The Biological Essence of Communism

Marxism/Leninism depends on the theory of evolution. Karl Marx made it very clear that Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species contained the scientific basis for his views on the class struggle. Some even defined Marxism as "Darwinism applied to human society."

Just as the theory of evolution explained how man arrived on the scene from a molecule, so the theory also explained how society evolves. The major trouble with Darwin, from the Marxist perspective, is Darwin’s slow, gradual process of natural selection.

Marxist dialectical materialism called for something more than just gradual progression. The dialectic needs a theory with clashes (thesis against anti-thesis) and leaps (synthesis). While the struggle for existence may answer to the clash of the dialectic, nothing in Darwin answered to the leap.

The recent theory of punctuated equilibrium, however, seems to satisfy the dialectical demand. Punctuated equilibrium posits a natural world that manifests species stability for great periods of time but occasionally ruptures or leaps from one species to another.

The mechanics of such abrupt leaps in nature are still being sought. Some suggest a reptile laying an egg in which a bird emerges as a starting point for discussion, but few defend such a suggestion.

Recently, Marxist biologists have stressed the power of beneficial mutations to create the jump in evolutionary development. Not surprisingly, Marxist biologists are using the inability of the fossil record to sustain the weight of the Darwinian theory to bolster their theory of punctuated equilibrium.

Then, too, with an atheistic base the subject of origins calls for the self-generation of nonliving matter. Marxist biology defends spontaneous generation despite the fact that it is a pre-scientific concept dating back to the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Greeks.

Engels says he will "believe" in spontaneous generation no matter what Louis Pasteur and other scientists say or do to disprove it. In fact, Engels sees no scientific experiments capable of disproving the theory. The Marxist attitude is simple: given time, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and energy from the sun, matter is obligated to create life. According to the Marxist, we are the practical result of just such a materialistic matrix.

While Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were developing their communistic worldview, Charles Darwin was presenting his theory of evolution and creating quite a stir among the intellectuals of the nineteenth century. Many people perceived Darwin’s theory as providing the foundation for an entirely new materialistic perspective on life. Indeed, Marx and Engels were among those who recognized the usefulness of Darwin’s theory of evolution as just such a foundation.

In a letter to Engels, Marx writes, "During . . . the past four weeks I have read all sorts of things. Among others Darwin’s work on Natural Selection. And though it is written in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis in natural science for our view."

Marx expresses the same sentiment in a letter to Lassalle, claiming that The Origin of Species "is very important and serves me as a natural scientific basis for the class struggle in history."

John Hoffman tells us that Marx so admired Darwin’s work that he "sent Darwin a complimentary copy of Volume I of Capital and tried unsuccessfully to dedicate Volume II to him."

Marxists are well aware that Marx depended on Darwin’s theory of evolution for his materialistic and social/historical worldview. F. V. Konstantinov, in The Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, states, "It was the discovery of the law of the conservation of energy, of the unitary cellular structure of all living organisms, and Darwin’s theory of the evolution of biological species that provided the foundation on which Marx and Engels built dialectical materialism."

Theodosius Dobzhansky gave a paper in 1974 entitled "The Birth of the Genetic Theory of Evolution in the Soviet Union in the 1920s." In this paper Dobzhansky made it clear that while some scientists in the U.S.S.R. have reservations about certain aspects of Darwinian theory, they "still accepted evolution as part of the new gospel."

He further said, "Evolution was accepted not only as a scientific theory but also as a part of the liberal worldview. . . . [S]tandard bearers of the radical youth proclaimed that a valid personal philosophy must rest on a solid base of natural science, and evolution was a pivotal part of that."

Why do Marxists embrace the theory of evolution so readily? Partially because it provides a picture of man’s origin that is largely consistent with the Marxist dialectic and supports the Marxist notion that man’s social history is a constant and continuing process. In fact, the Marxist theory of history and society is merely an extension and distortion of Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Darwin, Marx, and Society Marx believed that Darwin’s evolutionary theory could be extended naturally to answer questions about human society. He felt that society, like life itself, had gone through an evolutionary process and must continue to undergo such a process until a classless society evolved.

