reproduces this text in full. Trotsky's formulation that dialectical thinking is to vulgar thinking as a motion picture is to a still photograph is one of the most accessible presentations of the method.

  • Alan Woods and Ted Grant's Reason in Revolt: The article cites this as a key text on the relationship between dialectical materialism and modern science, particularly the work of Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin.

  • Plekhanov's The Development of the Monist View of History: A classic exposition of historical materialism that the article recommends for further study.

  • Marx's Capital: The article presents Marx's method in Capital — beginning with the simplest cell-form (the commodity) and unfolding all the contradictions of bourgeois society from it — as the model of dialectical exposition.

Key Quotes

  1. "Dialectical materialism is the philosophy of Marxism, which provides us with a scientific and comprehensive world outlook. It is the philosophical bedrock — the method — on which the whole of Marxist doctrine is founded."

  2. "The dialectic and formal logic bear a relationship similar to that between higher and lower mathematics." (Trotsky, quoted in the article)

  3. "The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of reality which consists of eternal motion." (Trotsky, quoted in the article)

  4. "Dialectics reduces itself to the science of the general laws of motion, both of the external world and of human thought — two sets of laws which are identical in substance, but differ in their expression in so far as the human mind can apply them consciously, while in nature and also up to now for the most part in human history, these laws assert themselves unconsciously, in the form of external necessity, in the midst of an endless series of seeming accidents." (Engels, quoted in the article)

  5. "Dialectics is the teaching which shows how opposites can be and how they become identical — under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another — why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another." (Lenin, quoted in the article)

  6. "The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute." (Lenin, quoted in the article)