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Dialectical Materialism Page

Suppressed or difficult to find articles, books, discussions, etc.,
on various topics, issues and questions in Marxist philosophy.

      This web page contains materials on Marxist philosophy (or Dialectical Materialism) from many different countries and from many different eras. We warn the reader that not all of this material is of high quality! In particular, some of the works from the revisionist Soviet Union (c. 1955-1991) are highly suspect. However, we are including works which may in fact have serious errors in them, or even be downright revisionist or social imperialist in their political outlooks, if it seems they may also be of at least some interest from the point of view of MLM philosophy. Perhaps, in some few cases, their only real value is by way of negative example.

      If you know of other documents or items which should be made available here, contact us at: freespeech@bannedthought.net

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Introductions to Marxist Philosophy (Dialectical Materialism):

• [Book:]   “Reader in Marxist Philosophy: from the Writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin”, ed. by Howard Selsam & Harry Martel, reprint ed., (Lucknow, India: Rahul Foundation, 2010 [orig. ed. 1963]), 378 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [15,343 KB]
• [Book:]   “What is Dialectical Materialism: Popular Talks”, by O. Yakhot, (Moscow: Progress, 1965), 226 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [27,810 KB]; WinDjView (.djvu) format   [5,281 KB]
• [Book:]   “Materialism and the Dialectical Method”, by Maurice Cornforth, (NY: International, 4th revised edition, 1978), 131 pages. [First of his 3-volume introduction to Marxist philosophy. This edition contains positive references to Mao’s contributions to philosophy, despite the hostility of the CPGB (of which Cornforth was a member) to Maoism.]   Searchable PDF format   [20,706 KB]
• [Book:]   “Historical Materialism”, by Maurice Cornforth, (NY: International, 2nd edition, 1975), 152 pages. [This second volume is the weakest, i.e., the most seriously infected by revisionist ideas, of Cornforth’s 3-volume introduction to Marxist philosophy.]   Searchable PDF format   [4,551 KB]
• [Book:]   “The Theory of Knowledge”, by Maurice Cornforth, (NY: International, 3rd edition, 1983), 214 pages. [The third volume of his introduction to Marxist philosophy set.]   Searchable PDF format   [9,891 KB]
  Arabic translation, by Naji Al-Aboudi, 454 pages.   Arabic: PDF format   [1,776 KB]  
• [Book:]   “What is Dialectical Materialism?”, by Vassily Krapivin, (Moscow: Progress, “ABC of Social & Political Knowledge” series, 1985), 328 pages. (Our apologies: There is a lot of sloppy underlining on many pages, especially early in the book. We will try to find a cleaner copy later.)   Searchable PDF format   [9,477 KB]
• [Book:]   “The Principles of Philosophy”, by Anatoly Rakitov, (Moscow: Progress, Student’s Library series, 1989), 368 pages. Though sophisticated in some respects, and addressing a number of issues often passed over or merely assumed, at some points this volume is also rather conventional and even naïve. Keep in mind its origin in a dogmatic, revisionist society!   Searchable PDF format   [4,566 KB]

Older and Hard to Find Early Works on Marxist Philosophy:

• “Dialectical Materialism & Communism”, by L. Rudas, (London: Labour Monthly Pamphlets, 1933), 36 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [1,979 KB]
• “Dialectical Materialism: The Theoretical Foundations of Marxism-Leninism”, by V. Adoratsky, (London: Martin Lawrence, Ltd., n.d. (1934?)), 100 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [3,799 KB]
  Reissue of identical volume [we believe], but with different pagination. No publisher specified, 53 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [664 KB]  
• [Book:]   “Dialectical Materialism”, by the “Collective of the Institute of Philosophy of the Communist Academy under the leadership of M. B. Mitin”, 1934. This is a fairly rough recent English translation of the original Russian work, 219 pages. This work is especially strong in its criticism of revisionism and various related philosophical errors. We believe this work, along with its companion volume on Historical Materialism, also had an important influence on China and the entire world Communist movement.   Searchable PDF format   [1,445 KB]
• [Book:]   “A Textbook of Marxist Philosophy”, by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, under the direction of M. Shirokov, translated by A. C. Moseley. English text revised and edited by John Lewis, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1941), Left Book Club Edition, 404 pages. This is a textbook meant for not just philosphers but also many other educated workers, including scientists, engineers, technical workers, doctors, teachers, etc. Note: The introduction to this English edition by John Lewis and his re-writing/editing of the first part of the “historical” section (up through page 129) are somewhat suspect, given the revisionist political line of Lewis which later became much more evident. Nevertheless this is a remarkable and very useful book, especially for its extensive discussion of various principles of dialectics in the rest of the book. —Ed.   Searchable PDF format   [7,505 KB]
• [Book:]   “An Elementary Course in Philosophy”, by Georges Politzer, (Sydney: Current Book Distributors, 1950), 216 pages. [Politzer was a French Communist killed by the Nazis during World War II.]   Searchable PDF format   [5,856 KB]
  “Elementary Principles of Philosophy”, different edition and different translation of the same work, (NY: International, 1976), available online, including at:   https://www.scribd.com/document/308584781/Elementary-Principles-of-Philosophy-by-Georges-Politzer
  “Elementary Principles of Philosophy”, a reprint of the same work, (Paris: Foreign Languages Press, 2021), 192 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [2,378 KB]
• [Book:]   “Materialism and the Dialectical Method”, by Maurice Cornforth, (1953; reprinted in 2015), 122 pages. This early edition does not include the references to Mao’s “On Contradiction” and other works which Cornforth added in later editions.   Searchable PDF format   [1,037 KB]

