ON SOCIAL CHANGE

The Third Theses on Feuerbach provides a good starting point for understanding Marx.
Sometime in the 1840s, Marx wrote eleven theses criticising Ludwig Feuerbach, a member of the Young Hegelians philosophical school, whose philosophy emphasised on naturalism and materialism.
The Third Theses is particularly interesting because it introduces Marx's views on social change.
Marx wrote very little on revolutionary politics, particularly on the role played by the working-class party in advancing the revolutionary cause.
This subject was left to be developed by twentieth century Marxists such as Kautsky, Lenin, and Gramsci.
A very common view of communism is that it supports an authoritarian and elitist party.
This view is commonly held because all the communist revolutions of the twentieth-century were led by elitist revolutionary parties.
But Marx did not support the role of an elitist party to advance the revolutionary cause.

Until the arrival of Marx, the 18th century philosophers explain social change as stemming from the efforts of enlightened individuals, who somehow could escape from determination by the surrounding conditions.
The 18th century philosophers adopted such an explanation because they adhere to the view that human beings and society are products of conditions (i.e. geography, social situatuion, and education).
If men are the products of circumstances and their upbringing, then how is it possible for them to act on the environment and bring about social change unless the circumstances change by themselves.
But circumstances--the surrounding social, political, and economic environment--do not change themselves.
Thus to explain social schange, Enlightenment philosophy divides society into those enlightened individuals who are free from determination by conditions and those who cannot escape from the fate of being determined.
Since these enlightened individuals are not being conditioned by the circumstances and their upbringing, they know what is best for mankind and can provide the guidance for social changes.
It was against such an elitist conception of social change that Marx wrote the Third Theses on Feuerbach.
'The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated.
Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice'.
In the German Ideology and the Communist Manifesto, Marx talked about the inherent contradictions in the capitalist society, the conflict between the productive forces and relations of production, which engender the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat.
In the German Ideology, Marx wrote: 'Communism is not merely a state to be brought about or an ideal to which reality should conform; what we call Communism is an actual movement which is sweeping away the present state of things'.
Historical materialism and class-consciousness are key tenets introduced by Marx to precisely ensure that his socialism has that scientific basis that would distinguish it from other Utopian socialist beliefs.
(The 'German Ideology', for example, was an attack against the other Left Hegelians such as Max Stirner who wants to impose their ideals on the world)
If there were to be simultaneous changes in both the economic sphere and in the consciousness of people, then the chicken and egg problem of social change will be resolved.
In this Marxian view of history, as the result of the contradiction between the productive forces and relations of production of society, the proletariat achieves revolutionary consciousness and become agents of social change, reducing thereby the role of the party in the revolutionary cause.
An elitist conception of the party goes against the very basic grain of Marx's philosophy of praxis.
Subsequently Marx wrote very little on the relationship between the Communinist party and the proletariat and the strategies of revoltuion.
This topic was to be developed later by twentieth century Marxists such as Plekhanov, Lenin, Kautsky, Luxembourg, Lukacs, and Gramsci.