Karl Marx: Dialectical Materialism and the Vision of Communism

Karl Marx: Historical Materialism

Like Hegel, Marx shared the idea that reality is not static, but dynamic and changing, full of contradictions that compel it to transform. He understood this dynamic as a product of material forces and relations (unlike Hegel) that occur in reality. Marx, unlike Hegel's idealism, chose a materialistic position.

This materialism does not represent ideologies that determine a concrete reality, but conversely, it is the material reality that produces its own ideology. The cultural conditioning, religion, customs, and morals of a community are shaped by specific economic relationships and tensions within its production system. In other words, it is not ideas or the spirit that construct reality and history, but the social and economic conditions that define a community's worldview. The infrastructure or economic system of a community determines its superstructure.

Marx's Dialectical Approach

Therefore, we can say that Marx, to the same extent that he is Hegelian, is also anti-Hegelian. He shares Hegel's conception of becoming as a historical and dialectical process, whose motor is internal contradictions and oppositions. But he is anti-Hegelian because this process does not see the deployment of the spirit, but rather the opposition and overcoming of various systems of production of material goods. That is why it is considered Marxist dialectical materialism, because it is matter or the economy that drives history.

In other words, materialist Marxism argues that history moves dialectically, driven by the tense relations of production. This process can be understood as follows:

• Thesis: A specific economic system, due to internal inconsistencies.
• Antithesis: Generates its own opposite, its negation.
• Synthesis: From the confrontation of both, a new social and economic situation arises.

This process, the negation of the negation, thus leads to a higher stage. With this conception, historical materialism becomes a method for the analysis and demarcation of social reality. According to Marxists, this method is used to discover the mechanisms that reveal historical development and the contradictions generated in the relations of production.

Class Struggle and Revolution

These exploitative and oppressive relations between those who possess the means of production (owners) and those who only have the workforce (the proletariat) cause their negation and overcoming. The workers revolt and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat (antithesis). From this opposition arises a new economic and social situation: Communism (synthesis).

The Vision of Communism

Marx's historical materialism advocated the arrival and establishment of communism, a new social and economic order in which humanity would be freed from exploitation and oppression. Marx considered communism a natural evolution of capitalism. According to Marx, capitalism was unsustainable because it would face increasingly severe crises.

The phase of capitalist production will inevitably be overtaken by a transitional stage, a negation, which will be a domain or dictatorship of the proletariat. Then the state will no longer be bourgeois but a proletarian state. This, however, will only be a transition to the arrival of communism.

Communism, the final stage of negation or synthesis, will lead to the disappearance of the state and will be the last and final stage of history. According to Marx, communism marks the end of history because it will abolish private property, and hence, class divisions will disappear. When the means of production belong neither to the bourgeoisie nor the proletariat, but become the possession of humanity, there will be no differences between classes. This dissolution of classes will eliminate the social struggle that has been the motor of history. Therefore, the history of humankind will cease, and humanity will finally enjoy peace, equality, and freedom.