Materialism vs. Idealism:

• [Book:]   “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism”, by V. I. Lenin (1908), Collected Works, Volume 14, 418 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [2,061 KB]
• [Book:]   “The Riddle of the Self”, by F. T. Mikhailov, (Moscow: Progress, 1980 [Russian ed. 1976]), 265 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [3,119 KB]

Dialectics:

• “On Contradiction”, by Mao Zedong, (August 1937), about 55 pages. This is the very best introduction available for learning about dialectics and dialectical contradictions. Included in Mao Tse-tung: Four Essays on Philosophy, at:   Searchable PDF format   [4,561 KB]
• “Antagonistic and Non-Antagonistic Contradictions”, by Ai Siqi, from his book Lecture Outline on Dialectical Materialism, (Beijing: 1957 [in Chinese]). Translated into English here, and promoting the conception of antagonism/non-antagonism which Mao outlined in “On Contradiction”; 4 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [107 KB]
• “An Attempt to Discuss ‘Antagonism’ and ‘Antagonistic Contradictions’”, by Shan Hong, translated into English from the Chinese language journal Philosophical Research, 1957, #2, pp. 128-132.   Searchable PDF format   [108 KB]
• “The Concept of Non-Antagonistic Contradiction in Soviet Philosophy”, by the American academic, Thomas Weston, Science & Society, Vol. 72, #4, October 2008, 28 pages (pp. 427-454).   Searchable PDF format   [1,558 KB]
• “Dance of the Dialectic: Steps in Marx’s Method”, by Bertell Ollman, (Univ. of Illinois: 2003), 246 pages. Ollman presents a highly idiosyncratic conception of “dialectics”, which though it raises some points of interest, does not at all focus on what Lenin and Mao took to be the central essence of the matter, the presence of dialectical contradictions in things.   Searchable PDF format   [4,934 KB]
• [Book:]   “Shooting the Arrow / Stroking the Arrow: Post-Sixties Maoism in the United States”, by David Morgan, Ph.D. dissertation at Newcastle university (May 2010), 441 pages. Consisting of a novel and a critical essay focusing on dialectics and its interpretation by the RCPUSA and other American Maoists in the 1970s and 1980s.   Searchable PDF image format   [1,512 KB]

Theory of Knowledge [Epistemology] and Cognition:

• “Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?”, by Mao Zedong, (May 1963), 3 pages. This short essay, together with the next item, On Practice, are the best introductions to the Marxist theory of knowledge. Included in Mao Tse-tung: Four Essays on Philosophy, at:   Searchable PDF format   [4,561 KB]
• “On Practice”, by Mao Zedong, (July 1937), 22 pages. The basic presentation by Mao of the Marxist theory of knowledge. Included in Mao Tse-tung: Four Essays on Philosophy, at:   Searchable PDF format   [4,561 KB]
• [Book:]   “Subject — Object — Cognition”, by V. A. Lektorsky, (Moscow: Progress, 1980), 285 pages.   Searchable PDF image format   [4,527 KB]

Philosophy of Science:

• [Book:]   “Philosophy, Science and Man”, the Soviet Delegation Reports for the XIII World Congress of Philosophy, (Moscow: The Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., 1963), 180 pages. The presentation “The Concept of Dialectical Contradiction in Quantum Physics” gets into a number of interesting issues, including the question of whether there can actually be any truly elemental particles.   Searchable PDF image format   [2,908 KB]
• [Book:]   “Philosophical Problems of Elementary Particle Physics”, ed. by I. V. Kuznetsov & M. E. Omel’yanovskii, (Moscow: Progress, 1965 [Russian ed. 1963]), 313 pages. (Digitized by the Internet Archive.)   Searchable PDF image format   [4,929 KB]
• [Book:]   “This Amazing, Amazing, Amazing but Knowable Universe”, by V. S. Gott, (Moscow: Progress, 1977 [Russian ed. 1974]), 262 pages. Focusing on the philosophical problems of modern physics.   Searchable PDF image format   [8,936 KB]
• [Book:]   “Einstein and the Philosophical Problems of 20th Century Physics”, a collection of essays, (Moscow: Progress, 1983 [Orig. Russian ed. 1979]), 520 pages. (Digitized by the Internet Archive.)   Searchable PDF image format   [17,964 KB]
• [Book:]   “Albert Einstein’s Philosophical Views and the Theory of Relativity”, by D. P. Gribanov, (Moscow: Progress, 1987), 269 pages. (Improved scan.)   Searchable PDF image format   [5,367 KB]
• [Book:]   “Dialectics in Modern Physics”, by M. E. Omelyanovsky, (Moscow: Progress, 1979 [Russian original 1973]), 387 pages.   Searchable PDF image format   [9,442 KB]
• [Book:]   “Dialectical Materialism and Soviet Psychology: A Systematic and Critical Analysis of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy and Its Ideological Counterparts in the Development and Content of Soviet Russian Psychological Theory”, by Farida Elizabeth Aboul-Dahab, Master’s Degree Thesis, University of Alberta, 1981, 485 pages. (Digitized by the Internet Archive, 2020.)   Searchable PDF image format   [25,951 KB]
• [Book:]   “Energy and Entropy”, by G. N. Alekseev, (Moscow: Mir, 1986), 208 pages. A science book with numerous philosophical references and/or implications.   Searchable PDF image format   [3,972 KB]
• [Book:]   “Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union”, by Loren R. Graham, (NY: Columbia Univ., 1987), 580 pages. By a non-Marxist Western academic somewhat sympathetic to the Soviet Union.   Searchable PDF image format   [23,635 KB]

Historical Materialism:

• [Book:]   “Marx-Engels-Lenin On Historical Materialism: A Collection”, (Moscow: Progress, 1972), 778 pages. (A small amount of marginal notes; our apologies.)   Searchable PDF image format   [Large file: 63,942 KB]
• [Book:] In Defence of Materialism: The Development of the Monist View of History, by G. V. Plekhanov, first published in 1895, (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1947), 303 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [4,612 KB]
• [Book:] Essays in Historical Materialism, by George Plekhanov, consisting of the two major essays, “The Materialist Conception of History” and “The Role of the Individual in History”. Reprint: (Paris: Foreign Languages Press, 2020), 96 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [1,474 KB]
• [Book:]   “A History of Classical Sociology”, ed. by I.S. Kon, (Moscow: Progress, 1989 [Russian orig. 1979]), 215 pages. Sort of a critique of bourgeois sociology from a Marxist, or semi-Marxist, standpoint.   Searchable PDF image format   [3,535 KB]

Political Philosophy:

• [Book:]   “The Open Philosophy and the Open Society: A Reply to Dr. Karl Popper’s Refutations of Marxism”, by Maurice Cornforth, (NY: International, 1968), 404 pages.   Searchable PDF image format   [28,899 KB]

Ethics, Morality and Freedom of Will:

• [Book:]   “A Dictionary of Ethics”, by a large team of Soviet philosophers, (Moscow: Progress, 1990), 458 pages. This work is even less Marxist-Leninist, and more bourgeois in character, than one would have supposed, though it still has some limited value as a reference work with regard to secondary or subsidiary issues in ethics.   Searchable PDF image format   [34,047 KB]
• “Ethics of Social-Democracy: Two Sermons”, by Joseph Dietzgen, 1875, 20 pages.   Epub format   [77 KB]
• [Book:]   “Ethics and the Materialist Conception of History”, by Karl Kautsky, (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1906 / Recently modified to Epub format), 184 pages. [Although written in reaction to the rise of Kantian ideas within German Social-Democracy, in my opinion this work has not completely broken with Kantianism. In fact the basic stress is still on the development of ethics from earlier social roots, especially Christian ethics (as in fact is also true of Kantian ethical theory itself). Of course there are points of interest here, but this book is quite deficient as a Marxist explication of ethics. —Ed.]   Epub format   [284 KB]
• [Book:]   “Socialism and Ethics”, by Howard Selsam, (NY: International, 1943), 220 pages.   Searchable PDF image format   [8,857 KB]
• “Communist Morality”, by V. Kolbanoski, (Sydney, Australia: Current Book Distributors, 1947), 36 pages. (Our apologies for the yellowed pages.) This pamphlet was translated from the French version which appeared in Cahiers du Communisme, October 1946.   Searchable PDF format   [3,657 KB]
• [Book:]   “The Problem of Freedom in Marxist Thought — An Analysis of the Treatment of Human Freedom by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Contemporary Soviet Philosophy”, James J. O’Rourke, (Boston: 1974), 242 pages. By an American bourgeois academic.   Searchable PDF image format   [5,005 KB]
• [Book:]   “Marxist Ethical Theory in the Soviet Union”, by Philip Grier, (Boston: Reidel, 1978), 295 pages. A summary by an American bourgeois academic.   Searchable PDF image format   [6,655 KB]