Marx integrated this notion of evolution into his worldview, writing, "Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature’s technology, i.e. in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as instruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organization, deserve equal attention?"

Engels makes the claim even more straight-forward: "Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history." This claim has been reaffirmed throughout Marxism’s development. V. I. Lenin echoes the founding fathers, stressing the scientific nature of their theory:

Just as Darwin put an end to the view of animal and plant species being unconnected, fortuitous, "created by God" and immutable, and was the first to put biology on an absolutely scientific basis by establishing the mutability and the succession of species, so Marx put an end to the view of society being a mechanical aggregation of individuals which allows of all sorts of modification at the will of the authorities (or, if you like, at the will of society and the government) and which emerges and changes casually, and was the first to put sociology on a scientific basis by establishing the concept of the economic formation of society as the sum-total of given production relations, by establishing the fact that the development of such formations is a process of natural history.

Leon Trotsky says that "taken in the broadly materialist and dialectical sense, Marxism is the application of Darwinism to human society."

G. V. Plekhanov sees Marxism as "Darwinism in its application to social science." Obviously, virtually all Marxists perceive Darwin’s theory of evolution as an essential pillar in their communist worldview. This is due largely to the fact that it complements their social and historical theory so well; but of course, there is another, more important reason.

Just as the notion of God destroys the Humanist theo-logy, the slightest hint of God is directly opposed to the Marxist theology.

Atheism, as we have seen in Marxist/Leninist theology, is the very core of Marxist theory - their worldview is only consistent and coherent without God in the picture. As soon as one acknowledges the existence of God, or even of the supernatural, Marxism crumbles. Therefore, Marx and his followers eagerly embraced a theory that makes God unnecessary for the origin of life.

Marx proclaims, "Darwin’s volume is very important . . . not only is the death-blow dealt here for the first time to ‘teleo-logy’ in the natural sciences but their rational meaning is empirically explained."

Engels is especially aware of the ramifications of Darwin’s theory: "Darwin must be named before all others. He dealt the metaphysical conception of nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings, plants, animals, and man himself, are the products of a process of evolution going on through millions of years."

And elsewhere he writes, "nowadays, in our evolutionary conception of the universe, there is absolutely no room for either a creator or a ruler."

Konstantinov, in The Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, echoes him: "Darwin’s theory of evolution is the third great scientific discovery that took place in the middle of the l9th century. Darwin put an end to the notion of the species of animals and plants as ‘divine creations’, not connected with anything else, providential and immutable, and thus laid the foundation of theoretical biology. . . ."

This "‘great scientific discovery" is crucial. Without the theory of evolution, the design of the universe could be explained only by postulating a rational, purposeful, powerful God, and this is inconceivable for the Marxist. Engels demonstrates his awareness that teleology must be explained either by evolution or by the existence of God when he cites Darwin’s theory and concludes:

Thereby not only has an explanation been made possible for the existing stock of the organic products of nature, but the basis has been given for the prehistory of the human mind, for following all its various stages of evolution from the protoplasm, simple and structureless yet responsive to stimuli, of the lower organisms right up to the thinking human brain. Without this prehistory, however, the existence of the thinking human brain remains a miracle.

Of course, there is no room for miracles in a materialistic worldview, so Marxism must accept evolution unreservedly. This willingness to accept evolution is also partially due to the fact that, on the surface, Darwin’s theory seems to mesh perfectly with Marx’s interpretation of dialectics.

Next we will compare Darwin’s theory with Marx’s dialectics; then we will note some of the conflicting tenets of the two theories.

Marx writes, "You will see from the conclusion of my third chapter . . . that in the text I regard the law Hegel discovered . . . as holding good both in history and natural science." But if nature is dialectical and Darwin’s notion about the mechanism employed by nature to create species is correct, then Darwin’s theory must be dialectical.

