Last week in Lenin in a Year, we delved into an important text that Lenin wrote amidst the 1905 Revolution: Two Tactics of the Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution. The revolution, however, went down to defeat. In the wake of the counter-revolution, all kinds of pessimism and mysticism swept Russia. These moods even infected layers of the Bolsheviks, reflected in attempts to revise Marxist philosophy. This week we republish Alan Woods’ excellent introduction to Lenin’s 1908 work, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, in which Lenin launched a strident defence of dialectical materialism.

Wellred Books proudly presents the new edition of Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-criticism. In this classic text, Lenin brilliantly explains the fundamental principles of the materialist philosophy of Marxism. This edition contains a new introduction by Alan Woods, In Defence of Materialism, which is presented here. The book is available here, and also in ebook format here.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born 250 years ago on 27 August 1770 into a petty-bourgeois family in the German city of Stuttgart. A towering genius with an encyclopaedic mind, Hegel revolutionised every field that he dedicated himself to. The impact of Hegel’s ideas cannot be underestimated, and as Marxists we owe him a tremendous debt.

In this talk from the Revolution Festival 2018, Daniel Morley of the Socialist Appeal editorial board examines one of the most long-standing questions of philosophy: what is consciousness?

In this talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Hamid Alizadeh looks at the ideas of Georg Hegel, the German thinker who resurrected the philosophy of dialectics.

The following is an introduction to the latest publication by Marxist Books, The Revolutionary Philosophy of Marxism, by the editor of In Defence of Marxism, Alan Woods. This new selection of writings on dialectical materialism is now available for purchase at a special launch price on MarxistBooks.com.

Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, launched a new book, The Revolutionary Philosophy of Marxism, at the 2018 Northeast Regional Marxist School in New York City. This selection of writings on dialectical materialism, with an introduction by Alan, is available on MarxistBooks.com at a special launch

Speaking at a 2018 'Marx in a Day' event, celebrating Karl Marx's 200th birthday, Alan Woods (author of 'Reason in Revolt') discusses the philosophy of Marxism - dialectical materialism. 

On 3 August, Alberto Garzón, the leader of the Spanish United Left (Izqierda Unida, or I.U.) posted an article entitled "Is Marxism a scientific method?" Under the guise of presenting a 'scientific' critique, Garzón was preparing a break with Marxism. Like every revisionist in history, he disguises this break with the excuse of 'modifying' the ideas of Marx. In reality, he was jumping on the bandwagon of those 'left' leaders who are making a dash for the 'centre ground'.

Dialectical materialism is the logic of motion, development, and change. By embracing contradiction instead of trying to write it out of reality, dialectics allows Marxists to approach processes as they really are, not as we would like them to be. This selection of writing on Marxist philosophy aims to arm the new generation of revolutionary socialists with these essential ideas.

In this article, Ben Curry explains the development of scientific thought from a Marxist perspective. Ben introduces the dialectical materialist outlook, explains how it applies to the natural world and demonstrates how the ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome laid the foundations for modern science. Science is always rooted in class society, and the lack of a dialectical materialist perspective has led some modern scientists back to the idealism and mysticism that the bourgeoisie railed against in its revolutionary phase.

Ben Curry provides an in-depth history of the contrasting philosophies of idealism and materialism.

In this video from the 2017 October Revolution festival, Daniel Morley (of the Socialist Appeal Editorial Board) discusses the theoretical differences between the philosophies of Marxism and postmodernism.

A growing number of scientists are becoming discontented with the old outlook. The rapid rise of the theory of Chaos and Complexity is one of the most significant developments in science at the turn of the new millennium. Many of the ideas expressed by this new trend are strikingly similar to the theories of dialectical materialism worked out by Marx and Engels over 150 years ago. A significant part of the present work is devoted to an exploration of the relationship between Marxist philosophy and the new theories. Will this encounter provide the basis for a new and exciting breakthrough in the methodology of science?

In this talk from the Revolution 2016 weekend school, Hamid Alizadeh discusses the history of philosophy in Ancient Greece, looking at the early developments in terms of dialectics and materialism - the foundations to the revolutionary philosophy of Marxism: dialectical materialism.