M

Mably, Gabriel Bonnet de (1709–1785)

French historian and political thinker. He was a passionate defender of the system based on common property. He left a great literary heritage. Mably expressed his approbation of the communist system which, in his opinion, existed at the dawn of human history. Before long, however, society witnessed the rise of private ownership, the cause of all the depravities, lies, and delusions in the world. Humanity strayed so far that it could not return again to the communistic order. This statement did not prevent Mably from declaring that the system founded on private ownership contradicts natural equality and man's social instinct. Only equal status for man in society permits him to live in happiness.

Mably favoured measures directed towards the equalisation of fortunes. He recognised the right of the people to revolution whenever they realise that they are subject to unjust and irrational laws. He did not consider revolution, however, a prerequisite to the achievement of the communist ideal, believing that it was only a means for achieving more limited aims. Mably was not a consistent utopian socialist; but many aspects of his social philosophy promoted the dissemination of socialist ideas.

Mach, Ernst (1838–1916)

Austrian physicist and philosopher, subjective idealist and one of the founders of empirio-criticism. By acknowledging a thing to be a "complex of sensations", Mach counterpoised his teaching to philosophical materialism. Proceeding from the philosophy of Hume, he rejected the idea of causality, necessity and substance, since these are not given in "experience". In line with the Machian "principle of the economy of thought", the description of the world, in Mach's opinion, should include only the "neutral elements of experience"; only these "elements" (which Mach identified with sensations) and their functional connections are real. The distinction between the physical and the psychical was reduced to what he calls "functional relation", in which the "elements" are investigated: physical investigation, according to him, involves an analysis of the interrelation of the "elements"; and psychological investigation, an analysis of the relations of the human organism with their "elements".

Mach regards concepts as symbols denoting "complexes of sensations" ("things"), and science in general as the totality of hypotheses which can be replaced by direct observation. Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism exposed and refuted the subjective idealism of Mach's philosophy. Main works: Die Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen (1886), and Erkenntnis und Irrtum (1905). His philosophy influenced the shaping of neo-positivism as well as the basic Machian revision of Marxism (F. Adler, Bazarov, Bogdanov, Yushkevich).

Machiavelli, Niccolò di Bernardo (1469–1527)

Italian thinker and ideologist of the rising bourgeoisie. Society, according to Machiavelli, develops not by the will of God but by natural causes. The driving forces of history are "material interest" and power. He noted the conflict of interests between the masses of the people and the ruling classes. Machiavelli demanded the creation of a strong national state, free from feudal internecine conflicts and able to suppress popular riots. He considered permissible the employment of all means in political struggle, justifying cruelty and treachery in the struggle of rulers for power.

The historical merit of Machiavelli, to use Marx's words, was that he was one of the first to see the state through the human eyes and to deduce its laws from reason and experience and not from theology. Main work: Il Principe (1531).

Machine

In the narrow sense of the word, a system created by man's effort to transform one form of energy into another for the purpose of deriving useful effect in production. Alongside the employment of machine in the field of material production to replace the physical labour of man, it was also employed as early as the 17th century to replace mental work (mechanical computers). With the development of automation, particularly with the advent of cybernetics the concept of machine was extended to a wider range of phenomena: the term of machine is applied not only to systems created by man, but also to living organisms; and cybernetics as a science of control and communication is, in essence, a science of machines.

Such an understanding of machine has nothing in common with the mechanism of the 17th-18th centuries. If Descartes regarded the animals as machine, devoid of soul, and La Mettrie included man in the category of machine, this distorted not the concept of machine but the concept of man and animals, because these were likened to a system working on the basis of the laws of mechanical motion. In contemporary science, the concept of machine is undergoing changes which has no more connection with any concrete form of the motion of matter; science, in studying the laws of machine, investigates the structures of the systems of operation, the properties and functions of these structures, leaving aside their material substrata. Hence, the scientific knowledge of machine can be used in the study of the functioning of the human organism, but only where man has "machine-like" motions. The concept of machine must be analysed as an economic category as well, and this was done by Marx.

Machism

See Mach, Empirio-Criticism.

Macrocosm and Microcosm

Two specific spheres of objective reality. The sphere of macrophenomena is the world in which man lives and acts (planets, terrestrial bodies, crystals, large molecules, etc.). Here the length of objects is measured in centimetres, metres or kilometres, and time intervals are measured in seconds, hours, years, that is, they are directly observable. The microcosm (atoms, nuclei, elementary particles, etc.) is qualitatively different. Here the measurements of objects are less than a thousand-millionth part of a centimetre, and time intervals are measured in thousand-millionths of a second.

Both macrocosm and microcosm are characterised by their peculiar structure of matter, spatio-temporal relations, and law-governed movement. Thus macrocosm material objects have a clearly discernible discontinuous, corpuscular structure, or a continuous wave structure, and their movement is subject to the dynamic laws of classical mechanics. Microcosm phenomena, on the other hand, are characterised by a close-knit connection between corpuscular and wave properties, this being expressed in the statistical laws of quantum mechanics. A border dividing the macrocosm and microcosm has been established with the discovery of Planck's constant (see Planck).

Modern "physical idealism" makes absolute the distinctions between the macrocosm and the microcosm, the peculiarities of their cognition and denies the objectivity and knowability of the microworld. The penetration of physics into the world of atoms, and then into the atomic nuclei and elementary particles, was brilliant proof of Lenin's conclusion on the "infiniteness of matter in depth", a confirmation and enrichment of the principles of dialectical materialism.

Magic

From Greek sorcery, witchcraft, one of the forms of primitive religion; a set of rituals which aim to affect people, animals, and imaginary spirits in order to obtain definite results. Magic is based on the belief in a supernatural relation between man and the surrounding world. There is magic for labour, for doing harm, and for treating ailments, etc. The belief in magic persisted up to the latter part of the Middle Ages (see Alchemy). In our days it reappears in occultism. Elements of magic can be found in such world religions as Christianity, Islam (prayers, anointing of the living or the dead, etc.).

Magnitude

In mathematics, a basic concept originating as an abstraction of the numerical designations of physical qualities. The concept of magnitude is used for the exact definition of quantitative relations between the objects and processes of reality. It may, therefore, be regarded, like the concepts of number, continuity, etc., as a closer definition of the category of quantity. A distinction is made between magnitudes of scale (characterised by number alone, e.g., length, area, volume, etc.) and vector magnitudes (embracing, besides number, direction, e.g., force, speed, etc.). Magnitude is also divided into constants and variables. The concept of variable was introduced into mathematics by Descartes and played an important part in the development of modern mathematics and science.

Maimonides or Moses ben Maimon (1135–1204)

Jewish philosopher, adherent of the teachings of Aristotle and one of the leaders of the rationalistic school of Judaism. Maimonides's philosophy is a synthesis of Judaic theology and Aristotelianism; he tried to reconcile religion with philosophy by way of a "sublimated" (allegorical) interpretation of the Bible and isolated dogmas of Judaism. According to the theory of knowledge of Maimonides, man's ultimate aim was to provide a rational basis for the supreme truth. Maimonides was persecuted by religious fanatics for his rationalistic ideas. His main work Moreh Nebouchim (Guide for the Perplexed) gained wide popularity in Western Europe and exerted considerable influence upon later scholasticism. His ideas were also spread in old Russia.

Malebranche, Nicolas de (1638–1715)

French idealist and adherent to occasionalism. From an idealistic position he attempted to eliminate dualism in Descartes's system. Malebranche's philosophy attributes an exclusive role to God, who not only creates all existing things but also contains all of them within himself. The permanent interference of God is the only cause of all changes; there are no so-called "natural causes" and "interactions" between spatial and thinking substances. In the theory of knowledge, too, Malebranche adheres to the idealistic position: man gets to know things not through their effect on the sense-organs; cognition is human contemplation of ideas about all existing things, while God is the source of these ideas. Main work: Recherche de la vérité (1674–75).

Malthusianism

An unscientific theory founded by the English clergyman Malthus (1766–1834), who claimed that the population increases in geometrical progression, while the means of subsistence grow only in arithmetical progression. According to Malthus, the discrepancy arising between the amount of the means of livelihood and the size of the population is regulated by means of wars, epidemics, limitation of marriages, and other means of controlling the growth of the population. Relative overpopulation is a biological law. Some contemporary Malthusians (G.F. McCleary and others) consider that the reason for the growing discrepancy is that the prices of foodstuffs are "too low", while the wages of the workers are "high". Malthusianism serves to justify capitalist exploitation and the policies of imperialism.

Whereas "classical" Malthusianism considered excessive birth rates to be the cause of overpopulation, Neo-Malthusianism sees that cause in "insufficiently low" death rates, resulting from the achievements of medical science. Marx and Engels said that overpopulation and the attendant poverty of the masses are caused by the capitalist system and showed that Malthus's theory is completely untenable and reactionary. The progress of science and technology leads to an enormous growth of productive forces, so that the output of social production grows considerably faster than the population. The experience of the socialist countries has shown the historically transient character of overpopulation. Increase in food production is attained on the basis of technological and agronomical progress, which affords the possibility of creating not only sufficiency but an abundance of foodstuffs for the fast-growing population.

Man

A social being. From the biological viewpoint man is regarded as the highest stage in the development of animals on Earth. He differs from the most developed animals by his mind and articulate speech. While the behaviour of an animal is fully determined by instincts, reactions to the environment, the behaviour of man is directly determined by thinking, emotions, will, degree of knowledge of the laws governing nature, society, and himself. By raising this distinction to an absolute, idealists see the essence of man in reason, in subjective, conscious aspirations, religious belief, etc. Actually, the fundamental difference between man and animal consists above all in that man produces instruments of labour with the object of acting on nature and transforming it. While the animal adapts itself to natural conditions, man adapts nature to himself in his productive activity.

Man cannot exist in isolation from other people, he is moulded in definite social conditions. "The human essence," Marx wrote, "is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations." (Marx, Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 404.) Marxism for the first time explained that the real objective motives determining man's activity are ultimately rooted in the material conditions of his life. The specific features of man, expressing his essence as "man"—consciousness, spiritual life, ability to use the most diverse instruments of labour, etc.—are a product of social labour. Marx replaced the old philosophical doctrines of "human nature" in general by the teaching on man's concrete nature, determined by a definite historical system of society.

At the same time, at any stage of society man is a product of development of all mankind; he assimilates and processes the knowledge gained throughout history. The forms of assimilating all preceding culture and the specific way in which man is influenced by the historically given social conditions, are ultimately determined by the nature of production. In conditions of the division of labour, inherent in antagonistic class formations, man could not freely develop his physical and spiritual capabilities; he inevitably developed one-sidedly, which was expressed above all in the antithesis between mental and physical work. Man turned, as under capitalism, into an appendage of the machine, and so on; the majority of people, represented by the working masses, were subjected to exploitation and were barred from active social life, from the cultural treasures accumulated by mankind. Only under socialism and especially under communism will man receive every opportunity for all-round development, for the maximum display and development of his individual gifts and inclinations.

Man (German: Man, an indefinite personal pronoun)

One of the main concepts of existentialism introduced by Heidegger. The concept of Man denotes "social reality", and is manifested in laws, moral standards, cultural traditions, and public opinion. Man, according to Heidegger, is always inimical to the concrete human being, obstructs his freedom of action and deprives him of his individuality. In order to break away from the power of Man and become free, the human being, according to existentialism, should isolate himself from society and place himself in a "border-line situation" between life and death. The individual is able to break away from "day-to-day existence" only by fear of death; then he becomes free and can be responsible for his actions.

The concept of Man reflects the irrational solution to the problem of the interrelation between the individual and bourgeois society—the antagonism between the individual and society inherent in the capitalist system. By holding that the human being is only an "individual", by denying that man is essentially a sum total of social relations, the adherents of existentialism inevitably arrive at unscientific and reactionary conclusions.

"Manifesto of the Communist Party"

The first programmatic document of scientific communism, expounding the foundations of Marxism, written by Marx and Engels and published at the beginning of 1848. The first chapter—"Bourgeois and Proletarians"—discloses the laws of social development, proves the inevitable and law-governed nature of the replacement of one mode of production by another. Proceeding from the fact that the history of all hitherto developing society, except the primitive-communal system, was the history of class struggle, Marx and Engels proved that the fall of capitalism was inevitable and pointed the way to the formation of a new social system—communism. In this same chapter they elucidated the historic mission of the proletariat as the revolutionary transformer of the old society and the builder of the new, the champion of the interests of all toiling masses.

In the second chapter—"Proletarians and Communists"—Marx and Engels highlighted the historic role of the Party of Communists as part of the working class and as its vanguard. The immediate aim of the Communists is the "formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat". (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 46.) In this chapter Marx and Engels advanced the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, explained the relation of the Communist to the family, property, and the motherland and outlined the economic measures which the proletariat must take upon coming to power.

In the third chapter—"Socialist and Communist Literature"—they made a profound criticism of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois trends masquerading under the banner of socialism and defined their own attitude to the systems of utopian socialism and communism. In the fourth chapter—"Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties"—Marx and Engels set forth the tactics of the Communists regarding various opposition parties. Manifesto of the Communist Party concludes with the immortal slogan: "Working Men of all Countries, Unite!" Of the invaluable historic significance of the work Lenin wrote: "This booklet is worth whole volumes: to this day its spirit inspires and guides the entire organised and fighting proletariat of the civilised world." (Vol. 2, p. 24.)

Marburg School

One of the trends in Neo-Kantianism. The main exponents of this school were Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, Ernst Cassirer and Rudolf Stammler. Having discarded the materialistic tendency in Kant's teaching, these thinkers subscribed to consistent subjective idealism.

The exponents of the Marburg School held that philosophy does not provide knowledge of the world, but consists only of the methodology and logic similar to those of special sciences. They denied objective reality, tried to separate knowledge from sense data and considered cognition a pure logical process of producing concepts. This methodology is but the insipidity in general principles, which are ascribed to special sciences. The most important of these principles is the so-called principle of obligation, which the school spread to sociology as well.