Engels is more than willing to accept this conclusion. He states, "Nature is the proof of dialectics. . . . An exact representation of the universe, of its evolution, of the development of mankind, and of the reflection of this evolution in the minds of men, can only be obtained by methods of dialectics."

And we read in The Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy that "Marx and Engels assessed Darwin’s evolutionary theory as dialectical-materialist in its essence. . . ."

Darwin’s theory of evolution appeared especially dialectical to the Marxists for the specific reason that it portrays development as a process. For example, Engels writes,

Precisely the infinite, accidental differences between individuals within a single species, differences which become accentuated until they break through the character of the species, and whose immediate causes even can be demonstrated only in extremely few cases, compelled [Darwin] to question the previous basis of all regularity in biology, viz., the concept of species in its previous metaphysical rigidity and unchangeability.

Elsewhere, Engels discusses the work of Darwin and discoveries regarding the nature of protoplasm and cells, concluding: "The new outlook on nature was complete in its main features; all rigidity was dissolved, all fixity dissipated, all particularity that had been regarded as eternal became transient, the whole of nature was shown as moving in eternal flux and cyclical course." This eternal flux is important for the Marxist worldview, for as Engels says, "The world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes."

Another reason why Darwin’s theory seemed to reinforce dialectics was that it called for the evolution of the simple to the more complex. Marxist dialectics states that process is always spiraling upwardthat the synthesis is always a more advanced stage than the previous thesis. Apparently, Darwin’s theory of natural selection calls for the same thingmore advanced species better suited to live in their environment, nature accumulating the good and disposing of the bad.

Thus, when Joseph Stalin says "that the process of development should be understood, not as movement in a circle, not as a simple repetition of what has already occurred, but as an onward and upward movement, as a transition from an old qualitative state to a new qualitative state, as a development from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher," he seems to echo precisely how Darwin described the evolutionary development of the species.

"This is a contender for "dumbest thing I've ever seen posted on FR."

I think the poster was trying to point out that Communism and the theory of evolution compliment each other. Evolution teaches that everything we see somehow naturally came into being without the necessity of a Creator. Communism teaches that the State is the grantor/originator of a person's human and political rights - not God. And, since there is no God (according to their view), the goal of the State is to essentially replace God as the initiator of human and governmental progress.

Think about it - this is important. The idea that our rights as citizens derive from the State is Communism pure and simple. If the State is the one which grants rights to us - the State can change them, deny them, or "create them" whenever it chooses. This is diametrically opposed to the ideas espoused by our founders - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal". In other words our rights as human beings and citizens exist with or without the State. It is not the Constitution which "creates" our rights - on the contrary, they are "endowed" to us by God.

The Soviet Union officially rejected Darwinism in favor of Lysenkoism, a major policy error that doomed Russian agriculture for 70 years. Lysenko was so powerful in the USSR that any scientist who questioned Lysenko's theories was assigned to prison institutes, schools in remote places, or even even imprisoned or murdered.

Darwinism may have provided an affirmation of Marx and Engels, but Lysenko's theories gave the Communist Party an even better biological compliance: members of a species do not compete with each other. In time, Lysenko was revealed to be as false as dialectical materialism, though both bankrupt ideas still have adherents, both abroad and here in the U.S.A. (please see Democrat Underground).

Results 1 - 10 of about 19,100 for Marxist Biologists

Results 1 - 10 of about 118 for "Marxist Biologists".

(Putting the phrase in quotes to force a search for the specific phrase instead of finding both words somewhere on the same page.)

And while we're at it...

Results 1 - 10 of about 571 for creationist pedophile.
Results 1 - 10 of about 559 for evolutionist pedophile.

Results 1 - 10 of about 8,900 for creationist Marxist.
Results 1 - 10 of about 8,840 for evolutionist Marxist.

Results 1 - 10 of about 97,100 for Ronald Reagan Marxist.

Results 1 - 10 of about 344,000 for Marxist Republican.
Results 1 - 10 of about 167,000 for Marxist Democrat.

