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Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow                               

Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism

PART ONE

THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST WORLD OUTLOOK

Chapter 1 - Philosophical Materialism


The indestructible foundation of the whole edifice of Marxism-Leninism is its philosophy - dialectical and historical materialism.

That philosophy regards the world as it actually is, views it in the light of the data provided by progressive science and social practice. Marxist philosophical materialism is the logical outcome of scientific knowledge gained over the centuries.


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1. The Development of Progressive Materialist Science in Struggle against Reaction and Ignorance

The history of science has been marked by the ceaseless struggle of progressive scientists and philosophers against ignorance and superstition, against political and ideological reaction. In every exploiting class society there are forces, the reactionary social classes, that stand to lose by the dissemination of progressive scientific views. In the past they either directly opposed science and persecuted progressive scientists and philosophers—even burning them at the stake or imprisoning them—or sought to distort scientific discoveries so as to deprive them of their progressive, materialistic implications.

In ancient Greece, the materialist philosopher Anaxagoras was banished from Athens as an atheist. The works of the outstanding materialist philosopher Democritus, one of the founders of the atomic theory of matter, who rejected divine intervention in nature and human affairs, were subjected to destruction during several centuries, as a result of which not one of them has come down to us.

The ancient Greek materialist philosopher Epicurus, a disciple of Democritus, who sought to liberate man from fear of God and to assert the validity of science, was for two thousand years anathematised by the leaders of the Church, who falsely depicted him as an enemy of morality and disseminator of vice.

After Christianity had been made the state religion of Rome, the memorials of ancient civilisation were ruthlessly wiped out by 22 the priests and monks. In particular, in 391 A. D. a horde of fanatical Christians tore down the ancient cathedral of Serapis and destroyed what was left of the greatest library of the ancient world, that of Alexandria. Pope Gregory I (590–604), an inveterate enemy of secular science and learning, destroyed many valuable works of ancient authors, notably the works of materialist philosophers.

The Inquisition, the papal invention for suppressing all opposition to the Catholic Church, savagely persecuted all progressive thinkers. In 1600, on the orders of the Inquisition, Giordano Bruno, the great philosopher and scientist who upheld the Copernican doctrine, was burnt at the stake. In 1619, another great thinker, Lucilio Vanini, was done to death in Toulouse, France—on the orders of the Inquisition, his tongue was torn out and he was then burnt at the stake. The Inquisition tried to force Galileo, the famous Italian astronomer who upheld the Copernican theory, to renounce his views. Voltaire, the great French philosopher of the Enlightenment, was imprisoned in the Bastille, and another eighteenth-century French materialist philosopher, Diderot, was also sent to prison.

It should not be imagined that the struggle of the reactionaries against science was confined to ancient or medieval times. It is being waged in the capitalist era too. The capitalist class is interested in promoting the natural sciences—physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc.—that are closely connected with technical advance, but it is not at all interested in spreading the materialist philosophy, the scientific world outlook that enables men correctly to apprehend reality and to know how to react to it in their activities. That is why bourgeois ideologists do everything they can to prevent people from drawing materialist and atheistic conclusions from scientific discoveries, for they consider such conclusions dangerous to capitalist domination.

Marxism-Leninism and its philosophy, dialectical and historical materialism, are especially hateful to the reactionary bourgeoisie. A veritable army of bourgeois professors specialise in “refuting” Marxism.

True, in our day the reactionary bourgeoisie does not burn progressive scientists and philosophers at the stake. But it has other means of exerting pressure on them: dismissal from universities and scientific institutions, factual deprival of opportunities to publish their works, moral and political discrediting, etc. In recent years, all these methods of combating "dangerous thoughts" have been widely employed in the United States and a number of other countries. By these methods and by the propaganda of reactionary ideology, the ruling class “conditions” people’s minds, instilling ideas it wants them to accept and obstructing the spread of progressive, materialist ideas.

But thorny as the path of science and materialist philosophy is, and despite the many ordeals they have to face in an exploiting 23 society, they are able, in the end, to surmount all obstacles and make steady headway.

The strength of progressive materialist science and philosophy resides in the fact that they reveal the laws of nature and society, teach us to apply these laws in the interests of mankind and dispel the darkness of ignorance with the light of genuine knowledge.