The adherents of Marburg School denied that the laws of social development were objective and considered socialism exclusively as a moral phenomenon, as an "ethical ideal" standing above the classes. The theorists of the Marburg School demanded that Marxism be "supplemented" with Kantianism, emasculated scientific communism of its economic and political content and denied the revolutionary struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The sociological ideas of this school influenced "legal Marxism" in Russia and later served as the basis for the revision of Marxism by the opportunists of the Second International (Bernstein, Kautsky, M. Adler, and others). In our days these ideas are being used by the Right Socialists to combat Marxism-Leninism.

Marcel, Gabriel (1889–1973)

French philosopher and writer, professor at Sorbonne; chief exponent of the so-called Catholic existentialism. His main works are Journal Métaphysique (1925), Être et Avoir (1935), and Les hommes contre l'humain (1951).

Among the existentialists Marcel stands closest to the teaching of Kierkegaard. He believes that philosophy is at variance with science, which studies the world of objects but does not touch upon existential experience, i.e., the inner spiritual life of the individual. Existential experience is irrational in its essence, contains "secrets" in which the individual is involved and serves as an object of belief. For Marcel, it is precisely through existential experience that one can comprehend God; for this reason it is necessary to renounce rational proof of God's existence. Marcel's ethics is built upon the Catholic doctrine of predestination and the freedom of the will.

Marcus Aurelius (121–180 A.D.)

Philosopher-stoic and Roman Emperor. His only work Meditations expresses his philosophy in the form of aphorisms.

The impending crisis of the Roman Empire dominated Marcus Aurelius's philosophy. In his interpretation of stoicism, Marcus Aurelius ultimately abandoned all materialistic features and became a religious mystic. For him God, the prime basis of all that is living, is universal reason, in which all forms of individual consciousness are dissolved after physical death. His ethics was permeated with fatalism, preaching of humility and asceticism. He appealed for moral perfection and purification, for self-consolation through the cognition of the fatalistic necessity which rules the world.

Marcus Aurelius's philosophy greatly influenced Christianity, despite his harsh treatment of Christians.

Maréchal, Pierre-Sylvain (1750–1803)

Representative of the plebeian-democratic wing of French materialism and atheism.

Maréchal recognized that existing nature was eternal, believing that only its concrete expressions, i.e., "forms" appeared or disappeared. Maréchal's theory of knowledge is based on sensationalism, while materialism is the theoretical basis for his atheism. God, to him, is synonymous with nature. Out of fear man invented a supreme being and endowed that being with the properties of nature.

Maréchal joined the Babouvist movement (see Babouvism) and became a utopian communist. Maréchal's main work: Manifeste des égaux (1794). Maréchal stood above the Encyclopaedists in his atheistic outlook. He associated the final removal of religion with a revolution, the overthrow of the exploiting system and the establishment of communism.

Maritain, Jacques (1882–1973)

Leader of Neo-Thomism, French ambassador to the Vatican from 1945 to 1948; in his later years he taught at Princeton University (USA). Initially Maritain's outlook was closely related to the philosophy of Bergson and vitalism. In 1906, he went over to Catholic philosophy.

For Maritain, science, metaphysics, and mysticism are independent forms of knowledge which complement each other. In his various works he elucidated problems of psychology, sociology, aesthetics, ethics, and pedagogics from the standpoint of orthodox Thomism.

Marković, Svetozar (1846–1875)

Serbian revolutionary democrat, materialist philosopher and utopian socialist, who studied in Russia. Marković's world outlook was developed at a time when Serbia was faced with the critical problem of completing her bourgeois-democratic revolution. He was greatly influenced by the ideas of the Russian revolutionary democrats.

Basing himself on Marx's works, he severely criticized the capitalist system and came out openly in the defense of the Paris Commune. Marković, however, did not reach the level of dialectical and historical materialism and scientific socialism in spite of his knowledge of the main works of Marx and Engels and his participation in the work of the First International. He held the mistaken notion that after the victory of a popular revolution, based on the zadruga (a big patriarchal family) and the rural commune, it was possible to pass on to socialism, bypassing capitalism.

His philosophical ideas formed the theoretical foundation of his revolutionary democratic program. In his work, The Real Trend in Science and Life (1871-72), Marković upheld his materialistic line in philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. He popularized Darwin's theory; in his understanding of society remained an idealist.

Marx, Karl (1818–1883)

Founder of scientific communism, the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism, and scientific political economy, the leader and teacher of the world proletariat. He was born in Trier where in 1835 he finished the secondary school. Later he enrolled at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin; by that time his world outlook had begun to take shape.

The Left trend (see Young Hegelians) in Hegel's philosophy made its imprint on Marx's spiritual evolution. Adhering to revolutionary democratic ideas, Marx took an extreme left position among the Young Hegelians. In his early work, his Ph.D. thesis on Differenz der demokratischen und epikureischen Naturphilosophie (1841), Marx draws, in spite of his idealism, very radical and atheistic deductions from Hegel's philosophy.

In 1842, Marx became a staff member of Rheinische Zeitung, and later its chief editor. Marx converted the newspaper into an organ of revolutionary democracy. In the course of his practical activities and theoretical investigations Marx clashed head-on with Hegelian philosophy, because of its conciliatory tendencies, conservative political conclusions, and of the discrepancy between its principles and the actual social relations and the tasks of transforming those relations. In this clash with Hegel and the Young Hegelians Marx switched to the materialist position, his knowledge of real economic developments, and the philosophy of Feuerbach playing the decisive role in the process.

A final revolution in Marx's world outlook was wrought by the change in his class stand and his passage from revolutionary democracy to proletarian communism (1844). This transition was brought about by the development of the class struggle in Europe (Marx was greatly influenced by the Silesian uprising of 1844 in Germany), by his participation in the revolutionary struggle in Paris, where he had emigrated after the Rheinische Zeitung was closed down (1843), and by his study of political economy, utopian socialism, and history. His new stand found expression in two articles published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (1844), entitled "Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie" and "Zur Judenfrage". Here Marx for the first time discloses the historic role of the proletariat and arrives at the conclusion of the inevitability of the social revolution and the necessity of uniting the working-class movement with a scientific world outlook.

Marx and Engels had been drawn together by that time, and they began systematically elaborating a new world outlook. The results of scientific research and the main principles of the new theory were generalized in the following works: Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte (1844), The Holy Family (1845), and The German Ideology (1845-46), written in collaboration with Engels, Theses on Feuerbach (1845), and the first work of mature Marxism—The Poverty of Philosophy (1847). Marxism was formed as an integral science, reflecting as it did the unity of all its component parts.

In 1847, Marx lived in Brussels, where he joined a secret propaganda society called the Communist League and took an active part in the 2nd Congress of the League. At the Congress' request Marx and Engels drew up the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), in which they completed the elaboration of Marxism. This work "outlines a new world-conception, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat—the creator of a new, communist society". (Lenin, Works, Vol. 21, p. 48.)

Dialectical and historical materialism is a truly scientific philosophy, in which materialism and dialectics, the materialist understanding of nature and society, the teaching about being and knowledge, theory and practice are fused organically. This made it possible to overcome the metaphysical nature of pre-Marxian materialism, with its inherent contemplation, anthropologism, and the idealistic understanding of history. Marx's philosophy is the most adequate method of cognition and transformation of the world. The development of practice and science in the 19th-20th centuries have convincingly proved the superiority of Marxism over all forms of idealism and metaphysical materialism.

Marx's doctrine as the only form of proletarian ideology was steeled in the fight against all sorts of unscientific, anti-proletarian and petty-bourgeois currents. Marx's activities are characterized by partisanship and irreconcilability with any digression from scientific theory. Being a revolutionary in science, Marx took an active part in the liberation struggle of the proletariat. During the revolution of 1848-49 in Germany he was at the forefront of the political struggle. He resolutely defended the proletarian stand in his capacity as chief editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, which he founded. Banished from Germany in 1849 he settled permanently in London.

After the Communist League was dissolved (1852), Marx continued his activities in the proletarian movement, working for the creation of the First International (1864). He was active in this organization, followed closely the progress of the revolutionary movement in all countries, and took particular interest in Russia. To the very last day of his life Marx was in the thick of contemporary events. This afforded him the indispensable material for the development of his theory.

The experience of the bourgeois revolutions of 1848-49 in Europe was of great importance for the development by Marx of the theory of socialist revolution and class struggle, of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the tactics of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution, the necessity of worker and peasant alliance (The Class Struggles in France, 1850), the inevitable destruction of the bourgeois state machine (The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852). On examining the experience of the Paris Commune (The Civil War in France, 1871), Marx discovered a state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat and profoundly analyzed the measures adopted by the first proletarian state power. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx further developed the theory of scientific communism.

His main interest lay in the sphere of political economy, and he devoted all his life to his basic work Capital: Volume I was published in 1867; Volume II was published by Engels in 1885, and Volume III, in 1894. The creation of political economy laid a scientific basis of communism. The philosophical importance of Capital is unequaled. It embodies the dialectical method of investigation in a brilliant form. In his preface to Zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (1859), one of his earlier works in economics, Marx set forth, in a concise form, the essence of the materialist understanding of history. In Capital this understanding was transmuted from a hypothesis into a science.

Marx's correspondence contains much of what characterizes his philosophy. Never before has any other doctrine been so confirmed in practice as that created by Marx. Lenin, together with his disciples and followers, developed Marxism further under new historical conditions. It was embodied in the victory of socialist revolutions in a number of countries, and it now furnishes the scientific foundation for the activities of the parties of the proletariat and all international communist and working-class movement.

Marxism-Leninism

The revolutionary doctrine of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, which represents an integrated and harmonious system of philosophical, economic, and socio-political views. Marxism was born of the liberation struggle of the working class in the 1840s of the 19th century, and it became the theoretical expression of the fundamental interests of that class, the program of its struggle for socialism and communism.

The appearance of Marxism signified a great revolution in the science of nature and society. The founders of Marxism have accomplished an unprecedented scientific feat in such fields of human knowledge as philosophy, political economy, scientific socialism, etc., and formulated a truly revolutionary science whose object is not only to explain the world correctly but also to change it. Lenin pointed out that Marx's teachings are comprehensive and integrated; they give people a purposeful world outlook. It is omnipotent, because it is true.

The main feature of Marxism is that it substantiates the historic role of the working class as the builder of a classless, communist society. Scientific communism, which is an essential component part of Marxism-Leninism, has its profound economic foundation in Marx's political economy, which disclosed the laws of the capitalist mode of production and proved that socialism must replace capitalism. Philosophically, Marxism-Leninism is based upon dialectical and historical materialism.

It develops as a living and creative science, and is incompatible with any form of dogmatism; it draws its creative power from life, from the revolutionary practice. A feature of Marxism-Leninism is a close link between theory and practice, distinguishing it from all reformist and revisionist theories. Marx and Engels were untiring in their striving to develop their teaching, to enrich it with new propositions and conclusions, testing their value through the revolutionary experience of the masses and the new achievements of science.

A new stage in the creative development of Marxism is inseparably associated with the name of Lenin, the true continuator of Marx's teaching. The contribution of Lenin to the Marxist teaching is so great that it is rightfully called now the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism. A new historical epoch which set in towards the beginning of the 20th century—the era of imperialism and socialist revolutions—confronted the international communist movement with new problems in the theory and practice of the revolutionary struggle.

Lenin expertly applied Marxist dialectics to an analysis of the developments of that epoch and continued Marx's analysis of capitalism. He produced a scientific theory of the imperialist stage of capitalism and developed the theory of the socialist revolution. He drew the conclusion that initially socialism could win in one individual country. Lenin's theory was translated into reality after the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union drew up a plan for the building of socialist society and ensured its practical realization.

The further development of Marxism-Leninism is inseparably linked up with the experience of building socialism in the USSR and other countries and the formation of a world socialist system, and with the entry of the USSR in the period of full-scale communist construction. The Marxism-Leninism doctrine was further advanced in the decisions of the 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd CPSU Congresses, of the Communist and Workers' Parties of other countries, and in the decisions of the Moscow Meetings of the Representatives of Communist and Workers' Parties concerning the problems of contemporary world development and the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism.

One of the main conditions for the creative development of the Marxism-Leninism theory in 1956-66 was the overcoming of the harmful consequences of the cult of Stalin's personality and the restoration of the Leninist standards of Party, government, and public life. The CPSU Program as worked out and adopted by the 22nd Congress signifies a new landmark in the development of Marxism-Leninism. The Program synthesizes the Marxist-Leninist knowledge of all fundamental contemporary problems.

While taking stock of the new phenomena in modern capitalism, it generalizes the experience of the class and national liberation struggles at their present stage and constructively decides the problems of the socialist revolution, the issue of war and peace, and the fundamental problems of building communism. All the spirit and all the contents of the CPSU Program reflect the unity of the theory of Marxism-Leninism and the practice of communist construction. Such problems as the creation of the material and technical basis of communism, the formation of communist social relations and the education of the new man are, indeed, the main problems of both the theory of Marxism-Leninism and the practice of communist construction.

For the first time in the history of Marxism-Leninism the Program outlines the concrete ways of building communism, the tasks in industry and agriculture, and the development of the state, science, culture, and communist education. Today Marxism-Leninism is not only the theory but also the practice of the hundreds of millions of people building socialism and communism. The role and significance of the theory of Marxism-Leninism immeasurably grows under socialism and in the period of building communism, because socialism and communism are built consciously and in a planned way.

The CPSU Program stresses that the Party's prime duty is to develop further Marxism-Leninism on the basis of a study and generalization of new phenomena in the life of Soviet society and the experience of the international working-class and liberation movements, and creatively to combine theory with the practice of communist construction. Today, as in the past, one of the main conditions for the further development of Marxism-Leninism is the fight against revisionism, dogmatism and sectarianism, against any distortion of the revolutionary theory of Marx, Engels, and Lenin and for a creative application of this theory in practice.