Results 1 - 10 of about 147 for Matchett Marxist.
Results 1 - 6 of about 30 for jennyp Marxist.

Tee hee hee...

Your error is that you treat Marxism as a reason driven theory, like evolution. It is not. It is a compulsion driven series of rationalizations, not a rational effort to explain observed phenomena.

A scientific theory starts with an effort to explain observed phenomena. A rationalization starts with a need to make observed phenomena fit into your preconceived objective. Thus almost any true scientific theory will go through regular modifications, as new or previously unobserved phenomena come into play. The rationalized theory will instead go through ever more elaborate contrivances, to continue to pursue the same end.

Thus Marxism readopted the bogus Lamarckian theories of inheritance--the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics--to justify its tinkering with human society. Without such biological nonsense, you have a very hard time justifying social engineering, whether of the Communist, Nazi, or Social Democrat variety.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

...matter is obligated...

Now there's your ultimate anthropomorphism! The only being with any obligation whatsoever is one who has a choice in the "matter". This reminds me of several evolutionary "nature" shows I've seen on TV, in which the narrator proclaims: "At this point, 'nature decided' to add..." Think about it.

And then, there's: Konstantinov, in The Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, echoes him: "Darwin’s theory of evolution is the third great scientific discovery that took place in the middle of the l9th century.
Do you suppose Konstantinov meant that the other two great scientific discoveries were marxism and Freudianism? I kinda think so, but I'm not certain of it.

I think the poster was trying to point out that Communism and the theory of evolution compliment each other. Evolution teaches that everything we see somehow naturally came into being without the necessity of a Creator. Communism teaches that the State is the grantor/originator of a person's human and political rights - not God. And, since there is no God (according to their view), the goal of the State is to essentially replace God as the initiator of human and governmental progress.

But it does not follow that the state should replace God if God doesn't exist. Why should there be a notion that there has to be a God, or else a God-like placemarker if the real God doesn't exist?

The correct analogy is that the state evolves as a tool that societies use to better help them thrive. Just like DNA & its associated mutation-correction mechanisms evolved from earlier, more primitive replication technologies. Or how sexual reproduction evolved as a better-regulated form of horizontal gene transfer.

...If the State is the one which grants rights to us - the State can change them, deny them, or "create them" whenever it chooses.

I agree so far.

This is diametrically opposed to the ideas espoused by our founders - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are CREATED equal". In other words our rights as human beings and citizens exist with or without the State. It is not the Constitution which "creates" our rights - on the contrary, they are "endowed" to us by God.

The thing is, that passage is powerfully true, not because of the phrase "by the Creator" but by the word "endowed". We're endowed with individual rights because individual rights directly flow from our human nature as the rational animal: We require individual rights in order to thrive as human beings instead of merely surviving as slaves.

We can argue all we want over how we came to be humans, with our free will, instead of just another species of chimpanzee. But shouldn't the essential point of agreement be that our rights come from our status as human beings? It's like physicists arguing passionately over whether reality is made up of 4 or 11 dimensions, whether strings actually exist or not, etc. Yet they all agree that Quantum Mechanics correctly describes what's going on at the atomic level, and that Newtonian physics correctly describes what goes on inside vast swaths of the macro-atomic scale.

Very interesting. Though while I am both anti-Darwinist and anti-Marxist, I must agree with ElkGroveDan that laissez-faire capitalism is even more Darwinistic than socialism. However much in love with Darwin's theory Marx was, it simply does not provide an adequate foundation for Marxism.

Marxism is first of all a moral-ethical system that fulminates against the "evils" of capitalism, greed, exploitation, etc. There is no justification in Darwinism for any moral-ethical system of any kind whatsoever. The Communists may consider Darwin a hero for his theory of a G-dless origin of reality, but exploitation, greed, war, etc., cannot be any more "wrong" in Darwin's worldview than a war between two anthills. The Communists have to go elsewhere to get these ethical beliefs (partly from the religious society they attack, partly from their own hang-ups, which they apparently have no problem with "imposing" on other people).

