Karl Marx and German Classical Philosophy

September 17, 2026

Lyubov Akselrod (Orthodox)

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From the text reprinted in:
ПРОТИВ ИДЕАЛИЗМА: КРИТИКА НЕКОТОРЫХ ИДЕАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ ТЕЧЕНИЙ ФИЛОСОФСКОЙ МЫСЛИ,
Moscow 1933. pgs 52 - 64.
on the 25th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx

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On March 14^th, 1883, Karl Marx passed away. On that day the proletariat of the entire terrestrial globe lost its brilliant and devoted leader.

In the current moment, even fierce enemies of the proletariat and opponents of scientific socialism are forced to admit that the spiritual creativity of the author of “Capital” and the practical activity of the father and leader of the workers International, firmly connects the great events of the second half of the 19^th with the dawning promise of the 20^th century. Karl Marx himself represented a rare exception even in the ranks of the great individuals, with whom nature does not often indulge history. A deep thinker and genius, he was at the same time a practical man of action, a passionate, tireless, selfless warrior in the great battlefield of the history of humankind. His choice of a practical revolutionary path was clearly illuminated by the light of theory, but the fruits of practical revolutionary activity filled theory with living substance, instilling new fresh forces in it.

Just as theory and practice flowed tightly together in the personal activity of Marx, so in the dialectical materialism created by him they fused into one united and universal synthesis of life and science, reality and ideals.

The intimate friend and brilliant colleague of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels said: We German Socialists are proud of the fact that we are descended not only from Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen, but also from Kant, Fichte and Hegel. That is indisputable.

Classical German philosophy posed and itself resolved great historical tasks. At the center of its deepest strivings stood issues of practical life in the broad sense of the term.

Under the influence of the maturation and advance of the social upheaval in France, the brilliant thinker Kant set himself the objective of creating a comprehensive philosophical doctrine which encompassed and combined theoretical and practical reason, science with life, ideals with reality. But the backwards economic relations of 18^th Century Germany, the immaturity of the German bourgeoisie, of which Kant was the representative, obstructed the progress of the thinker to the clear, consistent, revolutionary conclusions which the French materialists arrived at in that period.

No matter how much profundity, critical subtlety, and complex logical structure distinguished the grandiose edifice erected by Kant, it in its essence rested on the old metaphysical foundation, and the main question, that of the relation of the ideal to actuality, was resolved by the philosopher in the spirit of the old Christian religion. Therefore, the practical end result to which Kant was led, can in general be reduced to the following positions: Between reality and ideal, or to use Kant’s language between is and ought [emphasis added-trans] lies an unbridgeable abyss. Appearance, the sensible nature perceptible to us, i.e. the whole of the real life surrounding us is imbued with egoism, a cruel struggle for existence and crude animal instincts. In this dark kingdom of evil and merciless egoism, where the unforgiving law of necessity reigns, moral duty, the idea of freedom and high ideals cannot arise. Our high spiritual aspirations are located in full and irreconcilable contradiction with the surrounding actual reality. From the standpoint of Kant there are two worlds with nothing connecting them. One world, that of material nature, perceptible to our senses; the other, imperceptible and comprehensible only to our reason, a supernatural world of high values and ideals.

The human being is a citizen of both worlds. As an egotistic being he is part of sinful nature, pursuing his own personal goals; as bearer of the spiritual ideal he begins to unite to the supernatural world order, which brings to us and our gloomy earth, our moral laws, forms of justice and all our spiritual strivings in general. It follows from this, that the ideal not being derived from reality, cannot become reality. Being an exclusively subjective product of man, it cannot be connected with any real social conditions, it serves only as a guiding thread for the assessment of historical occurrences. Man evaluates reality from the standpoint of his inherent ideal; he strives to implement this ideal in life, but reality remains essentially indifferent to his strivings; it does not give him any definite guarantee¹. It is simple to guess and easy to understand that in the philosophy of Kant, there is established the basis of the so-called “subjective method” in sociology.

The dualistic doctrine of Kant encountered sharp, extensive and sometimes very profound criticisms of different aspects and from different points of view. But the most significant and fruitful were those of Hegel and Feuerbach.