Material and Technical Basis of Communism

The level of the productive forces indispensable for the transition from socialism to communism, the material basis for the existence and the development of communist society. Every social formation has its corresponding Material and Technical Basis. Thus under capitalism it is represented by large-scale industrial production, based on private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of man by man. The Material and Technical Basis of socialism, which is the first and lower phase of communism, is distinguished by planned large-scale industrial production in all branches of the economy, based on social ownership of the means of production and freed from the exploitation of labour.

In the process of building communism the Material and Technical Basis of socialism is gradually transformed into the Material and Technical Basis of communism. The creation of the Material and Technical Basis of communism implies the complete electrification of the country; the comprehensive mechanisation of the production processes and their progressive automation; the widespread use of chemistry in the national economy; a vigorous development of new, economically effective branches of production, new sources of power and new materials; all-round and rational utilisation of natural, material and labour resources; organic fusion of science and production, and rapid scientific and technical progress; a high cultural and technical level for the working people.

The most important condition for the victory of the communist system is a substantial superiority over the more developed capitalist countries in the productivity of labour. The Material and Technical Basis of communism will be created in the USSR by 1980, as planned and stipulated in the Programme of the CPSU. This constitutes the chief economic task for Soviet society. In the course of building the Material and Technical Basis of communism, the USSR will occupy first place in the world in per capita production and will emerge victorious in the economic competition with capitalism. The creation of the Material and Technical Basis of communism will be the basis for the transformation of the socialist social relations into communist social relations, for a radical change in people's mode of life, the moulding of the new man—full man of communist society. With the creation of the Material and Technical Basis of communism the production of material goods will rise to such a level as will allow gradual transition to the communist principle of distribution according to needs.

Material Incentive

The basic principle of the socialist economy, in accordance with which the level of material prosperity of the members of socialist society depends upon the quantity and quality of their work. Material interest under capitalism leads to the growth of selfishness among individual proprietors and to fierce competition. Socialism, on the other hand, brings forth new stimuli for the development of production, far more powerful than those existing under capitalism. The Material Incentive of the workers under socialism lies in the fact that they work for themselves and for their society. This encourages them to improve working methods, eliminate shortcomings in the organisation of production, and do all in their power to raise labour productivity.

At the same time Material Incentive is combined with moral stimuli to labour, since only in this case does it become a genuine means for accelerating the growth of socialist production. This principle will remain in force until the building of communist society is completed. The CPSU Programme points out that "communist construction must be based upon the principle of material incentive. In the coming twenty years payment according to one's work will remain the principal source for satisfying the material and cultural needs of the working people".

Materialism

The only scientific philosophical trend, opposed to idealism. We distinguish two kinds of Materialism: the spontaneous belief of all mankind in the objective existence of the external world, and the philosophical world outlook, which scientifically deepens and develops spontaneous Materialism. Philosophical Materialism maintains that matter is primary and mind, consciousness, secondary. This implies that the world is eternal, not created by God, and is infinite in time and space. Maintaining that consciousness is a product of matter, Materialism considers it as the reflection of the external world, and thereby asserts the knowability of the world.

In the history of philosophy Materialism was, as a rule, the world outlook of the progressive classes and strata in society, who were interested in correctly understanding the world and in increasing man's power over nature. In summing up achievements of science, Materialism promoted the growth of scientific knowledge, the improvement of scientific methods; this, in its turn, favourably influenced man's practical activity and the development of the productive forces. In the process of the interaction between Materialism and the concrete sciences Materialism itself underwent changes.

The first materialist theories made their appearance with the rise of philosophy as a result of the progress of scientific knowledge in astronomy, mathematics and other fields in the slave-owning societies of ancient India, China and Greece. The general feature of ancient Materialism, which for the most part was naive (Lao Tsu, Wan Chung, the Charvaka school, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Epicurus, and others), was recognition of the materiality of the world and its independent existence outside of man's consciousness. Representatives of Materialism tried to find in the diversity of natural phenomena the common source of origin of all that exists or takes place. It was the merit of ancient Materialism to create a hypothesis on the atomic structure of matter (Leucippus, Democritus). Many of the ancient materialists were spontaneous dialecticians, but some of them did not make a clear-cut distinction between the physical and the psychic, attributing all the properties of the latter to nature.

In the development of materialistic and dialectical principles in ancient Materialism there was still an admixture of the influence of mythological ideology. In the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, materialistic trends appeared in the form of nominalism, pantheistic doctrines and the teaching that nature and God are coeternal. Materialism developed in Europe in the 17th-18th centuries (see Bacon, Galileo, Hobbes, Gassendi, Spinoza, and Locke). This form of Materialism developed on the basis of nascent capitalism, and the attendant growth of production, technology and science. Speaking for the then progressive bourgeoisie, the materialists combated medieval scholasticism and ecclesiastical authority, looking to experience as their tutor and to nature as the object of philosophy. The Materialism of the 17th-18th centuries developed in conjunction with the then rapidly progressing mechanics and mathematics, as a result of which it was mechanistic. Another of its features was a desire to analyse, to divide nature into more or less isolated and mutually unrelated fields and objects of investigation, and to study these without regard for their development.

French Materialism of the 18th century occupied a special place in the materialist philosophy of this period (La Mettrie, Diderot, Helvetius, and Holbach). The French materialists maintained on the whole the mechanistic conception of motion, considering it, like Toland, as a universal and inalienable property of nature, and completely rejecting the deistic inconsistencies characteristic of most 17th century materialists. The organic link existing between all kinds of Materialism and atheism was particularly apparent in the French materialists of the 18th century. The peak in the development of this form of Materialism in the West was the "anthropological" Materialism of Feuerbach. At the same time contemplation characteristic of all pre-Marxist Materialism was more manifest in Feuerbach then in any of his contemporaries.

A further step in the development of Materialism was made in the second half of the 19th century in Russia and other countries of Eastern Europe by the philosophy of the revolutionary democrats (Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Markovitch, Botev, and others), a philosophy which rested upon the traditions of Lomonosov, Radishchev, and others. In some respects the revolutionary democrats rose above the limited horizon of anthropologism and the metaphysical method. The highest and most consistent form of Materialism was dialectical materialism created by Marx and Engels in the middle of the 19th century. It overcame not only the aforementioned shortcomings of the old Materialism but also the idealistic understanding of history common to all its representatives.

In its later development Materialism split into two main trends: dialectical and historical materialism, on the one hand, and a number of simplified and vulgarised varieties of Materialism, on the other. The most typical variety was vulgar Materialism which gravitated to positivism; and to this latter gravitated those varieties of vulgar Materialism which appeared at the turn of the century as a distortion of dialectical Materialism (mechanical revision of Marxism, and others). During the second half of the 19th century the mature forms of Materialism proved to be incompatible with the narrow class interests of the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois philosophers hold that adherents of Materialism are immoral, that they fail to comprehend the nature of consciousness, and identify Materialism with its primitive varieties. While repudiating militant atheism and theoretico-cognitive optimism, some of these philosophers were compelled to admit some elements of materialistic world outlook in order to meet the interests of the development of production and natural science.

On the other hand, not a few of them, who had made declarations in favour of idealism or eschewed "all philosophies" in a positivist way, took the Materialism position in the study of special scientific research (e.g., the natural-historical Materialism of Haeckel, and Boltzmann). Some leading scientists turn from natural-scientific to conscious Materialism, and in the last analysis to dialectical Materialism (Langevin, Joliot-Curie, Kotarbinski, Yanagida, Lamont, and others). An important peculiarity of the development of dialectical Materialism is its enrichment with new ideas on the strength of the criticism of the contemporary forms of idealism and many weak points in the theories of the naturalist materialists. The contemporary development of science demands that the natural scientist become a conscious adherent of dialectical materialism. At the same time socio-historical practice and science call for continued progress in Materialism philosophy.

"Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy"

Lenin's fundamental philosophical work, written in 1908 and published in May 1909. The book was written during the period of reaction brought about by the defeat of the 1905-07 Russian revolution. At that time the Marxists were confronted with the urgent political and theoretical task of defending dialectical and historical materialism against the onslaught of revisionism and of refuting the reactionary philosophy of empirio-criticism which was being vigorously propagated by the revisionists.

Materialism and Empirio-Criticism criticises exhaustively the subjective-idealistic philosophy of empirio-criticism and shows that dialectical and historical materialism is entirely opposed to the former in all problems of philosophy. Lenin points out that the Russian Machists, in their desire to "supplement and develop" Marxism through Machian philosophy, were in fact only echoing the reactionary ideas of subjective idealism and agnosticism. The experience of all mankind, together with the data of natural science, completely refutes all the "latest" concoctions of the idealists. Lenin criticised in detail the idealistic theories of Mach, Avenarius (see Principal Co-ordination), Pearson, Petzoldt, and others, as well as the Russian Machists—Bazarov, Bogdanov (see Empirio-Monism), Yushkevich (see Empirio-Symbolism), and the like.

Lenin's book shows the sources of empirio-criticism and its place in the development of bourgeois philosophy: beginning with Kant, the Machists went from him to Hume and Berkeley and were unable to go beyond their views. A typical feature of Machism was its closeness to the most reactionary philosophies of the type of the immanence school. For the first time in Marxist philosophy Lenin discovered the true interrelation between empirio-criticism and natural science. Claiming the role of philosophy in contemporary natural science, empirio-criticism in fact adversely influenced the development of science, using and amplifying the idealist vacillations of some physicists brought about by the crisis in physics at the turn of the century. Lenin's discovery of the social roots and the class role of Machian philosophy is of exceptional importance.

Resolutely and persistently pursuing the line of partisanship in philosophy, Lenin gave the lie to the "stupid claims" of the Machists and of the whole trend of positivism, to be above materialism and idealism, and pointed out that empirio-criticism served the forces of reaction, religion, and was hostile to science and progress. Apart from his exhaustive criticism of Machism and its Russian followers and fellow-thinkers, Lenin substantiated and developed further the most important tenets of dialectical and historical materialism. Lenin gave an all-round analysis of the fundamental question of philosophy, and the most important categories of Marxist philosophy (e.g., matter; experience; time and space; causality; freedom and necessity), creatively developed the Marxist theory of knowledge, especially the theory of reflection, the role of practice in cognition, the place and role of sensations in cognition, objective truth, the interrelation between absolute and relative truth, and the basic problems of historical materialism.

Lenin's generalisation of the new data accumulated by natural science is of particular importance. The outstanding discoveries in physics at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century marked the beginning of a revolution in natural science. These discoveries, however, gave birth to an acute crisis in the development of natural science, which was intimately connected with "physical" idealism. Exposing the class and epistemological roots of "physical" idealism, Lenin proved that the new discoveries in physics, far from refuting materialism, supplied, on the contrary, further confirmation of dialectical materialism. Lenin's dialectical-materialistic generalisation of the great achievements of science outlined the way out of the crisis in natural science and convincingly proved that the only method in that science was the dialectical-materialistic method.

The significance of Lenin's book lies in the fact that in it materialism is given a new form, corresponding to the new level achieved in the development of science. Even today Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism serves as an ideological weapon in the fight against idealist philosophy and revisionism, in the philosophical generalisation of contemporary progress in natural science. Lenin's work is a masterpiece of the creative development of Marxist philosophy and a model of devotion to communist principles in theoretical questions.

Materialism, Dialectical

The scientific philosophical world outlook, component of the Marxist doctrine, its philosophical basis. Dialectical Materialism was evolved by Marx and Engels and further developed by Lenin and other Marxists. It originated in the 1840s and developed in intimate association with scientific progress and the practice of the revolutionary labour movement. Its emergence was a revolution in the history of human thought, the history of philosophy. But this revolution included continuity and critical acceptance of all the advanced, progressive elements already attained by human thought. The two mainstreams of preceding philosophical development merged in Dialectical Materialism and were fructified by the new approach, the new, profoundly scientific outlook. There was the development, on the one hand, of materialist philosophy, which went back to the remote past, and, on the other, of the dialectical outlook, which also had deep-rooted traditions in the history of philosophy.

The development of philosophical thought in close association with science and the historical practice of mankind led inevitably to the triumph of the materialistic outlook. But despite glimmers of dialectics, the doctrines of the old materialists were metaphysical or mechanistic, and combined materialism in their view of nature with idealism in their explanation of social phenomena. The philosophers who developed the dialectical outlook were essentially idealists, as is shown by Hegel's system. Marx and Engels did not merely borrow the teaching of the old materialists and the dialectics of the idealists. They did not merely synthesise the two, but proceeding from the latest discoveries in natural science and from the historical experience of mankind they proved that materialism can be scientific and consistent only if it is dialectical, and that dialectics, in turn, can be genuinely scientific only if it is materialistic.

The development of a scientific outlook on social development and its laws (see Materialism, Historical) was a most essential element in the formation of Dialectical Materialism. It was impossible to defeat idealism in its last retreat, in the explanation of the essence of human society, without the dialectical materialistic outlook, and just as impossible to create a consistent philosophical world outlook and explain the laws of human cognition without a materialistic approach to society, without an analysis of socio-historical practice and, above all, of social production as the basis of being. The founders of Marxism solved this problem. Dialectical Materialism emerged, therefore, as an imposing philosophical synthesis, embracing the intricate complexity of natural phenomena, the phenomena of human society and thought, and combining its philosophical method of explaining and analysing reality with the idea of a practical revolutionary reconstruction of the world. The latter fact distinguished Dialectical Materialism from old philosophy, which confined itself essentially to explaining the world. This reflected the class roots of Marxist philosophy as the world outlook of the most revolutionary class, the working class, with its mission of building classless, communist society.

The emergence of Dialectical Materialism essentially was the culminating point in the historical process by which philosophy became a separate science with a specific object of research. This object comprises the most general laws governing the development of nature, society, and thought, the general principles and foundations of the objective world and its reflection in human consciousness, which yield the correct scientific approach to phenomena and processes, a method of explaining, cognising, and reconstructing reality. The teaching that the world is material, that there is nothing in the world besides matter and the laws of its motion and change, is the corner-stone of Dialectical Materialism. It is a determined and irreconcilable enemy of all conceptions of supernatural essences, no matter what garb they are clothed in by religion or idealist philosophy. Nature develops, attaining its highest forms, including life and thinking matter, through causes inherent in itself and in its laws, and not by any supernatural power.

