Dialectical Materialism

QUESTION: What is dialectical materialism?

ANSWER:

Dialectical materialism is said to be the precursor for and synonymous with Communism. The term dialectical materialism is originally credited to Russian revolutionary and social philosopher Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (1857—1918).

Webster's defines Materialism as a philosophical doctrine stating that matter is the only reality and that everything in the world, including thought, will, and feeling, can be explained only in terms of matter: opposing idealism. Dialectical Materialism is the method of logical ideals used by Hegel and adapted somewhat by Karl Marx to observable social and economic processes, based on the principle that an idea or event (thesis) generates its opposite (antithesis) leading to a reconciliation of opposites. Taking it further and differing from Hegel, Marx said of his own method "the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought."¹

These philosophies abounded during the revolts of the 1800s and early 1900s that ousted autocratic rulers and czars. To fill the void of Bolshevism and Menshevism, Plekhanov pushed his countrymen toward his philosophies. Plekhanov purposed the philosophical theory to unify other conflicting theorists. Their unification would disallow other foreign philosophies from entering. Dialectical Materialism later became the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party. From such man-made philosophies came Economical Materialism, Socialism, Marxism, and Communism. Not unlike Darwinism, in throwing off not only all notions of a monarchial rule, they disallowed all notions of faith and references to anything spiritual. These philosophies were fact only based and anything else was considered a hindrance, namely the intangible -- faith.

Never before, except for Great Babylon, had the distinction between man's will and God's will been so profound. The promotion of materialism and self rule is a dangerous path. This in itself becomes an idolatrous religion and religion was said to be "an opiate of the people" (Marx). This opiate philosophy brainwashes its society to operate as mechanical beings. They are forced to abandon freedoms of true life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In addition, they are allowed neither guidance from, nor accountability to, a sovereign God.

All economic and governmental experiments which exalted Man have eventually fallen. Mankind, in all his attempts to rid himself of tyrannical control, looked to his own philosophies for answers, instead of to God.