Imbued throughout by the idea of the development of the dialectic, Hegel destroyed the very basis of the Kantian doctrine. In the complete monistic viewpoint of Hegel, two worlds did not exist. The world was singular, indivisible and situated within a continual process of development. There is no abyss between what is and what should be. What is rational is real, what is real is rational-this was the response of Hegel to the question posed by Kant on the relation between what is and what should. Historical ideals flowed out of reality itself, and therefore became reality in turn. Historical ideals because they are generated by the real historical conditions and dictated by them, find their full realization here on earth. We can see that for Hegel, ideals are necessary, integral products of historical development. But despite this positive, scientific resolution of the question, Hegel remained a metaphysical idealist. The starting point of his whole philosophical system was again the supernatural idea, existing somewhere, before the real world. The conclusion, reached by Hegel with the aid of historical dialectics, that social consciousness is the result of developments produced by real life, stands in sharp irreconcilable contradiction to the system as a whole, which emanates from the idealist viewpoint, according to which the pure concept is the root of existence.

Against idealism in general and the idealism of Hegel in particular, intervened Hegel’s student Feuerbach. Having passed through the system of his teacher and having assimilated the dialectical method of his thought, Feuerbach used the weapon of dialectics with striking skill and with its aid he destroyed the idealist construct. Indeed, Feuerbach’s splendid and well known work, “The Essence of Christianity” directed against religious-Christian dogmatism, destroyed the foundation of idealist doctrines as well. With truly wonderful logical art and deep philosophical insight, Feuerbach exposed the total failure of the idealist mode of thinking, showing and demonstrating that it is not the idea or the concept which produces nature, but that nature produces man and man is the creator of ideas and concepts. The view of an ancient thinker, that it was not God who created man in his likeness, but that on the contrary man created God in his, was proven and refined by Feuerbach down to the finest detail. The brilliant and profound criticism of Feuerbach remained however a clear field for Marx’s original and fruitful intellectual labors. Feuerbach discovered the psychological groundings of idealism, he revealed the subjective psychological reasons which had induced man to create the supernatural world and populate his creation with his own thoughts and his own fantasies. But it was there, at that point, that the philosophical labors of Feuerbach were completed. And there where Feuerbach ended, Marx only began.

Marx completely divided the Feuerbachian criticism of idealism; together with Feuerbach he considered the only real and the only possible starting point to be the cognition of actual, material nature. On the other hand, Marx accepted Hegel’s idea of historical development. In Feuerbach’s doctrine, philosophical materialism was correctly grounded by means of a critical approach, but in the system of Hegel there was a comprehensive articulation of the idea of dialectical development.

But Karl Marx went beyond both Feuerbach and Hegel. He constructed a new synthesis, dictated by the whole course of historical development and the action of the revolutionary proletariat on the historical stage. This synthesis is dialectical materialism. Marx expressed its solidarity with the whole materialist base of Feuerbach’s philosophy in the the Holy Family but as for the relation of Marx to Hegel’s dialectics we read the following lines in the preface to Capital:

In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

Taking up the scientific, revolutionary side of the Hegelian system, the dialectical method, Marx at the same time rejected its idealist starting point.

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

And further:

The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

Thus Marx assented to the Hegelian dialectic, setting it on its feet. This means that the idea, the concept, consciousness, which for the idealist Hegel were the source and the starting point, were considered by Marx as the translation and processing of matter in the human brain.

We noted above that Feuerbach arrived at the same materialist conclusion through the criticism of Hegel. Therefore, one can assume that not Marx but Feuerbach transformed the philosophy of Hegel into dialectical materialism. But such a conclusion would be extremely mistaken. Feuerbach used the Hegelian dialectic to criticize idealism, he did not direct sufficient attention to the side of Hegel’s doctrine significant for Marx: the principle of historical development. This primary distinguishing feature in the philosophy of Hegel was insufficiently utilized in the philosophy of Feuerbach because when it came to explaining historical matters that thinker remained an idealist and an incomparably greater idealist than Hegel, in whose works we encounter many points of similarity with the materialist explanation of history.

As an idealist on the historical terrain, Feuerbach stopped at psychology, fully satisfied with a psychological explanation of the emergence of social consciousness. But Marx went further and posed the question more deeply.

From Marx’s viewpoint, explaining social consciousness with social psychology, means engaging in an empty and sterile repetition of one and the same thing. And in fact, what is religion, to the criticism of which a significant part of the work of Feuerbach is dedicated, if it is not a form of manifestation of human psychology? What is aesthetics if it is not an aspect of human psychology?

What are morality, law and philosophy if they are not variations and forms of one and the same human social psychology? Obviously all these areas, the totality of which constitute social consciousness are nothing but social psychology. It clearly follows that explaining social consciousness with social psychology means in essence not explaining anything, it means stomping around in the same place and not moving the explanation of consciousness a single step forward.