The second area in which Marxism and Darwinism clash is in the area of teleology. True Darwinist evolution is purposeless, unguided, and non-teleological. However, Marx's theory of societal evolution is every bit as teleological as it is "ethical." Marx and all his bastard offspring insist that this materialistic process is "inevitably" headed for an "omega point" of some kind, at which all further evolution, progress, development, and "flux" cease, leaving a purely static paradise. How in the sam hill do the Marxists get this from Darwin? I sure don't know. This bizarre utopian teleology owes more to conventional religious eschatology, Hegel, Teilhard de Chardin, and new age nonsense than it does to Darwin. But of course it is not only Communists but "scientific humanists" like John Dewey who subscribe to both leftist ethics and teleology, all the while invoking a scientific theory that can justify neither--and the same goes for "non-leftist" evolutionists like Richard Dawkins, whose belief in the ultimate meaninglessness of everything doesn't prevent him from working himself into apoplexy at the behavior of people eh doesn't like. (I similarly don't understand how the ACLU puts so much heart into defending Darwinism as if it was the total justification for egalitarianism and "social justice." Goodness knows if I ever became convinced in the non-existence of G-d, G-d forbid, I wouldn't spend my time crusading for "social justice!")

Where things get really fuzzy is the contemporary Left's selective (stress: selective) opposition to science as "European" and its support of pristine religious fundamentalism among "indigenous pipples" and the moslems. Of course for the most part the common enemy keeps the "gentlemen's agreement" between postmodern deconstructionists and hard scientific Darwinists in full force at all times, though there is some occasional sniping between the two groups. I'm waiting for Leftist reaction to islamic attacks on evolution, but the quasi-alliance is so strong that no conflict on that issue seems likely in the near future.

Thank you for the article any way. As you know, there are plenty of atheist evolutionists here on FR who, capitalistic and libertarian their economics, are just as nasty as their Leftist "co-religionists"--and with the identical same "absurd certitude," in the immortal words of Malcolm Muggeridge.

blah, blah, blah
Marxist dialectical materialism called for something more than just gradual progression. The dialectic needs a theory with clashes (thesis against anti-thesis) and leaps (synthesis). While the struggle for existence may answer to the clash of the dialectic, nothing in Darwin answered to the leap.
The recent theory of punctuated equilibrium, however, seems to satisfy the dialectical demand. Punctuated equilibrium posits a natural world that manifests species stability for great periods of time but occasionally ruptures or leaps from one species to another.
blah blah blah

One ironic thing to point out here: Punctuated equilibrium only works because of the mainstream theory of speciation calls for a small breakaway population to get isolated, usually physically, from the big, fat, dumb & happy "parent" species. It's only within this small population that new mutations have a chance of taking hold, on a percentage basis, within the new population's genome. There's a whole field devoted to the mathematics of populations & evolution.

So if you were a Marxist revolutionary who wanted to apply evolution to Marxism, you should conclude that you should mount your revolution in a small, isolated country, preferrably an island. Then, if your new society is so successful, it should be able to lead by example as other societies start to copy yours.

Ironically, America started off in much this fashion. The colonists were chafing under the King's corrupt rule, and when they decided to break away, they formed the new country along the principles of the Enlightenment. England itself, being a powerful & rich country, could never have embarked on such a radical experiment in self-governance. Only when America became successful & started to present a shining example of what a representative form of government, explicitly founded on the principle of individual freedom, could do for its people, were similar movements in other countries able to influence them.

If I'm not mistaken, the British Parliament finally asserted its dominance over the King in the middle of the 19th century. (FR historians may want to jump in here...)

Very good point! I was about to say as much, including that Marxism looks more like the pre-Darwiniwn "Scala Naturae" [sp?] than Darwinism. I'm also glad you mentioned Hegel. He was the modern father of all the 20th century's philosophies of historical inevitability based on collectivism: Marxism, fascism, & Naziism. Very unlike non-teleological theories of evolution.

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