The dialectical theory of development, which is part of Dialectical Materialism, defines the general laws governing the processes of motion and mutation of matter, the passage from lower to higher forms of matter. Contemporary physical theories concerning matter, space, and time, which recognise the mutability of all matter and the inexhaustible capacity of material particles for qualitative transformations, are in complete agreement with Dialectical Materialism. More than that, Dialectical Materialism is the only possible source of the philosophical ideas and methodological principles which these physical theories require. The same applies to the sciences investigating other phenomena of nature. Contemporary historical practice confirms the principles of Dialectical Materialism, for the world is turning sharply from the old, outmoded forms of social life to new, socialist forms.

Dialectical Materialism combines the teaching on being, on the objective world, and the teaching on its reflection in the human mind, thus constituting a theory of knowledge and logic. The fundamentally new advance made by Dialectical Materialism in this field, which provided the teaching on cognition with an enduring scientific foundation, consisted in practice being included in the theory of knowledge. "All the mysteries which lead theory to mysticism are rationally resolved in human practice and in the understanding of this practice" (Marx). Dialectical Materialism has applied the dialectical theory of development to cognition, established the historical nature of human concepts; it revealed the interconnection between the relative and the absolute in scientific truths, and elaborated the question of the objective logic of cognition.

Dialectical Materialism is a developing science. Every major discovery in natural science and the changes in social life serve to concretise and develop the principles and propositions of Dialectical Materialism, which absorbs the new scientific evidence and the historical experience of mankind. Dialectical Materialism is the philosophical basis of the programme, strategy, and tactics, and all activities of the Communist Parties.

Materialism, Economic

A one-sided conception of history, according to which economics is the only force in social development. It does not recognise the significance of politics and political institutions, ideas, and theories in the historical process. Economic Materialism arose as a result of vulgarising the materialist understanding of history. Exponents of Economic Materialism were E. Bernstein in the West, and the "legal Marxists", the Economists in Russia.

Historical materialism is basically different from Economic Materialism. Historical materialism holds that material production is the main motive force of social progress and explains the genesis of political institutions, ideas, theories in terms of the economic structure of society and the conditions of its material life. At the same time historical materialism stresses the immense importance of political institutions, ideas, and theories in social development (see Economics and Politics).

Materialism, French 18th Century

An ideological movement representing a new and higher stage in the development of materialist thought on a national, and also a world scale as compared with 17th century materialism. In contrast to English 17th century materialism, which largely reflected a compromise between the bourgeoisie and the nobility, French Materialism was the outlook of the progressive French bourgeoisie; their doctrine aimed to enlighten and arm ideologically a broad section of society—the bourgeoisie, artisans, bourgeois intellectuals, and the progressive part of the aristocratic intelligentsia.

The leading French materialists—La Mettrie, Helvetius, Diderot, and Holbach—expounded their philosophical views not in Latin treatises but in widely accessible publications written in French—dictionaries, encyclopaedias, pamphlets, polemic articles, and so on.

The ideological sources of French Materialism were the national materialist tradition represented in the 17th century by Gassendi and mainly by the mechanistic materialism of Descartes and English materialism. Of particular importance were the doctrine of Locke on experience as a source of knowledge, criticism of the Cartesian doctrine of innate ideas, and also an understanding of experience as such, which was materialist on the whole. Locke's pedagogical and political ideas exerted no less influence. He held that the perfection of the individual is determined by education and the political structure of society. But French Materialism did not simply assimilate Locke's theory of materialist sensualism and empiricism but discarded vacillations towards Cartesian rationalism.

Medicine, physiology, and biology, side by side with mechanics, which retained its leading significance, became the scientific basis for the French materialists. Because of this, the doctrines of the French materialists contained many new ideas as compared with 17th century materialism. Elements of dialectics in Diderot's teaching on nature were the most important of them.

The ethical and socio-political theories of French Materialism were highly original. Developing the ideas of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke in this sphere, French Materialism largely cleared their ethical doctrines and their socio-political views from their abstract, naturalist limitations: in contrast to Hobbes, who deduced man's striving for self-preservation from an analogy with the mechanical inertia of a physical body, Helvetius and Holbach regarded this "interest" as a specifically human motive of behaviour.

French Materialism rejected the compromise forms of pantheism and deism and openly preached atheism based on the conclusions of the natural and social sciences. The French materialists' lucid and witty criticism of religion was highly assessed by Lenin, who advised the use of specimens of this criticism in contemporary atheistic propaganda.

A concise and meaningful essay of the history of French Materialism was given by Marx in The Holy Family. In Materialism and Empirio-Criticism Lenin showed how great was the role of French Materialism in elaborating philosophical principles for any materialism. He also demonstrated its theoretical limitations, its metaphysical nature and idealism in explaining phenomena of social development.

Materialism, Historical

A component part of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, the science which studies the general laws of social development and the forms of their realization in the historical activity of people. Historical Materialism is scientific sociology which constitutes the theoretical and methodological basis of concrete sociological investigations and all the social sciences.

All the pre-Marxist philosophers, including materialists, were idealists in their understanding of social life, inasmuch as they did not go beyond noting the fact that, whereas in nature blind forces are in operation, in society people, intelligent beings, act guided by ideal motives. In this connection Lenin noted that the very idea of materialism in sociology was a stroke of genius (see Lenin, Vol. 1, p. 139). The development of Historical Materialism caused a fundamental revolution in social thought. It made it possible, on the one hand, to formulate a consistently materialistic view of the world as a whole, society as well as nature, and, on the other, to reveal the material basis of social life and the laws governing its development and, consequently, also the development of all the other aspects of social life determined by this material basis.

Lenin stressed (Vol. 1, p. 138) that Marx elaborated his main idea of the law-governed historical process of social development by singling out the economic sphere from all the different spheres of social life and the relations of production from all social relations as the main ones which determine all others. Marxism takes its point of departure in what lies at the basis of every human society, namely, the method of obtaining the means of livelihood and establishes the connection between that method and the relations into which people enter in the process of production. In the system of these relations of production it sees the foundation, the real basis of every society, on which there rises a political and legal superstructure and different trends of social thought (see Basis and Superstructure).

Each system of production relations, arising at a definite stage in the development of the productive forces, is subordinated both to general laws common to all formations and to particular laws inherent only in one formation, which determine how that system arises, functions, and passes on into a higher form. The actions of people within each socio-economic formation—infinitely diverse and individualized and seemingly not susceptible of calculation and systematization—were summed up and reduced to actions of big masses, and in a class society—to actions of classes who express the pressing requirements of social development.

The discovery of Historical Materialism removed the two main shortcomings of all pre-Marxist sociological theories. In the first place, these theories were idealist, i.e., they limited themselves to examining the ideological motives of human activity but did not study what material causes engendered these motives. Second, they studied only the role of outstanding personalities in history, but did not examine the actions of the masses, the real makers of history. Historical Materialism demonstrated that socio-historical process is determined by material factors. In contrast to vulgar materialist theories which deny the role of ideas, political and other institutions and organizations, Historical Materialism stresses their retroactive influence on the material basis which produced them.

Historical Materialism constitutes the scientific historical foundation of Marxism, which equips the Marxist-Leninist parties, the working class and all the working people with knowledge of the objective laws governing society's development and an understanding of the role of the subjective factor, the consciousness and organization of the masses, without which the realization of historical laws is impossible.

The main features of Historical Materialism were expounded for the first time by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology. A classical formulation of the essence of Historical Materialism was given by Marx in the preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). But Historical Materialism became a "synonym for social science" only with the publication of Capital (see Lenin, Vol. 1, p. 142).

As history develops and new experience is accumulated, Historical Materialism, like Marxism as a whole, is necessarily developed and enriched. Lenin provided a remarkable example of such development in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. In the present epoch, that of transition from capitalism to socialism, when the full-scale building of communist society in the Soviet Union becomes a practical matter, the new experience of the world communist movement, particularly the experience of building communism in the Soviet Union, was summed up in the new Programme adopted by the 22nd Congress of the CPSU. The Programme develops the doctrine of the socio-economic formation by giving a concrete characteristic of the communist formation, the laws of its emergence and development; it also develops the teaching on the state, Party, and many other questions. The Programme provides the Soviet people with a precise plan for building communist society, which includes a triple task: building communism's material and technical basis, shaping communist social relations, and educating the members of communist society.

Materialism, Natural-Historical

Also known as scientific materialism, the concepts used by Lenin to define the spontaneous "philosophically unconscious conviction shared by the overwhelming majority of scientists regarding the objective reality of the external world" (Vol. 14, p. 346). The general acceptance of Natural-Historical Materialism by scientists shows that cognition of nature leads to recognition of the materiality of the world.

If Natural-Historical Materialism is not formulated as a consistent theory, however, it cannot escape the limitations of a one-sided mechanistic, metaphysical materialism and declines into vulgar empiricism and positivism. Its limitations become most apparent in periods when scientific theories are revolutionized. At such times it is unable to explain the new facts of knowledge that contradict established notions. For this reason the difficulties of interpreting new scientific facts often lead scientists to abandon their spontaneous materialist convictions in favor of idealism (see Idealism, Physical). True philosophical generalization of the conclusions arrived at by specialized sciences can be achieved only from the standpoint of dialectical-materialist philosophy.

Materialism, Vulgar

A trend in mid-19th century philosophy; it oversimplified the basic principles of materialism. Stimulated by the rapid development of natural science, each new discovery destroying the prevailing idealistic and religious conceptions, Vulgar Materialism arose as a positivist reaction to idealist, especially the classical German, philosophy by the spontaneous materialism of natural science.

Exponents of Vulgar Materialism, such as Vogt, Büchner and Moleschott, took pains to disseminate current natural science theories, which they opposed to what they styled as philosophical "chicanery". They rejected philosophy in general and set out to resolve all philosophical problems by concrete scientific investigations. Like the exponents of metaphysical materialism, they believed that consciousness and other social phenomena were the effect of exclusively physiological processes, that they depended on diet, climate, etc. The vulgar materialists considered physiological processes the cause of consciousness and identified consciousness and matter, inferring that thought was a material secretion of the brain.

Later, too, vulgar materialist interpretations appeared in different forms, especially in some philosophical generalizations of natural science, mostly in the field of physiology. Some philosophers and natural scientists, who do not understand that man's consciousness is a social product and that the content of all psychical processes is causally governed by social being, look for the specific physiological processes determining our thoughts, senses and conceptions.

Materialist Understanding of History

See Historical Materialism.

Mathematical Hypothesis

An essential method of cognition in contemporary physics. The development of those branches of physics which study the microcosm came up against the loss of "rough" sensual visuality by physical objects. In consequence, the chief means of describing the results of experiments in physics and making heuristic, prophetical generalizations became possible above all in mathematical form. Accordingly, Mathematical Hypothesis began to play a leading role in the progress of the physical theory in the shape of extrapolation, generalized mathematical schemes, and juxtaposition of mathematical theories with reality.

New physical objects or their new properties are cognized by Mathematical Hypothesis by comparing the known empirical and certain theoretical data concerning a deeper level of matter with the generalized and supplemented mathematical scheme of the previous level. Mathematical Hypothesis is possible in principle, because the mathematical apparatus of any physical theory is an adequate reflection of the corresponding level of matter and because there is an inner interdependence and unity between the different levels of matter.

Mathematics

The science of mathematical structures (sets between whose elements there are some relations). Engels gave the following definition: "Pure mathematics deals with the space forms and quantity relations of the real world." (Anti-Dühring, p. 58.)

Mathematics arose in the remote past to meet the requirements of practice. Initially, it had as its subject-matter the simple numbers and geometrical figures. This situation basically prevailed up to the 17th century, and right up to the second half of the 19th century Mathematics developed mainly as mathematical analysis, discovered in the 17th century. Mathematics was completely reconstructed with the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries and the creation of the set theory. As a result of this, new branches of Mathematics came into being. Mathematical logic assumed great importance in contemporary Mathematics.

The mathematical methods are extensively used in the exact natural science. Until now the application of Mathematics in biology and the social sciences was quite accidental. The development of such branches as linear programming, game theory, information theory under the impact of practice and the appearance of electronic computers have opened up entirely new prospects.

The philosophical problems of Mathematics, the origin of mathematical abstraction and its peculiarities, have always been the venue of struggle between materialism and idealism. Of great importance are the philosophical problems that arose in the 20th century in connection with the problems of foundations in Mathematics (see Formalism, Intuitionism).

Matriarchy

A historical stage in the development of the primitive-communal system, where woman occupied the dominant role in social economy. Matriarchy existed among all peoples without exception. During the lowest stages of social development where the group marriage was the rule it was not known who was the father of children; only the mother was known. Thus descent could be ascertained only on the mother's side; only the female lineage was acknowledged.

The whole tribal economy was in the hands of women. Hunting, the occupation of the men, did not always provide a reliable means of livelihood. Initially it was generally the women who did the more productive agricultural work. Care of the children and the home, the laying in of provisions, work in the garden, cooking, etc., were women's functions.

With the development of cattle-breeding the role of the woman began to decline. The man became the main productive power in society, the owner of the means of production, of livestock and, later, of slaves. Hence, he became the head of the gentile commune (see Patriarchy).

Matter

A philosophical category denoting the objective reality, which exists independent of, and is reflected in, consciousness (see Lenin, Vol. 14, p. 130). Matter is the infinite plurality of existing phenomena, objects and systems; it is the substratum of all diverse properties, relations, interactions, and forms of motion. Matter exists only in the infinite variety of concrete forms of structural organization, each of which possesses diverse properties and interactions and complexity of structure and is an element of some more general system. Hence, it would be incorrect to look for "Matter as such", as some immutable primary substance outside its concrete forms.

The inherent essence of Matter is revealed through its diverse properties and interactions, to know which is to know Matter itself. The more complex Matter is, the more diverse and differentiated are its interconnections and properties. At the highest level of complexity, to which corresponds the appearance of reasonable beings, some of the properties of Matter, e.g., consciousness, seem so unusual, so unlike Matter that at first glance they appear to be something having no relation at all with Matter. The carrying of this concept to the absolute, the inability to disclose the relation between consciousness and Matter has led to the various idealistic and dualistic doctrines.

