What is Dialectical Materialism? (വൈരുദ്ധ്യാത്മക ഭൌതീകവാദം) മലയാളം|UG| Political Science

Dialectics is “nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought”
Engels (Anti-Duhring)

“The component parts of Marxism fall under main headings, corresponding broadly to philosophy, social history and economics—Dialectical Materialism, Historical Materialism and Marxist Economics.”
Rob Sewell
These are the “Three sources and three component parts of Marxism”- Lenin


Only dialectical materialism can explain the laws of evolution and change, which sees the world not as a complex of readymade things, but as a complex of process, which go through an uninterrupted transformation of coming into being and passing away.

Marxism points the way to an all-embracing and comprehensive study of the process of the genesis, development, and decline of social-economic formations.
Heraclitus c.535–c.475 BC

According to Plato dialectic was the process of thinking by which the dramatic conflict of ideas was resolved by definition.

According to Hegel, contradiction is the moving principle of the world” and it became one of the basic principles of philosophy.
According to Hegel, dialectic was a process by which all ideas in the world developed. Hegel was an idealist and regarded the Mind as the ultimate substance of the universe. The only reality was the absolute idea—the universal spirit—or God.

Dialectics as a process means that historical processes go by opposites. Every tendency when grown to the full, breeds an opposite tendency which destroys it. Opposition and contradiction are found everywhere in nature and thought. The opposing tendencies move towards equilibrium or unity. This unity is not permanent. Again, contrary forces appear. The lower form is negated in the higher. According to Carew Hunt, “the dialectical process is thus one of the thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The thesis affirms a proposition. The anti-thesis denies, or in Hegelian terminology ‘negates’ it. The synthesis embraces what is true to both the thesis and the antithesis, and thus brings us one step near to reality.

Dialectical materialism holds that the world is by its very nature material. The various phenomena of the world constitute different forms of matter in motion, and the world develops in accordance with the laws of movement of matter. The evolution of the world is not one of the ideas or Universal Spirit, as held by Hegelian Idealists, but the evolution of Matter of material forces, Matter generates sensations, perceptions and consciousness. Thought is the product of matter. Therefore, the matter is primary and mind or thought is secondary.

Hegelian dialectics combined with Marxist materialism becomes dialectical materialism.

According to Hegel, “Contradiction is the moving principle of the world”.
Dialectical materialism holds that the world is by its very nature material.

The matter is an active agent, moving from the necessity of its own nature. It contains its own contradictions, which result in movement.

Marxian dialectics holds that contrary forces are present in every stage of society and constitute the moving forces in history. The present capitalist stage is also faced with its anti-thesis, the proletariat. The capitalists and the workers are in conflict with each other. The result of this class war will be the establishment of a classless society.

All phenomena are connected with, dependent on, and limited, by each other.
Internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena, for all things have something dying away and something still developing. The struggle between the opposites constitutes the process of development and transformation.

Old materialism was non-historical, non-dialectical and did not adhere consistently and comprehensively to the standpoint of development.

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
Karl Marx