German Ideology.pdf

THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY : THE THEORY OF HISTORY AND

THE HISTORY OF THEORY*

Gary K. Browning

The central concern of this paper is to argue that The German Ideology should

be analysed and interpreted as an integral whole. Its various sections are

intimately related to one another and share a community of purpose and

character. In design and practice, The German Ideology is a work devoted to

the history of theory. The character of the project upon which Marx and Engels

are engaged in The German Ideology is clearly conveyed in the subtitles of its

two volumes, ÒCritique of Modern German Philosophy according to its repre-

sentatives, Feuerbach, B. Bauer and StirnerÓ and ÒCritique of German

Socialism according to its various prophetsÓ. 1 The sections on Feuerbach,

Bauer and Stirner which constitute Volume 1 explain and criticize the respec-

tive philosophical positions of these Young Hegelian Theorists by relating

them to one another and tracing their source in HegelÓs absolute idealism. The

second volume, dealing with German socialism, is concerned to identify and

criticize the attachment of German socialists to the language and concepts of

philo- sophers in the Hegelian tradition analysed in the first volume. The central

concern of The German Ideology to criticize contemporary theories shapes its

well-known statements on materialism, historical method and alienation.

Marx and Engels composed The German Ideology between 1845 and 1846,

during which period they revised drafts and re-arranged passages. This process

of re-ordering the text should warn commentators that the sense of any particu-

lar passage in the text might depend on sections removed from its location in

the last draft which Marx and Engels prepared. In particular, Marx and Engels

re-worked the opening section on Feuerbach to include material developed

initially in the course of their critique of Stirner which forms the third section

of the first volume. Carver in a recent discussion of The German Ideology ,

however, emphasizes that this process of revision was never formally com-

pleted, Òthe text The German Ideology was never revised to the point that the

* A version of this paper was initially presented to the Marx panel at the 1992 PSA

Conference. I am grateful for the comments of participants at the Panel and, in particular,

for the helpful suggestions on this paper given by a reviewer for History of Political

Thought .

1 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology (Moscow, 1976). This complete edition of

the text is referred to throughout this article.

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XIV. No. 3. Autumn 1993

456

G.K. BROWNING

discussion was properly organised and clean copy preparedÓ. 2 While Marx and

Engels made repeated, if unsuccessful, efforts to secure publication of the text,

only the section on Grun of the second volume was published in their lifetime. 3

This precedent of publishing parts of The German Ideology separately has been

followed subsequently, notably in the distinct focus upon the opening section,

on Feuerbach, in English-language versions of excerpts from the complete

text. 4 The conventional practice of critics has likewise concentrated upon the

opening section, to the virtual exclusion of the remainder from consideration.

This focus of critical attention runs counter to the relative lengths of the

sections in that the section on Stirner forms by far the largest part, constituting

two-thirds of the entire work. An exclusive focus upon the opening section of

The German Ideology , therefore, underrates this devotion of attention towards

Stirner and neglects the provenance of parts of the opening section in critical

reflection upon Stirner. Moreover, the significance of Stirner on MarxÓs

thought has been indicated in a general way by Arthur and Kolakowski in

perceptive studies of MarxÓs intellectual development, and by Thomas in his

study of MarxÓs relationship to anarchist theorists. 5 Again, McLellan, in his

informative study The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx , while generally assess-

ing the section on Stirner as arid and containing only occasional bright spots,

has nonetheless adverted rightly to the influence of Stirner on MarxÓs criticisms

of Feuerbach. 6 In the brief, retrospective summary of the development of his

ideas outlined in the Preface to A Critique of Political Economy , Marx himself,

far from isolating and highlighting the opening section of The German Ideol-

ogy , refers to it instead as a text composed of two volumes that is devoted to

the overall theoretical task of criticizing post-Hegelian philosophy, in which he

2 T. Carver, ÒReading Marx: Life and WorksÓ, in The Cambridge Companion to Marx , ed.

T. Carver (Cambridge, 1991), p. 17. See also the note on the manuscript and its composition

in Marx and Engels, The German Ideology , pp. 635Î6.

3 See the informative comments on the efforts exerted by Marx and Engels in D. McLellan,

Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (London, 1973), pp. 152Î3.