From the point of view of dialectical materialism the opposition between consciousness and Matter is relative and conditional. It assumes meaning only in the light of the fundamental problem of philosophy being raised and solved, and outside that problem it loses all its absolute significance. The active transforming influence of society results in certain groups of material objects in the surrounding world (such as means and instruments of production, buildings, products of chemical synthesis, consumer goods, and the like, because of their origin and of the organizational form of the matter they are composed of) depending to a certain degree upon man's consciousness, insofar as they embody man's designs. As science and technique develop, the quantity of material objects will go increasing, their properties and forms of organization and even origin being dependent upon the transforming conscious activity of man acting upon natural materials. It was in this sense that Lenin remarked that "man's consciousness not only reflects the objective world but creates it" (Vol. 38, p. 212).

The philosophical understanding of Matter as objective reality is concretized and complemented by the views of natural science on its structure and properties. It would be incorrect, however, to identify Matter as a philosophical category with this or that viewpoint on the structure of Matter, since these viewpoints change in the light of new scientific discoveries, while the philosophical definition of Matter remains unchanged. It is just as erroneous to identify Matter as a philosophical category with any of its concrete forms, e.g., substance, field (see Substance and Field), or with any of its properties, e.g., mass, energy, etc.

The dialectical materialistic understanding of Matter differs from the metaphysical one in that according to the former Matter is considered not only as existing objectively, as independent of man's consciousness, but also as inseparably connected with motion, time, and space, as capable of self-development, as infinite both quantitatively and qualitatively in all scales of its existence (see Unity and Diversity of the World; Matter, Forms of Motion of).

Matter, Forms of Motion of

Main types of motion and interaction of material objects. In a scientific classification of forms of motion of matter, one must consider: (1) the specific features of material objects, in which the motion takes place; (2) the existence of general laws for the given form of motion; (3) the laws governing the historical development of matter and motion from the simplest to the most intricate forms.

In accordance with these demands and the data of modern science three main groups of forms of motion of matter are distinguished: (1) inorganic nature; (2) organic nature; (3) society. In each of these groups there are many forms of motion of matter owing to the inexhaustibility of matter.

The forms of motion of matter of inorganic nature include: spatial displacement of various bodies; movement of elementary particles and fields (electromagnetic, gravitational), nuclear interaction, processes of transmutation of elementary particles, etc.; motion and transformation of atoms and molecules, including chemical forms of motion of matter; changes in the structure of microscopic bodies—thermal processes, changes in aggregate states, sound oscillations, etc.; changes in cosmic systems of various orders—planets, stars, galaxies, etc.

In animate nature the forms of motion of matter include the diverse manifestations of life; metabolism, functional links within organisms, processes of reflection of external conditions, intra-species and inter-species relations, interaction of the entire biosphere with inorganic nature. In animate nature there are integral systems of various complexity: viruses and bacteria, monocellular organisms, multicellular organisms, diverse species of plants and animals, and, lastly, the entire biosphere. Within the framework of the general manifestations of life each group has its specific forms of motion of matter, the laws of which are determined by the structure and functioning of the systems.

Social forms of motion of matter include diverse manifestations of man's activity: development of the productive forces and production, class, state, national and other relations, the process of cognition of the world, and so on.

Historically, higher forms of motion of matter arise on the basis of relatively lower ones, embodying them in a transformed way—in conformity with the structure and laws of development of a more intricate system. Unity and reciprocal influence exist between them. But the higher forms of motion of matter qualitatively differ from the lower and are not reducible to them. Disclosure of the relationship between forms of motion of matter is of great importance for understanding the development of nature, getting to know the essence of intricate phenomena, and for practically controlling them.

Means of Production

The aggregate of objects and means of labour employed in material production. The objects of labour are things and elements of nature which are processed in production and serve as objects for the application of human labour. The means of labour are all the things and sets of things whereby man acts on the object of his labour and alters it with the purpose of producing material values (the stick and stone axe in the case of primitive man, and the instruments, tools, benches, machines, etc., of our time). The means of labour also include land, production premises, roads, canals, warehouses, pipes, vessels, and the like.

The determinative role in means of production belongs to the instruments of production (machines, lathes, equipment, etc.), which Marx described as the bone and sinew of production. The level and development of the instruments of production serve as a measure of the productive forces. At the same time, means of labour are an indication of the social relations in which the labour is performed. It is not the articles made, Marx showed, but how they are made, and by what instruments, that enables us to distinguish different economic epochs.

Measure

A philosophical category expressing the organic unity of quality and quantity of a given object or phenomenon. Every qualitatively distinct object has its own quantitative attributes, which are mobile and mutable. This very mutation, however, is of necessity bound by certain limits, beyond which quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes (see Transition from Quantitative to Qualitative Changes). These limits are measure itself. In its turn the qualitative change of a given object leads to a change of its quantitative attributes and measure.

The connection and unity of quantity and quality is conditioned by the nature of a given object. Once the development of this object is approached, the points of transition from one qualitatively different stage of this process to another appear as nodal points in the change of measure. Usually such a system of the nodal points is called the nodal line of measures. Hegel was the first to elaborate measure as a philosophical category.

Measurement

A cognitive process aimed at determining characteristics (weight, length, co-ordinates, speed, etc.) of material objects by means of the appropriate measuring instruments. In the final count, measurement amounts to comparing the measured magnitude with some similar magnitude accepted as a unit. By means of one system of units or another measurement gives quantitative expression to the properties of bodies, which is an important element of knowledge. Measurement makes our knowledge more exact.

Positivists wrongly interpret the increasing role of measurement in the study of microphenomena and regard it as "preparation of the object by the subject" ("instrumental idealism") or reduce the content of physical concepts to separate operations of measurement (see Operationism).

Mechnikov, Ilya Ilyich (1845–1916)

Russian biologist and physician, public figure and thinker. From 1888 on he lived abroad. He upheld the materialist line in biology and firmly defended and popularised Darwinism. Mechnikov criticised the Malthusian errors of Darwin. The studies of Mechnikov in the fields of zoology, embryology, microbiology, pathology, and anthropology bear the mark of spontaneous dialectical thought; they developed Darwinism in some directions and helped disclose the dialectics of animate nature.

His works in evolutionary embryology facilitated the establishment of the general laws of the embryonic development of different animal groups, proved their genetic kinship and the unity of origin of the organic world. His works initiated the study of evolutionary pathology and immunology in contradistinction with the metaphysical conceptions of J. Cohnheim and R. Virchow which were dominant at the time. Mechnikov's idea that advantage must be taken of the antagonism of microbes was subsequently realised in antibiotic medicine.

His materialist views of nature combined with the idealistic conception of history. In combating social evils he based his hopes on scientific progress, which he considered the decisive force in the development of society and the key to the solution of all social problems.

Main works: Etyudy o prirode cheloveka (Studies in Human Nature), 1903; Etyudy optimisma (Studies in Optimism), 1907; Sorok let iskaniya ratsionalnogo mirovozzreniya (Forty Years' Quest for a Rational World Outlook), 1913.

Mechnikov, Lev Ilyich (1838–1888)

Russian sociologist, geographer, and publicist; brother of I. Mechnikov. Mechnikov took part in the national liberation movement in Italy and was a volunteer in Giuseppe Garibaldi's "Thousand". He contributed to Herzen's Kolokol and Chernyshevsky's Sovremennik. From 1883 to 1888 Mechnikov headed the chair of comparative geography and statistics at the Academy of Neufchatel (Switzerland).

He planned a sociological work devoted to the history of the world civilisation, but had only time to write the introduction, which was published in 1889 under the title Tsivilisatsiya i velikiye istoricheskiye reki (Civilisation and the Great Historical Rivers). He was a partisan of geographical determinism. Social development, he held, was determined by the physico-geographic, principally hydrospheric, environment. River, sea, and ocean routes created, in their time, ancient, medieval, and modern civilisations.

Mechnikov came forward against Spencer who extended the laws of biology to society. He considered the free co-operation of people as a specific characteristic of society and the growth of solidarity and freedom in a society developing from oppression to anarchy as the criterion of social progress. He was influenced by Bakunin; fought against tsarism.

Mediation

A definition of a thing (concept) by revealing its relation to another thing (concept). The properties of things are revealed in their interconnection with other things. Only through its relation to another thing can a thing be what it is, can it be defined as the given concrete thing.

Mediation is a basic category in the philosophy of Hegel. The profound dialectical surmise contained in the Hegelian treatment of the unity of the mediated and the immediate was highly assessed by Lenin (see Vol. 38, p. 103). The category of mediation, in unity with the category of the immediate, expresses the universal interconnection of things as a requisite for their concrete definiteness and their very existence as the given finite things.

Medieval Philosophy in Western Europe

Philosophy of the West European feudal society which developed from the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century) to the emergence of the early forms of capitalist society (14th–15th centuries). The collapse of antique slave society was attended by a decline of philosophy. The antique philosophical heritage was lost and was unknown to West European scholars until the latter half of the 12th century.

Religion was the dominant ideology—the Muslim in the Near East, Arabia, and the Arab-speaking countries, and two varieties of Christianity (Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy) in Europe. The school and education fell into the hands of the church, whose dogmas formed the basis of all notions about nature, the world, and man. The development of lay and clerical schools, and the establishment of the first universities in the mid-12th century (in Italy, England, Bohemia, and France) prompted philosophers to devise philosophical explanations, even justifications, for the religious dogmas. For a number of centuries, philosophy was thus the "handmaiden of theology".

This is the role it played in the hands of the apologists, the champions of Christianity against heathens, and then in the writings of the "Fathers of the Church". The most prominent of these, St. Augustine (354–430), introduced Neo-Platonism into the system of Christian philosophical doctrines. Eastern Neo-Platonists, such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (5th century), were another Western source of Neo-Platonic influence adapted to the needs of the Christian ideology. Johannes Scotus Erigena, was prominent in formulating medieval philosophy.

In elucidating religious dogma, the medieval philosophers had to tackle the complex problems concerning the relation of the individual to the general, and the reality of the general. According to the way these problems were solved, scholasticism developed several points of views, the most prominent of which were the antagonistic doctrines of realism (see Realism, Medieval) and of nominalism. In the 12th century, Pierre Abelard opposed the extremism of both these schools of thought.

From the mid-12th century onward, the main writings of Aristotle were translated into Latin. The church received them with hostility at first, but soon the Aristotelian doctrines were recognised as the philosophical foundation of Christianity. The scholastics became interpreters and protagonists of Aristotle. They adapted Aristotelian ideas to their own religious and philosophical concepts, turned outworn aspects of the Aristotelian doctrine into dogma (e.g., the geocentric system, the principles of Aristotelian physics) and rejected all search for the new in science.

The chief protagonists of scholasticism in the 13th century were St. Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Thomas Aquinas was cannonised by the church which declared his teaching its official philosophical doctrine (see Neo-Thomism) in the latter half of the 19th century. A prominent contemporary of the three 13th century scholastics was Roger Bacon, who objected to the social basis of feudal society.

The development in the 13th century of medieval towns, the arts and crafts, commerce and trade routes, and the contacts with the East extended by the crusades, stimulated a certain uplift of philosophy, particularly of nominalism, whose most prominent protagonists were William of Occam and his followers of the Parisian school of Occamism. The ideological struggle proceeded not only within scholasticism. Opposed to the latter was mysticism, which placed the authority of the church and its doctrines beneath the testimony of man's senses and subjective consciousness.

In the spiritual life of feudal society, mysticism was often a form of opposition to the official and obligatory religion: the personal attitude of the believer to God grew into criticism of, and even struggle against, the feudal ideology and the feudal social system. But there was also a reactionary wing of mystics, such as Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventure. A strong anti-scholastic movement emerged in the 13th century, fructified by the teaching of Averroes on the mortality of man's soul and of a reason common to all. These notions were courageously developed in the University of Paris by Siger of Brabant, a fighter against scholasticism, who was assassinated in 1282.

The Dominican and Franciscan orders were founded in the early 12th century to fight against heresies, anti-clericalism, and the new philosophical ideas. In the 12th century, the scholars of these two orders carried out the project of Pope Gregory IX, "correcting" the teaching of Aristotle to suit the Catholic ideology.

Despite the relative uplift of medieval philosophy in the 13th century, the results of its more than one thousand years of development were meagre both for philosophy and for science, because even the great thinkers were less concerned with the truth than with ways and means of justifying religion; the clerical regime of medieval society fettered the initiative and thought of those who were audacious enough to go beyond its hidebound framework. It was not until the appearance of the new, capitalist mode of production and the new appreciation of the practical and theoretical tasks of science that the thinking of the foremost men of Western Europe was gradually freed from the bonds of medieval philosophy.

Megarian School

A philosophical trend which existed in Greece in the 4th century B.C. Euclid of Megara (450–380 B.C.), disciple and friend of Socrates, founded this school. After the death of Socrates the Megarians tried to synthesise the teaching of Parmenides on the eternal and immutable One being and the supreme concept of Socratian ethics and theology—the idea of the good.

Euclid asserted that there exists only one good, which is immutable and is identical to itself, and known also under the names of truth, reason, god, etc. The one and only virtue, of which the others are only forms, is the knowledge of the good. A plurality and diversity of things are opposed to the one good, and are, therefore, non-existent and unreal.

The exponents of the Megarian School continued the traditions of Zeno of Elea and the sophists by using dialectics and the heuristic method as their main method of philosophising. The later Megarians (Stilpo and others) were very close to the cynics in their ethical views. Together with the cynics Zeno the Stoic, a disciple of Stilpo, transformed the Megarian School into the Stoic school (see Stoics).

Mehring, Franz (1846–1919)

Leader of the working-class movement in Germany and a Left-winger of German Social-Democracy, and one of the founders of the German Communist Party (end of 1918); historian, literary critic, and publicist. Mehring's outlook took shape under the influence of German classical philosophy and some of Lassalle's ideas. The class struggle of the late 1880s and his study of the works of Marx and Engels made him take the proletarian stand. In the words of Lenin, Mehring not only wished but was able to be a Marxist.