Therefore Marx poses a completely new and completely original question, namely: what conditions explain social consciousness itself? We find a reply to this profound and fundamental question in the famous Preface to the Critique of Political Economy:

The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

This formula, sounding so simple and clear, was a genius discovery akin to that of Copernicus. Just as immediate perception suggested the immobility of the earth, so to men endowed with consciousness, and whose every action is accompanied by this or that level of thought, it seemed and still seems to this day that action is directed by and obtains its result in complete dependence upon thought.

Unfortunately, we do not have the slightest possibility of elaborating even from the most general, abstract perspective all the aspects and the full content of the Marxist formula. Therefore, there remains its elementary essence, which, incidentally, presents the greatest difficulties for understanding.

At the end of the day, Marx reduced all social consciousness to dependency upon the productive forces, but the stages of development of the productive forces are conditioned by the instruments of production. Now let's open Capital and see how Marx defines the labor process and the role of the instruments of labor:

Labor -we read- is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway.

Thus, in the viewpoint of Marx’s materialist philosophy man is a part of nature. As a force of nature he acts on other natural forces, which in their turn act upon him. In this process there is a constant reciprocal action in which man cognizes external nature, surrounding objects and their limitless features, and here, consequently, is the basic source of the growth and development of human consciousness.

Let’s continue with Marx and take the following lines:

An instrument of labour is a thing, or a complex of things, which the labourer interposes between himself and the subject of his labour, and which serves as the conductor of his activity. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of some substances in order to make other substances subservient to his aims.

Thus Nature becomes one of the organs of his activity, one that he annexes to his own bodily organs, adding stature to himself in spite of the Bible.

Therefore, we see that for Marx, man with the assistance of the instruments of labor, augments his own organs and, in dependence upon the qualitative and quantitative increase and development of these extra organs, reveals the hidden powers of nature, its laws, gaining knowledge and thus,power over the environment that surrounds him.

For as long as the savage philosophized and contemplated, with metaphysics and mysticism alike, giving himself up to reflections on the mysteries of heaven and earth (there was never any such savage, but metaphysicians and idealists proceeding from the primacy of consciousness must postulate him), investigating their secrets, their mysterious essences, he resembled Heine’s mad man, who waited for a reply from the star.

But if he quickly took an object, making it an intermediary between himself and other objects, adjusting the latter for his immediate needs, he would learn the natural properties of things and establish the base of the scientific and even the philosophical laws of causality.

With the invention of the bow and arrow (which occurred in the later stages of the savage condition) , thanks to which wild birds became regular food, and the hunt-a normal occupation, there emerged some aspiration towards a settled life, with more or less regular procurement of the means of existence, and with this the foundations of social life were laid. But the invention of the bow and arrow was not a consequence of pure thought, a ready made idea, preexisting in the mind of the savage. The purpose and plan of this rather complicated instrument, required a high level of intellectual expertise and refinement, formed gradually over centuries in dependence upon the geographic environment, from the features and forms of the objects given by nature itself under the influence of the inescapable struggle for existence.

The claim of the idealists, as if there lives a constant intellectual curiosity in the human soul, striving to draw general conclusions, to seek first principles, or the so called metaphysical need, rests on the mistake of taking the mental fruits of thousands of years of culture for basic initial preconditions of cognition, but the actual, concrete, real actuality of struggle with external material nature through the mediation of the instrument of labor, constituting modification of nature in its turn, serves as the real, fundamental source of the development of human psychology, cognition and thought.

This seemingly clear, simple and elementary truth was hidden from time immemorial and it required a genius like Marx to reveal the real content of historical movement. And it is easy to understand why. Cultured men, even the most limited, find it incomparably more easy to climb the heights of abstract thought and master philosophical systems, then to descend downwards and understand the primitive forms of instinct, i.e. the microscopic level of consciousness of primitive man. Even modern historians of primitive cultures, researching the daily lives of savages, who have without any doubt done an extraordinarily great deal to clarify the historical development of cognition, often don’t know how to utilize their own observations and wealth of factual material, on account of the absence of a general, strictly thought out, scientific mode of investigation. Idealist prejudices, ingrained in the habit of considering phenomena from the viewpoint of ready made, finished, static forms of thinking are disrupted, and these researchers trace step by step the slow course of development of cognition in its constant dependence upon material life.

Lets return now to Marx’s formula. Marx’s position that “...men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will...”, provoked and continues to provoke persistent and endlessly repeated objections.