4 The first English version of the opening section was published in The Marxist , no. 3 (July

1926). The Labour Monthly , 15 (3) (March 1933), published an excerpt from the opening

section. The German Ideology Part One , edited with an Introduction by C.J. Arthur

(London, 1973), has been extremely influential in focusing critical attention upon the

opening section of The German Ideology .

5 C.J. Arthur sketches the significance of the place of Stirner in MarxÓs intellectual

development in C.J. Arthur, The Dialectics of Labour (Oxford, 1986), pp. 121Î5. Kola-

kowski draws attention to the impact of StirnerÓs thought on MarxÓs conception of the

individual in L. Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism. Volume 1 (Oxford, 1978),

pp. 161Î73. See also ThomasÓ comments on the significance of the Marx/Stirner relation-

ship which reinforces this articleÓs line of argument. P. Thomas, Karl Marx and the

Anarchists (London, 1985), pp. 125Î75.

6 D. McLellan, The Young Hegelians and Karl Marx (London, 1969), pp. 129Î37.

THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY

457

and Engels were resolved Òto settle accounts with our erstwhile philosophical

conscienceÓ. 7

A token of the intensity of the critical orthodoxy concentrating interpretative

commentary upon the opening section of The German Ideology is the adher-

ence of both Althusser and Avineri to this conventional practice,

notwithstanding their profound disagreement over the extent to which The

German Ideology constitutes a ÒbreakÓ in MarxÓs intellectual development. 8

Ironically, given his awareness of the impact of Stirner on MarxÓs thought, this

critical orthodoxy is epitomized by the verdict on The German Ideology offered

by McLellan in his Karl Marx: his Life and Thought , and in his Karl Marx:

Selected Texts , in which he observes: ÒBy far the most important part of The

German Ideology is the unfinished section on Feuerbach.Ó 9 McLellanÓs identi-

fication of the source of this sectionÓs significance as residing in a

self-contained exposition of a theory of history is equally uncontroversial:

McLellan takes this theory of history as being developed out of the following

elements, Òa general statement of the historical and materialist approach in

contrast to that of the Young Hegelians, a historical analysis employing this

method, and an account of its immediate future Ï a communist revolutionÓ. 10

This reference to the contrast between the materialist and historical approaches

of Marx and Engels and that of the Young Hegelians, however, signals the

problems associated with the prevalent way of reading The German Ideology .

The development of a Òtheory of historyÓ in the opening section is not readily

detachable from the on-going, wider context of a history of theory in which the

process of settling accounts with post-Hegelian ideologies, undertaken

throughout the work, provides the polemical and conceptual, discursive setting

for the formulation of a distinctive theoretical standpoint.

The remainder of this paper aims to establish the importance of reading The

German Ideology as an integral whole, in which the opening section, like the

7 K. Marx, Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy , in K. Marx and

F. Engels, Selected Works (Moscow, 1970), p. 182.

8 See S. Avineri, Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge, 1968), where

Avineri in his discussion of The German Ideology concentrates overwhelmingly on the

opening section Ï Stirner, to whom over half The German Ideology is devoted, receives a

single, inconsequential reference. Likewise in L. Althusser, For Marx , trans. B. Brewster

(London, 1969), there is merely a single, insignificant reference to Stirner. Surprisingly,

given AlthusserÓs understanding of The German Ideology as registering a ÒbreakÓ in MarxÓs

theoretical development, it contains very few specific references to the text at all. While the

discussion of The German Ideology in For Marx is therefore conducted at some distance

from the text, the thrust of its essays is to suggest that the putatively important ÒbreakÓ from

Feuerbach is to be located in the opening section.

9 McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought , p. 144.

10 Ibid , p. 159.

458

G.K. BROWNING

later ones, is best understood by observing and recognizing its connections with

the other sections. This reading of The German Ideology will be explored in a

number of interrelated ways. The elaboration of the overall approach to histori-

cal study undertaken by Marx and Engels is in fact charged and informed by

the entire workÓs criticism of the theories of history formulated by Young

Hegelian theorists. In particular, its characterization of the division of labour

as involving alienation which is to be superseded by means of a communist

revolution is shown to involve patterns of thought and a normative conception

of man which is resumed and explicated in the subsequent section on Stirner.