He denounced the revisionist and reformist critics of Marxism (Bernstein, P. Kampffmeyer, and others); his tireless fight against bourgeois sociology (L. Brentano, P. Bart, and others), against Neo-Kantianism (see Ethical Socialism) played a big role in the defence of Marxist philosophy from the attacks of the ideologists of capital (Über den historischen Materialismus, 1893; Kant und Sozialismus, 1900; Kant, Dietzgen, Mach and Historical Materialism, 1910; and many others). He exposed the reactionary essence of the ideas of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and E. Hartmann fashionable at the turn of the century.

The historical works of Mehring (like Geschichte der deutsche Sozialdemokratie, in 4 vols., 1897–98; Karl Marx, 1918), while containing some incorrect propositions, are of great scientific value. Engels called Mehring's Lessing-Legende (1892) the best of all available accounts of the origin of the Prussian state. Mehring published the earlier works of Marx and Engels.

As a literary critic (Aesthetical Search, 1898–99; Schiller, 1905; and others), he lampooned Kantian aesthetics, the theory of "art for art's sake", and naturalism. But Mehring made some serious mistakes: he underestimated, for instance, the role of the Marxist party as the political leader and the tutor of the masses; and he could not understand the importance of a principled break with opportunism. In philosophy, he was wrong in maintaining that the mechanical materialist outlook suffices for understanding nature. Under the influence of the October Revolution of 1917, which he welcomed, he overcame many of his mistakes.

Mellier (Meslier), Jean (1664–1729)

Materialist philosopher, founder of a revolutionary trend in French utopian socialism. Le Testament by Mellier, a village curé from Champagne, represents the first example of a teaching about society and its future. His exposure of religion and the church led him to consistently materialistic and atheistic deductions; he addressed himself to the "residents of town and country", criticising social injustices and appealing for the building of a society based on collective ownership.

For him, insurrection by the united labouring people against their oppressors is the affair of the people themselves; it is the prerequisite of transition to a new society wherein there will be neither rich nor poor, neither oppressors nor oppressed, neither idlers nor people exhausted by backbreaking labour. Although Le Testament was published in full only in 1864, it was widely read in manuscript form in 18th century France.

Many representatives of French social thought from the deists of the first half of the 18th century, from Voltaire to the materialist Enlighteners and the Babouvist C. Maréchal spread his ideas. They each took from Mellier what suited their ideas and class interests. Mellier's world outlook became one of the ideological sources of French materialism and socialism in the 18th century.

Memory (in psychology)

Preservation by the subject of the results of his interaction with the world, which makes it possible to reproduce and utilise these results in subsequent activity, process them and combine them into systems, sum total of mental models of reality constructed by the given subject. The forming, fixing, and inhibiting of temporary nervous connections comprises the physiological mechanism of man's memory.

Memory is connected with thinking and derivative forms of activity as a product is with a process. The content of elementary non-speech memory consists of mental models of reality formed during the direct relation of the subject and the object. Their formation depends on contiguity of the influence of the objects in point of time and on the type of requirement that determines the nature of the interaction.

In higher speech memory, which is superimposed on elementary memory, the models of objective relations of things are fixed. Speech enables man to reproduce the formations of this type of memory without direct influence of the modelled objects, under the impact of a definite aim, which ultimately leads to the subordination of memory to the objective logic of things, to meaningful memorising and reproduction.

Mendeleyev, Dmitry Ivanovich (1834–1907)

Russian scientist, chemist, founder of the periodic system of chemical elements. Mendeleyev actively championed the integration of science and practice and did much for the development of industry in Russia. His outlook was materialism combined with spontaneous dialectics. He combated spiritualism and energism.

His great achievement was the discovery of the periodic law of chemical elements in 1869. This was a great contribution to the development of chemical atomism and to the practical application of the law of the transition from quantity to quality (see Law of Transition from Quantitative to Qualitative Changes) to the chemical elements. The modern formulation of Mendeleyev's law reads: the properties of elements are periodically dependent upon the ordinal number, or charge, of atoms. The mass of the atom is closely connected with the charge of the nucleus, and by using the atomic scale Mendeleyev was able to discover his law.

The Mendeleyev system confirms both the relations between the chemical elements and their actual transmutation. The periodic law governs the development of non-organic substances and serves to substantiate the dialectical and materialistic view of nature.

Main work: Osnovy Khimii (The Foundations of Chemistry), 1869–71.

Meng Tzu (c. 372–289 B.C.)

Prominent follower of Confucius. His teachings are contained in Ming Tzu. His philosophical theories are based on idealism. For him, the testimony of reason, rather than sensory perception and sensations, forms the basis of the process of cognition. Morals and ethics, according to him, originate in man's inborn qualities, which he considers to be innately good. The ethical and moral principles peculiar to human nature derive from "Heaven", which is the highest guiding power. He also recognises the existence of "innate abilities" and "innate knowledge".

In his socio-political views he advances certain progressive propositions, emphasizing the idea of the paramount role of the people and the subordinate role of the ruler, whom the people have the right to depose if he fails to meet their requirements. He called for a unification of the country. His teachings had a serious impact on the ideology of feudal China.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1908–1961)

French existentialist and phenomenologist (see Existentialism, Phenomenology), professor at the Collège de France. His main works are: La Structure du Comportement (1942), Phénoménologie de la perception (1947), and Les Aventures de la dialectique (1953).

Defending the idea of the indissoluble link between the subject and the object (the world is the projection of the subject, the subject objectivises the world and man, and attributes them existence in themselves), Merleau-Ponty attempted to draw a "third line" in philosophy. In fact his assertion that the immediate data of perception are true reality means subjective idealism. Moreover, Merleau-Ponty's philosophy is eclectic, for he tried to synthesise existentialism and Marxism.

Meta

(Gk. after, beyond), a prefix used in forming derivatives and meaning following something, or transition to something else. For instance, Aristotle called metaphysics so because its main problems were expounded in treatises placed after the teachings on physics by the systematisers of Aristotle's works. Some contemporary scientific theories are named accordingly, e.g., metatheory, metalogic, metamathematics, metaethics, etc.

Metabolism

A requisite for the existence of living organisms. The concept of metabolism covers all energy connections of an organism with the environment and the intricate chains of consecutive transformations of substances and energy within it. Plants build their body out of water, carbon dioxide, and mineral substances with the help of the energy of light they trap (photosynthesis), while animals build it out of substances already enriched with energy.

In contrast to organisms, bodies of inanimate nature do not accumulate energy but only yield it in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. Failure to understand this fundamental difference between organic and inorganic nature in terms of energy was one of the reasons for the belief in a non-material element supposedly imparting vitality and activity to organisms (see Vitalism). The essence of metabolism is the dialectical unity of the processes of creation and destruction of organic substances.

Metaethics

The section of ethics which elaborates problems of logical analysis of moral judgements. The term was introduced in ethics by the logical positivists, for whom metaethics (by analogy with metaphysics) is a science standing above and preceding normative ethics. Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong in studying the logic of ethical judgements, but the positivists understand metaethics to be a study of the logical structure of "the language of ethics", of the signification of judgements and terms in ethics, drawing no conclusions as to what is good and what is bad or whether the behaviour of man depends upon social conditions, etc. Such an interpretation of metaethics is a claim on the part of bourgeois ethicians to create a science which is to be above parties and "neutral" in its attitude towards human behaviour.

Metagalaxy

A cosmic system composed of billions of galaxies. The term was introduced by the American astronomer H. Shapley. In the past the term "Big Universe" (as distinct from the "Small Universe", which is our galaxy) and others were used, but they cannot be considered a happy choice. A metagalaxy is the largest material system which can be observed by modern apparatuses, but it is by no means the whole Universe. Our galaxy, its two companion galaxies, and the galaxy next to us, which is visible in the constellation of Andromeda, together with a number of other galaxies form the so-called Local Group, one of the various subsystems of the metagalaxy. The Red Displacement testifies to large-scale movements within the metagalaxy.

Metalanguage and Object-Language

Concepts in modern logic. If the given object of study is a natural or an artificial language (for instance, a logical calculus, or the language of a concrete scientific theory), it is necessary to distinguish the language under study, called the object-language, from the language used for its study. The latter is called metalanguage in relation to the given object-language. In particular, a metalanguage is one in which a metatheory is formulated. Failure to distinguish between the metalanguage and the object-language leads to various kinds of paradoxes.

As a rule, the metalanguage must contain, first, names for all the expressions in the object-language, and, secondly, terms expressing the various syntactic and semantic characteristics of the object-language. It must, therefore, be richer than the object-language. As a metalanguage we may use either the natural (ordinary conversational) language or a formalised language. In the latter case, the formalisation of the metalanguage must be achieved in a metalanguage of the second order. In the final resort, the natural language is always the metalanguage of the highest order.

Metalogic

A theory studying the systems of propositions and concepts (see Metatheory) of contemporary formal logic. It elaborates the theoretical problems of proof, the definability of concepts and truth in formalised languages, interpretation, sense, etc. Metalogic is divided into two parts: logical syntax and logical semantics. The development of metalogic is associated with the construction and study of formalised languages. The main works in this sphere are by Frege, by the Polish logicians of the Lvov-Warsaw school, Hilbert, Gödel, Tarski, A. Church, Carnap, J. Kemeny, and others.

Metamathematics

A concept denoting the theory which studies the different properties of formal systems and calculi (non-contradiction, completeness, etc.). Hilbert introduced the term metamathematics in connection with his conception of the foundations of mathematics (see Formalism). In the past a number of important results was obtained (Gödel's theorem on the incompleteness of formal arithmetic and on the impossibility to demonstrate the non-contradiction of a system by the means which are formalised in such systems).

Metaphysics

1. The term metaphysics came into usage in the 1st century B.C. to denote part of the philosophical heritage of Aristotle. He called this most important part of his philosophical doctrine the "First Philosophy", that which studies the "highest" principles of all that exists, which are inaccessible to the senses, comprehensible only to speculative reason, and indispensable for all sciences. In this sense the term metaphysics was current in subsequent philosophy. In the philosophy of the Middle Ages metaphysics was subordinated to theology. Approximately from the 16th century on the term metaphysics was used in the same sense as the term ontology. With Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza and other philosophers of the 17th century metaphysics was still closely connected with the natural and humanitarian sciences. This connection was broken only in the 18th century, particularly by such philosophers as Wolff.

2. In modern times there has arisen the understanding of metaphysics as an anti-dialectical method of thinking, owing to its one-sidedness and subjectivism in cognition; it regards things and phenomena as final and immutable, independent of one another; denies that inherent contradictions are the source of the development of nature and society. Historically, this was explained by the fact that in ancient times and during the Renaissance scientific and philosophical knowledge regarded nature as a whole, in movement leading to development; subsequently, due to the deepening and differentiation of scientific knowledge, the latter divided nature into a number of isolated spheres, each being investigated without any connection with the others. Hegel was the first to use the term metaphysics in its anti-dialectical sense, but he neither explained nor justified it. This was done by Marx and Engels, who, generalising the data of science and social progress, demonstrated the scientific bankruptcy of metaphysical thinking and counterpoised to it the method of materialistic dialectics.

Metatheory

A theory whose subject-matter is some other theory. It studies the system of propositions and concepts of a given theory, designates its limits and the means of introducing new concepts and proof of its propositions, etc.; it gives a possibility of constructing a given theory in a more rational way. Metatheory is formulated in metalanguage (see Metalanguage and Object-Language). In our days the most developed are the metatheory of logic (see Metalogic) and the metatheory of mathematics (see Metamathematics), in the development of which the works of Hilbert, Gödel and S. Kleene played an exceptional role. Creation of metatheory for non-mathematical disciplines has just begun. The central task of metatheory is to study the conditions for formalising scientific theories, and the syntactical (see Logical Syntax) and semantic (see Logical Semantics) properties of formalised languages. Such studies are of particular significance in connection with the development of cybernetics and computer technology.

Method

In its most general meaning, a means of achieving an aim, a definite way of ordering activity. In the special philosophical sense, as a means of cognition, method is a way of getting a mental reproduction of the subject under study. The most essential condition for the successful development of knowledge lies in the conscious application of a scientific method. A method is objective and correct when it conforms to the object under study. At the base of all methods of cognition lie the objective laws of reality. That is why method is inseparably linked with theory. There are special methods for the concrete sciences, since these have their specific objects of study. As distinct from the concrete sciences, philosophy works out the general method of cognition: materialist dialectics.

The most general laws of the development of the material world form the objective basis of the dialectical method. This method does not replace the methods of other sciences, but is their common philosophical foundation and serves as an instrument of cognition in all spheres. Dialectics is at the same time the method for transforming the world. The dialectical method is opposed to idealist dialectics and metaphysics.

Methodology

1. The aggregate of the ways of investigating a given science.
2. The doctrine on the methods of scientific cognition and the transformation of the world. The need for a theoretical foundation of the methods of scientific cognition arose from the rapid advance of science, and this theoretical foundation was developed mostly in philosophy beginning with Francis Bacon and Descartes. Pre-Marxian materialist philosophers sought to lay the foundation for the methods of knowing the laws of the objective world. The idealist systems attempted to found these methods on the laws of the spirit and ideas, or regarded them as an aggregate of rules arbitrarily created by human reason. At the same time the general method of cognition was often related to the laws of one of the concrete fields of knowledge (mechanics, mathematics, biology, etc.) and reduced to the method of a particular science.

An important contribution to methodology was made by Hegel, who was the first to emphasise the specific character of the philosophical method, its distinction from the methods of the concrete sciences and its irreducibility to them. He also stressed that method is the motion of the content itself, and that is why it cannot be examined in isolation from the content. However, the idealism of Hegel's philosophy led to the absolutisation of the role of method and reduced the laws of the objective world to the laws of cognition.