Critics and opponents of dialectical materialism interpret this position in the sense that Marx excluded human will and consciousness from historical activity. It is difficult to imagine a more absurd objection. On the contrary, it can be said with unconditional certainty that there is not and cannot be any philosophical worldview which attributes as much immense and broad significance to human action as Marx’s theory. The old materialism with which dialectical materialism shares a common intellectual foundation did not satisfy Marx precisely because due to its pronounced contemplative character it did not understand the role and significance of dynamic activity and dialectical development in nature and especially in history. In Marx’s formula, it is not a question of the historical role of consciousness, but of what is precedent to what, consciousness to being or being to consciousness; the question relates to the method of scientific research and the practical techniques for consciously influencing the social environment. Marx’s theory tells the scholar that exact and correct conclusions can only be reached through the study of concrete reality and the history of its development. It tells the practical man of action that successful, fruitful influence on the social environment is possible only within the framework of a correct and clear assessment of the really existing social forces and their interrelations.

That is all, but that is infinitely much.

The philosophical doctrine of Marx also encounters the reproach that it is nowhere expounded in a full, complete form and that the founder of this doctrine himself was limited to brief, schematic formulations. Such a demand again only exposes a complete incomprehension of the essence of Marx’s world view. It can be said that Marx, foreseeing such an objection in advance, alluded to it when he said “The general conclusion at which I arrived.once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies”. This means that the philosophical doctrines of Marx are expounded in the “Communist Manifesto” in the “Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy”, in the “Poverty of Philosophy” in “Revolution and Counter-Revolution [in Germany-trans]”, “Class Struggles in France”. “The 18^th Brumaire”, “Capital”, then in the compositions by the co-founder of scientific socialism, in “Anti-Duhring”, “Ludwig Feuerbach”, in “The Condition of the Working Class in England” and generally in all the works of Marx and Engels.

Further, historical materialism is embodied in the scientific and brilliant works of Plekhanov, Mehring, Antonio Labriola, Lafarge, and moreover in the works of all Marxists insofar as the latter correctly apply the method of Marx and Engels. The substance of dialectical materialism is such that it in essence, it cannot be expounded in a “full finished form.” Metaphysical systems considered it possible to complete the map of the world once and for all, sometimes compressing it into a very compact work, when a given metaphysician possessed sufficient skill in the business of abstract thought.

It is a different matter for dialectical materialism, which in essence denies the possibility of completed philosophical systems. The book in which historical materialism is presented in its full form is the whole history of culture in its full extent, and Marx revealed the foundation of historical movement, in its objective motive force, showing the method to follow in reading this great book, in order to grasp its intelligent and complex contents. The essence of dialectical materialism consists not so much in the definition and development of its formal principles as in the competent application of these principles to the phenomena of real life. And a great deal was done, precisely in these terms by Marx and Engels. Marx and Engels did not write philosophical works in the professional, specific sense of the term, however their works were the most complete works of genuine, authentic philosophy, and that is because there lived in them an authentic unity, a tight connection between material existence and cognition, between facts and general laws, between reality and ideal-put differently, between theory and practical action in the broadest sense of the word. And precisely such a philosophy was the dream of the greatest geniuses of the human race.

A great deal has been done in the area of Marxism and its school. Superficial, groundless and indeed banal claims by the opponents of Marxism - and at times by its perceived friends - to the effect that the students of Marx did not further advance the doctrine of their teacher, and did not enrich it with new original content, lack any scientific basis. Not to speak of the great followers of Marx whose works doubtless constitute immense contributions to science, even the most insignificant Social Democratic pamphlet contains more scientific content, then the explanations sometimes given of social phenomena, by outstanding thinkers unfamiliar with Marxist theory. Kuno Fischer, for example, believed that diplomatic negotiations by official state representatives were capable of leading to fundamental changes in the course of world history. The famous psychologist William James expressed the deep conviction that the main reason for the great events of the Renaissance and Reformation eras was the rebirth of Plato’s philosophy. Does there really exist anywhere on earth a Marxist who would recount such naive, childish fairytales? Certainly not.

Thanks to their correct scientific method, even Marxist works written on practical, topical themes, in their attentiveness and seriousness in their approach to these, display an incomparably greater intellectual originality and authentic novelty, then larger, more polished works written in the modern style, interpretations of the meaning of life, of the ultimate final goal of being, of the problem of death, and other such issues, as old as the world and boring as the desert, which now have the significance of a distraction from serious life and fruitful intellectual labor. And the most brilliant and most compelling illustration of the success of Marx’s doctrine is that of reality itself, which, whatever is said by our opponents and our enemies, performs its movements in agreement with Marx. And this mighty proof is beaten into the heads of even the main opponents from the bourgeois camp, who against their bourgeois will, sometimes submit to the method of dialectical materialism. Nowadays it is difficult to find a work on ethics, aesthetics, the history of religion, the history of literature etc, where the author does not attempt to draw this or that conclusion on social consciousness from social being, But from another side, the penetration of Marxist thought into the environment of bourgeois science, induces the so-called “crises” of Marxism, which repeat with almost periodic regularity.