Aesthetics:

• General:
  • [To be added.]
• Music:
  • [Book:]   “Jazz — A People’s Music”, by Sydney Finkelstein, (NY: International, 1988 [Orig. edition 1948]), 208 pages. An early defense of jazz by a member of the CPUSA. (In many countries in the 20th Century, including occasionally even from within the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, jazz was erroneously criticized as vulgar, low-class music, or even as a form of “bourgeois decadence”. However, this book does not directly acknowledge and combat these attitudes when expressed within socialist countries.)   Searchable PDF image format   [3,692 KB]

Philosophy in the Soviet Union:

• [Book:]   “Themes in Soviet Marxist Philosophy: Selected Articles from the ‘Filosofskaja Enciklopedija’”, translated and edited by T. J. Blakeley, (Dordrecht-Holland: D. Reidel, 1975), 236 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [7,151 KB]
• [Book:]   “Philosophy in the USSR: Problems of Dialectical Materialism”, a collection of essays by Soviet philosophers, (Moscow: Progress, 1977), 272 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [3,927 KB]
• [Book:]   “The Basic Principles of Dialectical and Historical Materialism”, by A. [Alexander] Spirkin and O. Yakhot, (Moscow: Progress, 1971), 196 pages. Not too bad as long as it sticks to principles of Marxist philosophy, but also includes a number of gratuitous and absurd criticisms of Mao and Maoism.   Searchable PDF format   [2,683 KB]
• [Book:]   “Dialectical Materialism”, by Alexander Spirkin, (Moscow: Progress, 1983), 343 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [14,149 KB]
• [Book:]   “Fundamentals of Philosophy”, by Alexander Spirkin, (Moscow: Progress, 1990), 425 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [27,807 KB]
• [Book:]   “Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy — From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov”, by David Bakhurst, (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 304 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [3,385 KB]

Philosophy in the People’s Republic of China:

• A large number of books and pamphlets from the Mao era, in English and/or Chinese, are available on BannedThought.net at: https://www.bannedthought.net/China/MaoEra/index.htm#Philosophy
• “Some Chinese Dialectical Terminology”, from the MarxistPhilosophy.org website, 1 page.   PDF format   [74 KB]
• [Book:]   Li Da and Marxist Philosophy in China, by Nick Knight, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1996), 337 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [22,410 KB]
• [Book:]   Marxist Philosophy in China: From Qu Qiubai to Mao Zedong, 1923-1945, by Nick Knight, (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2005), 262 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [5,822 KB]
• “Herman Gorter and the Origins of Marxism in China”, by Nick Knight, China Information journal, Vol. XIX, #3 (2005), 32 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [389 KB]
• “Feng Youlan and Dialectical/Historical Materialism, 1930s-1950s”, by Xiaoqing Diana Lin, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 50 (2016), #3, May 2016, pp. 1050-1091. This is an article by a bourgeois “Sinologist” but may still be of interest. She does not get into Feng’s last period when this famous historian of ancient Chinese philosophy strongly supported the so-called “Gang of Four” of Mao’s close followers in the 1970s.   Searchable PDF format   [509 KB]
• “The Struggle for Memory: Jian Bozan on Historical Materialism”, by Dawid Rogacz, International Journal of Asian Studies (2021), 18 pages. An academic article about a proponent of one particular conception of historical materialism within the early Communist Party of China, which was opposed to Mao’s conception, and which was criticized during the Cultural Revolution. Jian Bozan (1898-1968) was rehabilitated by the Dengists after Mao’s death, along with his highly dubious conception of historical materialism.   Searchable PDF format   [448 KB]
• [Much more to be added.]