The Marxist-Leninist methodology is materialist dialectics, which fulfils the role of both the general method of cognition and of the scientific theory applicable in the cognizance of methods. It proceeds from the fact that the methods of cognition are based on the objective laws of nature and society. A method of cognition can be scientific only when it reflects the objective laws of reality itself. For this reason the principles of the scientific method, its categories and concepts are not the sum total of arbitrary rules created by human reason, are "not an auxiliary tool of man, but an expression of laws both of nature and of man..." (Lenin, Vol. 38, p. 91). At the same time, Marxist methodology relies on the dialectics of the subject-matter and the peculiarities of its reflection in the mind. In this it differs radically from the methodology of pre-Marxist materialism. Marxist methodology takes into account the specific laws of the activities of the mind and, what is particularly important, it connects these laws with the practical and theoretical action of the social subject upon the objective world.

The significance of the methodology of scientific knowledge is growing in modern conditions, as a result of the tremendous advance of science, particularly of such branches as physics, mathematics, biology, cybernetics, etc. The great interest in problems of methodology is borne out by the extensive development of metatheoretical investigations (see Metatheory), by the close link between research in the concrete sciences and problems of methodology.

Michurin, Ivan Vladimirovich (1855–1935)

Soviet biologist, honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Michurin's activity developed especially after the October Socialist Revolution of 1917. Basing himself on Darwin and his own experiments, Michurin studied the biological theory of control over heredity and the variability of organisms (genetics). His doctrine is based on the dialectical understanding of living nature, on the recognition of the unity between the organism and the surrounding, the dependence of embryonic cells and the entire process of fertilisation upon the conditions of life of organisms. He worked out methods of evolving new forms of plants (hybridisation of geographically removed species, interspecific and intergeneric hybridisation, etc.). With the help of these methods Michurin created over 300 new varieties of fruit and berry plants.

The theoretical foundations of the Michurin doctrine are set forth in his work Vyvedeniye novykh kulturnykh sortov plodovykh derevyev i kustarnikov iz semyan (The Cultivation of New Kinds of Fruit-Trees and Bushes from Seeds), 1911. Michurin attempted to explain the laws of development of organisms, and also to work out a teaching on the methods of transforming them. "We cannot wait for favours from nature," he said; "we must wrest them from her." The ideas of Michurin on the controlled change of the heredity of the organism, on the unity of the organism and the surrounding, and others, became the foundation of the Michurin trend in biology.

Microsociology

The positivist theory which sprang up in the 1930s and spread in the USA (J. Moreno), France (G. Gurvitch) and Federal Germany (R. König). The USA has a special institute of microsociology, the Moreno Institute, and the journal Sociometry. Microsociology uses the terminology of the natural sciences (microelements, electrons, atoms, molecules, etc.). In analysing social phenomena, the microsociologists proceed from the concepts of microstructure (the psychological relations between people: their desire, sympathy and antipathy) and macrostructure (the union of people in any given space during working hours, study, and rest; in everyday life, in the workshop, the classroom, the volleyball ground, the apartment, etc.). Their conformity or non-conformity to each other is said to determine their "social tenseness", the stability of social life.

According to microsociology, social harmony can be achieved on the basis of special measurements (see Sociometry) by way of regrouping in the macrostructures ("sociometrical revolution"), as a result of which unity is established in the desires and feelings of people. Microsociology is a reactionary utopia aimed at reconstructing society without affecting its economic and political foundations, thus glossing over the social antagonisms of the present-day capitalist society.

Mikhailovsky, Nikolai Konstantinovich (1842–1904)

Russian sociologist, publicist, ideologist of liberal Narodism. In 1868, he became a staff member and later editor of the journal Otechestvenniye Zapiski. From 1892 he was one of the leading editors of the Russkoye Bogatstvo journal, which led the fight of liberal Narodism against Marxism. In Russian democratic journalism, Mikhailovsky claimed to have played the role of preserving and continuing the traditions of Chernyshevsky. In philosophy, however, Mikhailovsky took a step backward from Chernyshevsky. Mikhailovsky was a positivist; he made serious concessions to agnosticism. His sociology was the foundation of one of the main Narodnik dogmas concerning the leading role played by the raznochintsy (Russian intellectuals of the 19th century not belonging to the gentry) in social development.

In Mikhailovsky's opinion, the history of society (as opposed to evolution in nature) is not a natural-historical process. It is moral consciousness and the will of individuals that play the decisive role here. Mikhailovsky closely combined the idealistic understanding of history with the theory of "the hero and the crowd". The conditions of life in society, according to him, doom the people to destitution and spiritual frustration. That is why the masses are transformed into the "crowd" while the "hero" can, by his example, carry away the "crowd" either to great deeds or criminal actions. The individual ("hero") was declared to be the chief maker of history.

Following Lavrov, Mikhailovsky gave reasons for the necessity of applying "different methods in the two great spheres of human knowledge": the objective method in the study of natural phenomena and the subjective in the study of society. According to Mikhailovsky, the essence of the subjective method in sociology lay in the moral appreciation of developments. He declared the individual to be the starting point of historical investigation and the highest criterion of the value and progressive nature of all social relations. Mikhailovsky's views were subjected to criticism by Lenin and Plekhanov.

Milesian (Ionic) School

The most ancient philosophical school in Greece; the first of its exponents date back to the 6th century B.C. Miletus was then a major centre of commerce, navigation, and culture, this determining the broad horizon and scientific interests of prominent Milesians. Among them were Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes. The Milesians made the first scientific discoveries in the field of mathematics, geography, and astronomy; they were all spontaneous materialists. According to them, the only basis of the infinite multiformity of nature was something material, corporeal, specific—water, air, etc. These philosophers were also spontaneous dialecticians. Hippo and Diogenes of Apollonius (5th century B.C.) were among the later and lesser representatives of the Milesian School.

Military Democracy

An early form of political organisation of society that originated during the decline of the gentile order and the formation of the state. The term was invented by Morgan. Military Democracy was practised by the Greeks in the Homeric age (12-9th centuries B.C.) and by the Romans in the period of the kings (8-6th centuries B.C.). It was also practised by the Scythians, the Celts, the ancient German tribes, and the Normans. Its characteristic feature is the increasing concentration of power in the hands of the leaders, generals, and high priests, and its gradual conversion into a hereditary institution. Wars become a permanent industry, waged for the sake of plunder, and a military caste enjoying various privileges comes into being. The organs of the gentile order are thus "transformed from instruments of the will of the people into independent organs for ruling and oppressing their own people" (Marx, Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 314).

Mill, John Stuart (1806–1873)

English philosopher, logician, and economist, exponent of positivism. Main works: System of Logic (1843), Principles of Political Economy (in two vols., 1848), Utilitarianism (1864). In philosophy he was a follower of Hume, Berkeley and Comte. Examining materialism and idealism as two "metaphysical" poles, Mill considered matter as permanent potency of sensation, while spirit as permanent potency of feeling. Things do not exist outside their perception. Man perceives only "phenomena" (sensations) and cannot go beyond them.

In logic Mill was a most typical exponent of pure inductivism. Denying deduction as a method of acquiring new knowledge, he one-sidedly and metaphysically exaggerated the role of induction. He elaborated the method of inductive investigation of causal connections. In ethics Mill was influenced by Bentham's utilitarianism. In political economy, he replaced Ricardo's labour theory of value by the vulgar theory of cost-price; he also defended Malthus' theory of population.

Mills, C. Wright (1916–1962)

Sociologist and publicist. His works, written in the spirit of bourgeois liberalism, drew a clear picture of the decadence of bourgeois democracy in the USA, uncovered the all-powerful oligarchy of corporations, government bureaucracy, and the military, highlighted the militarisation of the USA and its preparation for war. He severely criticised the various trends of contemporary sociology in the USA, showing its methodological weakness, formalism, and subordination to monopoly interests. Main works: The Power Elite (1956), The Causes of World War Three (1958), and The Sociological Imagination (1959).

Milyutin, Vladimir Alexeyevich (1826–1855)

Russian economist, exponent of socialist thought in Russia in the 1840s. He graduated at the law faculty of St. Petersburg University (1847). He was a member of the Petrashevsky group. At the end of the 1840s he published a series of articles ("Malthus and His Enemies", etc.) in the journals Otechestvenniye Zapiski and Sovremennik, in which he said that bourgeois economics was in a state of crisis. According to Milyutin, "only the exact sciences can lead to the discovery of the laws of human and social development". Hence it is necessary, on the one hand, that economic and social doctrines should master the methods of the natural "positive" sciences; and, on the other, that economic doctrines should be brought nearer to socialism.

An adept at criticism and formulating the essential problems of social sciences, Milyutin in defining his positive ideal leaned towards the sociology of Comte in the field of scientific philosophy. In the sociopolitical sphere he inclined towards reformistic hopes of peacefully transforming the whole land into indivisible means of labour and of maintaining the class of small proprietors (peasants) united for profit in producer associations.

Mimansa

One of the major orthodox systems of Indian philosophy. The exponents of Mimansa think that the vedas are not a revelation in the full sense of the word; the religious and philosophical pronouncements in them require a logical substantiation. This system attaches great significance to the Brahmanas—books setting forth and interpreting the vedic ritual. Underlying the foundation of the Mimansa doctrine is the belief that the final salvation from the state of incarnation—moksa—cannot be rationally explained and achieved by science or any conscious effort. Attention must be chiefly directed to the strict observance of public and religious duty—dharma—which consists in the fulfilment of rituals and in obedience to all kinds of limitations and prohibitions imposed upon the Indian by his caste.

Mimansa holds that the observance of dharma itself, independently of the desire of the individual, can lead him to final salvation. Like sankhya, Mimansa admitted the existence of the spiritual and material principles in the world. The doctrine of Mimansa was for the first time set forth in the Mimansa sutras, ascribed to Jaimini, who lived in the 3rd century. Later commentators strengthened the theological aspect of Mimansa and developed the idea of a personal godship, apparently as a result of the growing influence of the puranic mythology. Basically, Mimansa is an idealistic doctrine and much more closely related with religion than sankhya.

Minkowsky, Hermann (1864–1909)

German mathematician and physicist. Known, together with the Russian scientist G.F. Voronoi, as the founder of the geometry of numbers. Application of geometrical methods to the theory of numbers indicates the profound dialectical connection between spatial forms and discrete aggregates of numbers. In his works on the theory of relativity (e.g., Raum und Zeit, 1909) Minkowsky gave a geometrical interpretation of the special theory of relativity. Every occurrence, according to him, has four coordinates: three common spatial ones and one temporal (the momentum of time, which is counted off from some initial moment). The distance between two points in this four-dimensional space is introduced by a means analogous to the measurement of distance in space by Lobachevsky (see Non-Euclidean Geometries; Space, Multi-Dimensional).

Mobility, Social

A concept in bourgeois sociology denoting a property of the social structure (see Social Stratification). Social Mobility is the movement of people from one stratum of society to another, the changing of their social status. There is a "horizontal Social Mobility" (i.e., the transfer of an individual from one social group into another at the same social level) and a "vertical Social Mobility" (i.e., the transfer of an individual into another social stratum or class).

The theory of Social Mobility is but a variety of the reformist conception of "class collaboration". According to this theory, the "vertical Social Mobility" affords the possibility to a man in the "lower class" to rise up the social ladder to join the "highest class", or to be a millionaire. The fact is, that the "road upward" in bourgeois society, i.e., the change in the social status of individuals and families is an exception and does not alter the position of the class as a whole in the system of production. The main direction of Social Mobility in bourgeois society is not "upward" but "downward". It reflects the impoverishment of the petty bourgeoisie in town and country, leading not to the softening but to the sharpening of the class contradictions of capitalism.

Modality (in logic)

A characteristic of a proposition according to the thing asserted: a proposition can be necessary, possible, accidental, impossible, etc. In traditional logic propositions are divided into necessary (apodeictic), possible (problematic), and real (assertoric) propositions. Modern logic provides the possibility of analysing the properties of Modality, considering it as a certain "metalogic" appraisal of an assertion.

Logical Modality of statements is determined from purely logical and not factual considerations. For instance, P is logically necessary if and only if it is true according to purely logical grounds, i.e., if the acceptance of non-P leads to a logical contradiction. Statements can also be distinguished according to descriptive Modalities, mainly the physical (causal) ones. The latter depend upon whether the statement is necessary, possible or accidental because of some physical laws. Thus, the statement "all planets move in ellipses" is physically necessary, whereas "the number of planets is nine" is physically accidental. In contemporary logic, particularly in the nomological statements of Hans Reichenbach, attempts are made to determine the strict logical criteria of physical Modality (see Logic, Modal).

Mode of Life

A term used by the social sciences denoting the material and cultural conditions in which people live outside their actual productive and socio-political activity, the conditions for satisfying their needs for food, clothing, housing, rest, recreation, and preservation of health, etc. The character of the Mode of Life and the means of satisfying people's requirements depend on the mode of production and the changes to which it is subject. At the same time the Mode of Life is deeply influenced by customs, national traditions, class differences, distinctions between town and country, the status of women in society, national characteristics, and the ideology and culture of society in question. The family is a very important form of organisation of the mode of life.

In socialist society the everyday life of the working people improves as the level of material and spiritual production rises. The new Programme of the CPSU pays great attention to further improving the material wellbeing and cultural level of the Soviet people. It states: "The CPSU sets the historically important task of achieving in the Soviet Union a living standard higher than that of any of the capitalist countries."

Mode of Production

A historically conditioned manner of obtaining the necessities of life (food, clothing, housing, tools of labour, and the like). Mode of Production is the determinative basis of a social system. Society, its dominant ideas, political views and institutions depend on the Mode of Production. If the Mode of Production changes, the entire social system changes as well. Every new and higher Mode of Production signifies a new and higher level in the history of man's development.

There has been a succession of Modes of Production since the inception of human society: primitive-communal system, slave-owning system, feudalism, and capitalism. In the present historical epoch the moribund capitalist Mode of Production is being replaced by the new, socialist Mode of Production (see Socialism). A world socialist system has come into being.

