It was precisely Marx who had first discovered the great law of motion of history, the law according to which all historical struggles, whether they proceed in the political, religious, philosophical or some other ideological domain, are in fact only the more or less clear expression of struggles of social classes, and that the existence and thereby the collisions, too, between these classes are in turn conditioned by the degree of development of their economic position, by the mode of their production and of their exchange determined by it.
Friedrich Engels, Preface to the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1885)
What is history?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary of English provides four branching definitions for the word history, ranging from simply a tale, all the way to the common slang expression of something that is finished (you’re history). The commonly-understood definition of history as an academic subject would be that history encompasses all of the things that have happened in the past. But, is this sufficient? Bound up within this popular understanding remain numerous contradictions, giving rise to a multitude of antagonisms of thought, ideology, political economy, identity, and so on.
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. So begins the first chapter of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. Taken in its most immediate form, then, the question of what is history, from the Marxist-Leninist standpoint, is that history is class struggle. However, Friedrich Engels would add a footnote to the 1888 English edition of the Manifesto specifying written history; that the social organisation existing previous to recorded history was, at the time of his writing, all but unknown. He then elaborates that [w]ith the dissolution of the primeval communities, society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes, and points to his work, The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, as a study on the development of such pre-history. It is then clear that specifically written history is the history of class struggle; but what of history as a whole?
Beginning at the simplest, and therefore broadest position, Marx writes in The German Ideology (1845), that:
One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. The two sides are, however, inseparable; the history of nature and the history of men are dependent on each other so long as men exist.
Therefore, we begin with the understanding that history in its broadest sense is the synthesis of natural history (what Marx calls the history of nature), the history of material reality as it exists without the intercession of human society, and social history (what Marx calls the history of men): the history of human society. Of specific importance is Marx’s imposition that these two components are dependent on each other so long as men exist; identifying humanity’s central role as the subject of history, but that this role is by no means independent of the natural world. That is, as Marx later famously asserts in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852):
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.
That is, that while humanity stands in the position of prominence as the subject of historical progress, it does not do so beyond the natural world or beyond the shaping influences of material reality. That all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living is not only a statement of fact, of our condition as material beings situated in the context of our own existence and that which both precedes and succeeds it. More acutely, it is a lamentation of the ensuant necessity for each generation to maintain the struggle onwards to higher progress, towards the final synthesis; that the wheels of human history shall drum ceaselessly to the rhythm of the trends of time formed by the conflict of social classes, shaped by and situated within their natural context, until such conclusion is reached that the contradiction of human existence is finally solved: Communism or extinction. It is only then that history, for Marx, can be said to have ended. It follows, then, that the Marxist conception of history may be understood as the progressive development of human society within the context of material reality, tending ultimately towards Communism or extinction. Taken cumulatively, we possess the basic conception of historical materialism, the Marxist-Leninist theory of history.
Historical Materialism
The fundamental orientation of Marxist-Leninist thinking in regards to the study of history, as we have discussed here, is summed up by Comrade Joseph Stalin in his 1938 work on Dialectical and Historical Materialism:
Historical materialism is the extension of the principles of dialectical materialism to the study of social life, an application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the phenomena of the life of society, to the study of society and of its history.
History, from the Marxist-Leninist perspective, may be understood as the dialectical motion and material (socio-economic) development of human society over the course of time within the confines of natural space (reality). Philosophically, this view reflects historical materialism as the synthesis of the Hegelian conception of history as the progressive development of human society towards ultimate unity, and the materialist understanding of all phenomena being rooted in the motion of physical reality. History unfolds, so-to-speak, from the struggle between social classes; oppressor and oppressed; old and new; contracting and progressing; dying and living. This unfolding of history may be visualized as occurring in a mirrored, multidimensional spiral, rather than as a flat circle or two-dimensional line, with its beginnings at the point of human emergence, and its immediate endpoint, for our purposes, at the development of Communist society or the dissolution of the human race; each point encompassing its own unfolding of antagonistic contradictions.
A clear elaboration of historical materialism came from Leader Kim Il-Sung, of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, when answering questions from Nepal’s RSS News Agency in 1982, as recorded in On Some Points of the Juche Idea (2020):
The masses of the people are the subject of history. This means that they are the central figure in history and that social movement is realized by them.
Society does not mark time but moves and progresses continuously. Society moves forward as the position and role of the masses, the subject of history, are enhanced.
The masses of the people are responsible for social movement, and they are also the motive force of social progress. Their activity underlies social movement, and society develops owing to their independence and creativity. The independence and creativity of the masses develop and this results in the movement and development of society. This is the law-governing process of social development.
It is precisely this understanding of the oppressed masses as the subject (주제 Juche) of historical progress that the Juche idea (주체사상 Juche sasang) would develop: the application of, and further development from, Marxism-Leninism to the living and breathing society of Korea. In other words, while human society is shaped and underpinned by material reality, it is human society’s interaction with that material reality in turn that defines history: without the masses of human society, “history” ceases to exist. This is also one reason for why Korea’s Juche governance is considered one of many novel developments from the application of Marxism-Leninism, and not separate from it.
Eras and Epochs
Through the lens of historical materialism, Marxist-Leninists are able to identify the general trend of human socio-economic development through a number of epochs: primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism. Of particular importance is the understanding that such epochs appear generally, unevenly, and non-linearly; varying greatly in terms of time, place, progression. Within the context of such epochs, each society, insofar as it continues to exist, undergoes numerous, varied, and potentially unique eras of socio-economic development, crisis, or dissolution. Thus, each society arises within the context of its unique combination of material characteristics and contradictions.