History of Philosophy:

• General Works:
  • “On the History of Philosophy”, by A. A. Zhdanov, translated from the journal Bolshevik, Aug. 30, 1947, 28 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [194 KB]
• Relationship of the History of Philosophy to Dialectical Materialism:
  • [Book:]   “Problems of the History of Philosophy”, by Theodore Oizerman, (Moscow: Progress, 1973), 464 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [4,940 KB]
  • [Book:]   “The Making of the Marxist Philosophy”, by T. I. Oizerman, (Moscow: Progress, 1981 [Translation of Russian ed., 1977; First Russian ed. 1962]), 497 pages. Part I: From Idealism and Revolutionary Democracy to Dialectical Materialism and Scientific Communism. Part II: Laying the Foundations of Dialectical and Historical Materialism.   Searchable PDF format   [6,063 KB]
  • [Book:]   “Dialectical Materialism and the History of Philosophy”, by Theodore Oizerman, (Moscow: Progress, 1982 [Orig. Russian ed., 1979]), 294 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [4,781 KB]
  • [Book:]   “Principles of the Theory of the Historical Process in Philosophy”, by T. I. Oizerman and A. S. Bogomolov, (Moscow: Progress, 1986 [Orig. Russian ed., 1983]), 359 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [28,274 KB]
  • [Book:]   “The Main Trends in Philosophy”, by T. I. (Theodore) Oizerman, (Moscow: Progress, 1988 [Orig. Russian ed., 1984]), 334 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [4,801 KB]
• Ancient Philosophy:
  • [Book:]   “History of Ancient Philosophy: Greece and Rome”, by A. S. Bogomolov, (Moscow: Progress, 1985), 351 pages. Extensive underlining and marking on the first 80 pages; our apologies.   Searchable PDF format   [14,907 KB]
• Analytic (or Linguistic) Philosophy:
  • [Book:]   “Marxism and the Linguistic Philosophy”, 2nd ed., by Maurice Cornforth, (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1967), 389 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [8,004 KB]
• French Philosophy:
  • “France: Defection of the Leftist Intellectuals: A Research Paper”, by CIA analysts, November 1985, 22 pages. Celebrates the right-wing and anti-Marxist trend among contemporary French philosophers and other intellectuals.   PDF format   [1,229 KB]
• Other Areas in the History of Philosophy:
  • [To be added.]

Bourgeois Philosophy (Criticism Of):   [See also: Political Philosophy]

• [Book:]   “Post-Modernism Today”, by Siraj [Indian revolutionary], (Utrecht: Foreign Languages Press reprint, 2018), 240 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [872 KB]

Other Topics in Philosophy:

• [To be added]

Journals Focused on Dialectical Materialism:   [From various Marxist or semi-Marxist philosophical perspectives, though politically often supportive of revisionist parties and countries (such as the state-capitalist Soviet Union).]

• Nature, Society and Thought: A Journal of Dialectical and Historical Materialism   [U.S. — Published from 1987-2007 by the Marxist Educational Press in Minneapolis, and edited by the physicist Erwin Marquit. (This quarterly journal had a solidly pro-Soviet revisionist political perspective, but still had occasional articles of philosophical or theoretical interest.)]
  • Index of Articles and Authors (Vols. 1-20), 61 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [207 KB]
  • Most of the issues of this journal are still available on its own website, at: http://mep-publications.net/nst.html
• Science and Nature   [U.S. — Independent journal (1978-1989), but from an often revisionist political perspective. These are all the issues published.]
  • Issue #1 — 1978, 68 pages. (Scanned from a xerox copy, but still quite legible.)   Searchable PDF format   [5,761 KB]
  • Issue #2 — 1979, 76 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [6,274 KB]
  • Issue #3 — 1980, 92 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [7,769 KB]
  • Issue #4 — 1981, 92 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [8,537 KB]
  • Issue #5 — 1982, 104 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [9,805 KB]
  • Issue #6 — 1984, 92 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [8,854 KB]
  • Issue #7-8 — 1986, 164 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [15,977 KB]
  • Issue #9-10 — 1989, 194 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [16,664 KB]
• Science & Society   [U.S. — Independent academic journal with Marxist roots, covering not only philosophy and political economy, but also other topics. Originally associated with the Communist Party, USA. The issues from the early decades are generally of more interest to Marxist revolutionaries.]
  • Index for 1936-1961 (Vols. 1-25), 146 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [10,560 KB]
  • Index for 1962-1986 (Vols. 26-50), 239 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [9,171 KB]
  • Index for 1987-2020 (Vols. 51-84), 70 pages.   Searchable PDF format   [391 KB]

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