Ironically the impact of this conception of man upon the conception of history

outlined by Marx and Engels in the opening section is shown to run counter to

their professed concern to frame a view of history without reference to such a

standard. The entire account of communism in the opening section resonates

with the protracted engagement with the notion of the individual, and the

conditions and character of an individualÓs activities undertaken in the section

on Stirner. The interpretative possibilities of a reading of The German Ideol-

ogy , which takes its constitutive sections as being linked by an on-going

engagement in the history of theory, will be further demonstrated by relating

the materialist approach to history, sketched in the opening section, to the

operational character of the history of theory undertaken throughout the work.

The viability and implications of the sketch of a materialist approach to history

is explored by investigating the apparent independence of thought assumed by

Marx and Engels in their practice as historians of theory and by examining the

explanation offered by Marx and Engels in the section on Stirner for the

apparent detachment of German theoretical thought from material conditions.

Finally, evidence of the considerable and complex impact of Hegelian and

Young Hegelian theories, drawn from all sections of The German Ideology , is

assembled to investigate the claims of divergent interpretations of how The

German Ideology is related to MarxÓs intellectual development.

In articulating their method of approach to history in the opening section of The

German Ideology , Marx and Engels develop for the first time a materialist

conception of history which focuses theoretical and revolutionary attention on

the material record of historical development envisaged as being shaped by and

exemplified in the practical engagement of men in their productive activities.

In generally characterizing their outlook on history, however, Marx and Engels

portray ideas and consciousness in striking and highly controversial terms.

Ideological conceptions are deprecated as being mere reflexes and echoes and

are portrayed as being derivative and historically inconsequential. The lan-

guage of Marx and Engels is challenging and unequivocal; ÒThe phantoms

formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material

THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY

459

life-process which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises.

Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding

forms of consciousness thus no longer retain the semblance of independence.Ó 11

This is a radical statement, and the severity of its reductionist standpoint

requires explanation. An explanation can be provided in the character of the

enterprise upon which Marx and Engels are continuously engaged throughout

The German Ideology ; a polemical encounter with a number of Young

Hegelian theorists. Just as Miller in Analyzing Marx: Morality, Power and

History has remarked that the extreme model of productive force determinism

presented in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

is to be explained by MarxÓs polemical concern to highlight industrial devel-

opment in pointed contrast to Proudhon and the Utopian Socialists, so the

extremism of the materialism presented in The German Ideology is to be

explained by its polemical contrast to the abstract formulations of the Young

Hegelians. 12 The general, polemical characterization of the Young Hegelian

theorists employed in the Preface to The German Ideology approximates

closely to some of the terms in which thought and consciousness are sub-

sequently portrayed in the opening sectionÓs presentation of its historical

outlook and, in so doing, suggests that the thoroughly reductionist character of

those terms is a product of the hostility of Marx and Engels to Young Hegelian

ideas. In the Preface, Marx and Engels characterize the Young Hegelians in the

following terms: ÒThe products of their brains have got out of their hands. They,

the creators, have bowed down before their creations. Let us liberate them from

the chimeras, the ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings under the yoke of which they

are pining away.Ó 13 Bauer, Stirner and prophets of German socialism, following

Young Hegelian practice, are specifically inveighed against in subsequent

sections of The German Ideology for undertaking accounts of history manufac-

tured by the mechanical operation of abstract thought determinations which

effect no purchase on the empirical world. 14 The point of the trenchantly

provocative expression of the ÒmaterialistÓ standpoint in the opening section of

The German Ideology resides in the determination of Marx and Engels to

highlight their opposition to Young Hegelian reliance upon abstract, philo-

sophical speculations to order and shape their accounts of history.

11 Marx and Engels, The German Ideology , p. 42.

12 See R. Miller, Analyzing Marx: Morality, Power and History (Princeton, 1984), p. 178.

Miller in this book highlights the general discrepancy between generalized, epigrammatic

statements of Marx on the historical process and his actual, detailed historical accounts.

13 Marx and Engels, The German Ideology , p. 29.

14 The paradigm for such accounts of history, for Marx and Engels, is HegelÓs, though they

accord more respect to his historical procedure than to his successors. See ibid ., pp. 189Î90.

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