For example, the birth of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic on 02 December 1975 saw the underdeveloped and war-torn nation leap from feudalism into a form of early Socialist development, formulated by the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party as beginning a new era of building Socialism without going through a period of capitalism; rather than feudal relations and production giving rise to capitalist ones over the course of decades or centuries, feudal-colonial rule was overcome by the People’s Revolutionary Party and the People’s Democratic Republic in one fell swoop. Similar progressions, or great leaps, may be said to have occurred in China and elsewhere as well, albeit in their own unique manner. Such great leaps, however, do not come of their own volition, or as the result of great men, or by accident; as with all such ruptures, it arises precisely as the highest expression of mass- and revolutionary-development within the context of the broader contradiction between local society and global humanity (that is, the broader context of material reality).
In all cases, the great leaps we may observe in the Socialist nations of China, Laos, Vietnam, Korea, and Cuba today are the fruit of revolutionary victory; that, having achieved mass unity and solved the erupting contradiction(s) of that society at that time, that continued revolutionary development accelerates the development of the society’s own wellbeing, propelling them ultimately towards Communism. It thus appears that these leaps are themselves the continuation of revolutionary action within those societies, of building Communism in the real, and of the emergence of Actually-Existing Socialism. That is, that each “leap” in national development (giving rise to new eras and epochs) is itself representative of the people’s democratic dictatorship solving further contradictions in a more expeditious manner than would otherwise be possible under the dictatorship of capital. Such developments are inherently revolutionary, as they arise precisely from the domination of the revolutionary masses. Such developments, however, do not exist within isolation: while the internal contradiction may be solved, external contradictions may nevertheless stymy some developments and give rise to internal crises, as is most acutely exemplified in the case of the Republic of Cuba. It has therefore been the clear necessity of each Socialist nation to answer the question of how to survive the imperialist siege from without and the counterrevolutionary siege from within, and the ultimate aim of all freedom-loving people in the present epoch to solve the primary contradiction plaguing humanity: capitalist imperialism.
The underlying force for the emergence of a new era is precisely the development and interplay of the society’s internal and external contradictions; the balance of forces between progression and regression, and their ultimate rupture towards ever-higher stages of emergence. In all cases, as Leader Kim Il-Sung once proclaimed, it is the masses themselves who are the subject of this history, and are, therefore, in the place of prominence; that, as Marx declared, the history of nature and the history of men are dependent on each other so long as men exist. This ultimately shows that, in the struggle of dialectical motion, it is the arising class and the arising of progress which is inherently in the leading position. The arc of the moral universe, as Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King jr. said, bends toward justice; so too the arc of history bends towards forward motion (progress) and higher emergence. It is likewise for this reason that at times such an arc may be more or less acute; that progress may arrive more or less slowly, depending precisely upon the intersection of the masses within a given society, its internal and external contradictions, and the balance of forces.
Historical progress does not come of its own volition, however, as it is the collective action of the masses that shapes the arc of history, the trend of the times, and the dialectical emergence. If the masses themselves, having been shaped within material reality, do not unite strongly enough or act boldly enough to meet the moment of rupture, then there will necessarily be a setback in the progress of that society (or even humanity as a whole). No greater example of this exists than the illegal dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; a historic tragedy and setback for all of humanity that arose out of the combination of the USSR’s own internal and external contradictions, alongside a shift in the balance of forces, ultimately rendering the progressive masses unable to maintain their ship against the tide of counterrevolution. Such events, such human tragedies, are no more a proof against the arc of materialist history than any other human tragedy, precisely because they represent merely temporary setbacks; what was once lost in the Soviet Union at the turn of the old millennium has now been far exceeded in the rise of the People’s Republic of China in the new one. So too, if China falls tomorrow, it will do so only to be replaced by the next revolutionary movement, rupture, and leap forward. Such is the march of human history, that the dialectical unfolding towards final unity may only be thwarted by the destruction of humanity as a species.
The New Era
In the present period, a new great leap is beckoning the emergence of a new Socialist epoch and the emergence of a new, Socialist-oriented ordering in the world: digitization, automation, and internationalization—hallmarks of the new productive forces emerging, most pronouncedly, in the People’s Republic of China. Greater still, and perhaps most powerful of all, is the imminent emergence of superintelligent artificial general intelligence (SAGI), photonic computing, quantum supremacy, and net energy gain via fusion and other advanced energy sources. Each force represents on its own a qualitative shift in the relations of production; altogether, these emergent forces represent the long-awaited and overdue obsolescence of capitalism precisely as a result of the coalescence of historic and progressive forces as embodied most broadly in the rise of the Global South.
Simultaneously, however, is the emergence of a new wave of fascist regression and the threat of war, as the old powers cling desperately to their position of imperialist domination, and the most reactionary sections of the ruling imperialist class rapidly coalesce around a program of open terror. This new fascist coalescence is, likewise, neither an accidental nor an unprecedented development; it is the reaction, the barbarism, the desperate hanging-on, of dead history.
Just as the forces of progress and historical unfolding coalesce and begin their drive onwards, so too do the forces of regression and historical atrophy; the antagonism of these two forces is, most fundamentally, the crisis of the imperialist era, which will ultimately find its solution in the emergence of a new era: Socialism or barbarism. The decisive factor in the outcome of this struggle rests with the working and oppressed peoples of the whole world, and their organized intervention in the balance of historical forces; either in a revolutionary capacity towards the emergence of Socialism, or in the wretched state of techno-slavery induced by the emergent imperialist-fascist class.