The notorious crises of Marxism usually occur as follows: a young (bourgeois) scientist learns about some separate, disconnected positions of Marx’s theory, combines them with his own bourgeois prejudices and as a result of this operation produces an unattractive mechanical mixture, the creator of this mixture embarks on “revision” and with martial haste, triumphantly announces a crisis in Marxism. The crisis occurring in the bourgeois mind on account of a poor grasp of Marxism is taken for a catastrophe of Marxist theory. Therefore, the crises of Marxism don’t indicate the decline of Marx’s doctrine, but on the contrary, illustrate that Marxism is acquiring on scientists in the bourgeois sphere. And it can further be said that the more this influence grows, the more frequently the “crises” of Marxism will be repeated.

Let us in conclusion, return to the initial point of our essay.

Put briefly, to the extent allowed by the narrow framework of this essay, we attempted to reveal the line of succession, which exists between dialectical materialism and German classical philosophy; we showed that German classical philosophy despite its metaphysical essence, pursued mainly practical cultural goals; we showed that Hegel as opposed to Kant, resolved the relation between what is and what should be, between reality and ideal, by historical means. But Hegel, having placed at the base of his doctrine the idea of the development and fertility of all areas of science, himself remained a metaphysical idealist, as a result his philosophy of history as a whole bore a metaphysical and religious character. In fact, according to the idealist viewpoint of Hegel, reality itself, past, present and future reality, is no more than a form of manifestation of the absolute idea, existing beyond the real world and any history. For Hegel, the history of humanity is therefore the external revelation of the development of the absolute idea, and the human and humankind are pawns in the hands of this supernatural force, which commands the fate of nations. Therefore, despite the profound revolutionary significance of the all destroying dialectic, Hegel’s system, as an idealist system, resulted in fatalism, i.e. it left no place for the concrete, independent, revolutionary, conscious labor of people. Marx called this idealist aspect of Hegel’s doctrine the mystical shell.

Discarding the “mystical shell”, Marx took the revolutionary dialectic, putting the system of his teacher on its feet.

Hegel’s starting position became Marx’s endpoint. The “ideal”, i.e. the Hegelian absolute spirit, is from Marx’s materialist standpoint nothing but the translation and processing in the human brain of the material “beginning”. The motor nerve of history is not supernatural essence, but the productive forces, which are the product of the constant reciprocal action between man and nature.

Men make history - says Marx in the “18^th Brumaire” - only involuntarily, not from free choice. In the initial stage of social development, the activity of man is defined by the geographic environment, but in later stages the power of the geographic environment diminishes, to the extent of the increase of the productive forces, but on the other hand the historical path already traversed stands in relation to each new generation as a completed objective force, not created by this generation. But this objective force has nothing in common with fatalism, with the martial command of the supernatural force assumed by the idealists. The creation of the historical environment by the effort of previous generations provides a broad space to each new generation for further creation of living, improved and perfected social forms.

At a certain stage of development, -Marx’s formula further states- the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or - this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution...No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present

Such is the concrete resolution of the great question of the relation between what is and what should be, reality and ideal. New historical tasks, new social ideals grow on the soil of the contradiction between the developing productive forces and the relations of production. Born in the subsurface of reality itself, the new ideals carry their own implementation given within themselves, because “the task itself only arises when the material conditions necessary for its resolution already exist”.

In the period of his inner spiritual struggle, a passionate and patient search for truth, the young nineteen year old Marx wrote to his father:

From the idealism which, by the way, I had compared and nourished with the idealism of Kant and Fichte, I arrived at the point of seeking the idea in reality itself. If previously the gods had dwelt above the earth, now they became its centre.

Karl Marx found what he was searching for, he revealed the idea in reality itself, and with this transferred the gods from heaven to earth. It was a feat comparable with the deed of the legendary Prometheus. And the bourgeois Olympus incited its vultures against the actual Prometheus of the 19^th century, diligently assisting in the shortening of his precious life. But history as a whole is fair and forgiving. The vultures will be forgotten and Marx will live and be remembered by people for as long as the human race exists.