The Mode of Production has two indivisible sides: the productive forces and the relations of production. The productive forces are the determinative and most revolutionary factor of the Mode of Production. Development of social production begins with changes in the productive forces, followed by changes in the relations of production (see Law of Correspondence of Production Relations, etc.). Though their development depends on the productive forces, relations of production, too, exercise an active influence on the former. Production relations accelerate the development of the productive forces, being the chief motive power of their development if they conform to the productive forces, and, conversely, retard their development, act as the chief brake on their development, if they cease to conform.

An acute conflict and contradiction arises between new productive forces and old relations of production, leading inevitably to social revolution in antagonistic socio-economic formations. Under socialism, since ownership is public, contradictions that may appear between aspects of production relations and the growing productive forces do not create a conflict. The socialist state and the Communist Party are able to take account of the operation of objective laws of social development and remove these contradictions in good time by bringing the relations of production into line with the new character and level of the productive forces.

Model

A philosophical term current in pre-Marxist philosophy to denote a property of an object proper to it only in certain conditions as distinct from an attribute. In Spinoza's philosophy the name Model is given to all transient states of substance, the cause of whose being does not lie in themselves but in the substance and its attributes. Models represent an infinite plurality of things and their transient qualities in which the sole eternal and infinite material substance is manifested.

Monad

(Gk. monas—a unit), a philosophical term denoting the structural, substantial unit of being. It is interpreted in different ways by different philosophical systems. According to the Pythagoreans, for instance, the Monad (a mathematical unit) is the basis of the Universe. According to Giordano Bruno (De Monade, Numero, et Figura, 1591), the Monad is the sole source of being, which is but spiritualised matter (see Pantheism). In this source, he held, the opposites coincide—the finite and the infinite, the even and the odd, etc.

The Monad is one of the main concepts of Leibniz's philosophy (Monadology, 1714). He regarded the Monad as a simple, closed and changeable substance. The Monads, endowed with the ability of clear perception are called souls. The rational soul of man, Leibniz held, is a spirit-Monad. Taking note of Leibniz's view that the whole world is reflected in the Monads, that it, as an individuality, contains infinity in itself as in embryo, Lenin wrote: "Here is dialectics of a kind, and very profound despite idealism and clericalism." (Vol. 38, p. 383.)

Lomonosov employs the term "physical Monad" to designate a particle (corpuscule) of matter. As a spiritual principle, the Monad plays a certain role in the hylozoism of Goethe. The concept of Monad is applied in modern idealistic systems of pluralism and personalism.

Monism

A philosophical doctrine which holds that the underlying basis of all existence is one source. There are both materialistic and idealistic Monism. The materialists consider matter to be the foundation of the world; while the idealists consider the spirit, the idea. Hegel's philosophy is the most systematic trend of idealistic Monism.

A scientific and consistent materialist Monism is typical of dialectical materialism, which proceeds from the fact that the world is by its nature material, that all phenomena in the world are but various forms of moving matter. In Marxist philosophy, materialism is extended also to social phenomena. The opposite of Monism is dualism.

Montaigne, Michel de (1533–1592)

French philosopher of the Renaissance. Main work: Essais (1580). A point of departure of Montaigne's philosophy is scepticism. According to him, man has the right to doubt anything. He doubts the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, the dogmas of Catholicism and the Christian idea of God himself. As distinct from agnosticism the scepticism of Montaigne does not deny the knowability of the world. His main moral principle is that man should not passively wait for his happiness, which religion promises him in heaven; he has a right to strive for happiness on earth.

Montesquieu, Charles de (1689–1755)

French sociologist. Main works: Lettres persanes (1721), Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la decadence des Romains (1734), L'Esprit des Lois (1748). These works were very popular with the leaders of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789. Montesquieu severely criticised the regime of absolutism, tried to explain the origin of the state, the nature of laws, and to draw up a plan of social reforms on this "natural" basis. Objectively, his identification of society with nature was contrary to the medieval theory of providentialism.

Montesquieu was one of the founders of geographical determinism. According to him, the moral physiognomy of peoples, the character of their laws and the forms of government are conditioned by climate, soil, and the size of territory. These views were criticised by the French materialists. Montesquieu considered constitutional monarchy to be the best form of government. He introduced the theory of the separation of powers. Although he was not an atheist, he severely criticised the church and the clergy.

Moore, George Edward (1873–1958)

English idealistic philosopher, exponent of neo-realism. Criticising subjective idealism, Moore propounded in refutation the thesis: "Perception includes consciousness and the object which is independent of consciousness." To Moore the status of the object is unclear: it may be regarded both as a physical object and as a "sensory datum"; it is common sense alone that induces us to recognise the objectivity of the surrounding world.

According to this philosophy of "common sense" there exist in the Universe material objects and conscientious actions associated with only certain material objects. At the same time "common sense" does not preclude the possible spiritual nature of the Universe, and the existence of a divine wisdom, its actions, and an after-life. Moore developed a method of logical analysis. His theory of analysis influenced neopositivism (the "linguistic analysis" of J. Ryle, A. Wisdom, and others). His ethics is based on the recognition that good and evil are undefinable concepts. Ethical propositions reveal the emotions of the speaker and arouse emotions in the listener or in concealed form express commands. Hence, the two trends in contemporary positivist ethics, "emotivism" and ethics as "analysis of ethical opinions". His most important works are A Defence of Common Sense (1925) and A Reply to My Critics (1942).

Moral Code of the Builder of Communism

A collection of scientific principles of communist morality, formulated in the Programme of the CPSU and adopted at its 22nd Congress in October 1961. The code is a product of life itself, of the epoch of building communism, when the sphere of action of morality in society is widening and that of the administrative regulation of human relations is narrowing. First, it embodies the moral principles which have been worked out by the progressive social forces, particularly by the working class; secondly, it reflects all the best achievements of socialist society in the struggle for moral progress; thirdly, it points to the path for the further moral improvement of the builder of communism.

The code comprises the following principles: devotion to the cause of communism; love of the socialist motherland and of the other socialist countries; conscientious labour for the good of society—he who does not work, neither shall he eat; concern on the part of everyone for the preservation and growth of public wealth; a high sense of public duty; intolerance of actions harmful to the public interest; collectivism and comradely mutual assistance: one for all and all for one; humane relations and mutual respect between individuals—man is to man a friend, comrade, and brother; honesty and truthfulness, moral purity, modesty, and unpretentiousness in social and private life; mutual respect in the family, and concern for the upbringing of children; an uncompromising attitude to injustice, parasitism, dishonesty, careerism, and cupidity; friendship and brotherhood among all peoples of the USSR; intolerance of national and racial hatred; an uncompromising attitude to the enemies of communism, peace, and the freedom of nations; fraternal solidarity with the working people of all countries and with all peoples.

Moral Judgement

Assessment of the moral merits of actions and behaviour of individuals, organisations, people, etc. A general Moral Judgement is made in categories of good and evil. Moral Judgement is based on the objective criterion of morality which is historical and changes according to the social system, class struggle, etc. The Moral Judgement of people's actions and behaviour by scientific ethics is based on the unity of the moral impulse and social usefulness of the result, from the unity of word and action.

In socialist society, the criterion of Moral Judgement is the interests of the people, progressive development of the material and spiritual conditions of man's life, and purposeful labour for the good and happiness of man.

Moral Law

An ethical principle of idealist philosophy designed to serve as a basis for the behaviour of any man. Voltaire formulated Moral Law as a law of natural morality: "Treat others as you would want them to treat you." Kant presented Moral Law as an unconditional moral injunction not needing an empirical justification, eternally inherent in human nature, and called it the categorical imperative. Fichte associated Moral Law with the necessary creative activity of the individual. Everything associated with this activity is moral. Marxist ethics rejects the doctrine of Moral Law as a category outside the classes and history.

Moral Stimuli to Labour

Deep-seated inner forces inciting man to work, which arise from his sense of moral, ideological, political, and scientific convictions, man's unselfish incentive to work for the sake of an idea. The Moral Stimuli to Labour are closely connected with the material interest in labour, which plays a considerable role in the first phase of communism. The essence and forms of all stimuli to labour are determined by social conditions.

Underlying the Moral Stimuli to Labour under socialism are the profound social transformations (abolition of private ownership of the means of production and establishment of social ownership, elimination of the exploitation of man by man, introduction of comradely co-operation and mutual help among free workers, enjoying equal rights) and radical changes in the spiritual world of man. In socialist society the Moral Stimuli to Labour include the worker's realisation of the social usefulness of his work, his striving for moral satisfaction from work and from the creative application of his spiritual and physical abilities, his desire to win the respect of his fellow workers and of society, and to come out victorious in labour emulation.

The effects of the Moral Stimuli to Labour under socialism are the worker's conscientiousness, initiative, selfless and creative labour. The survivals of bourgeois Moral Stimuli to Labour (vanity, careerism, love of power, etc.) hamper the progress of socialism. The development of the socialist Moral Stimuli to Labour constitutes an important condition for the transition to labour as a prime necessity of life.

Morality

A form of social consciousness in which the ethical qualities of social reality (good, welfare, justice, etc.) are reflected and fixed. Morality is the aggregate of regulations, standards of community life, of behaviour of men, defining their duties to each other and to society. The character of Morality is determined by the economic and social order; its standards reflect class interests, the interests of a social stratum or of the people.

Different Moralities exist in a class society because class interests are at variance with each other. If a class becomes reactionary, then its Morality loses its justification and becomes completely egoistical, ceases to keep pace with history. If, on the other hand, Morality voices the demands of historical development, it is progressive. Morality is not only a system of standards of behaviour; it is also a specific feature of the spiritual physiognomy of men, of the ideology and psychology of a class, of a social stratum or a people.

Behaviour is moral when it is objectively good and just; if it is bad or unjust, then it is immoral. However, man can go astray, taking good for bad, and vice versa. For this reason Morality includes evaluation. The gist of evaluation is seen not only in judgements (ideology) but also in emotional and volitional reactions and affectations. The relations between men expressed in ethical evaluation of behaviour, of the way of life, are moral relations.

Morality appeared with the emergence of human society, i.e., before the advent of the state and law, and it has undergone a long historical process of development, changing its character with changes in the mode of production and the social system. The struggle between antagonistic classes in class formations also found their expression in the realm of Morality. Hence, moral standards and relations are not something given once and for all, as the metaphysicians hold, and Morality is not a pure creation of reason, spirit, as the idealists and theologians assert.

Religion defends the Morality of the exploiters. Bourgeois Morality is permeated with a spirit of private ownership; its principles and manners reflect egoism and individualism. The behaviour and way of life of the imperialist bourgeoisie is immoral because it runs counter to the common interests of humanity, the march of history. The Morality of imperialism found its most consistent and reactionary expression in fascism.

With the victory of socialism, bourgeois Morality was replaced by socialist Morality, which has for its source the Morality of the proletariat, already created under the old regime, and the progressive moral principles accumulated by the working people in the course of their struggle against social oppression and injustice. In the period of transition from socialism to communism, Morality and moral principles assume paramount importance, the relations between men and the relations of men to society become more and more regulated by ethical principles, while the role of administrative regulation gradually decreases. The fundamental principles of the Morality of the people of socialist and communist society are formulated in the CPSU Programme—in the moral code of the builder of communism (see Moral Code).

Morality, Christian

The morality preached by the Christian religion. Theologians try to present the standards of Christian Morality as common to all mankind, and Christian Morality itself as the loftiest and most humane, putting in the forefront the commandment of love. But in reality the church monopolised and sanctified definite secular standards, placing them at the service of the exploiting classes.

Christianity, which arose historically as a religion of the oppressed, reflected the aspirations of the masses (particularly the idea of brotherhood of all the destitute, love of one's neighbour, etc.). The church, while preaching universal love and forgiveness, turned these commandments against the masses themselves. Herein lies the hypocrisy and bigotry of Christian Morality. The church links the reward of the oppressed for their suffering and the triumph of justice with the "kingdom of God", the advent of which depends upon God's and not man's will. In doing so the church declares amoral the struggle of the masses for the reorganisation of society. Christian Morality is reactionary insofar as it preaches humility and submission.

Morality, Communist

The aggregate of principles and standards of conduct of the builders of communist society. The objective criterion of Communist Morality is the fight for the victory of communist society. Its fundamental principles as stipulated in the CPSU Programme are as follows: devotion to the cause of communism; increase of social wealth by labour; a high sense of public duty; collectivism; humanism; internationalism; an uncompromising attitude to violations of communist moral standards, etc. (see Moral Code of the Builder of Communism).

The historical and theoretical basis of Communist Morality is the world outlook and morality of the working class, which include the simple and high moral standards handed down by the progressive classes of the past. At the same time the working class has put forward its own ethical standards, such as class solidarity, internationalism and collectivism, striving for the emancipation of the working people. Through the working class Communist Morality inherits all the progressive standards of human morality. Thus, Communist Morality is the highest degree of moral progress of humanity.

The standards of Communist Morality are not confined to people's behaviour; they are active factors in transforming society, in educating and re-educating man, in the sense that through people's conduct they influence the formation of communist social institutions and the whole course of social development. When the standards of Communist Morality become universal, they will gradually make superfluous many links in the legislative and administrative regulation of the relations between the individual and society. Human behaviour dictated by consciousness of public duty will exclude all forms of external compulsion and will lead to genuine freedom of the individual. The natural replacement of the code of laws and forms of the administration by the standards of Communist Morality will be a revolution in the history of morality. It will also lead to the abrogation of the principle of compulsion.

At present the maturing standards of Communist Morality are confronted with non-communist morality along two lines: inside socialist society, where the old and obsolete standards exist as survivals of the past, resulting from noncompliance with, and violation of, the laws obtaining in society, this giving birth to amoral actions and crime; outside socialist society, where Communist Morality is opposed to the morality of bourgeois society. Communist Morality is being formed in this complicated struggle and construction as the future morality of the whole of humanity (see Morality, Ethics).

More, Thomas (1478–1535)

One of the founders of utopian socialism, humanist-rationalist of the Renaissance. He was brought up in a bourgeois family; between 1529 and 1532 More held an important post—Lord Chancellor of England. He was beheaded by order of the king for his refusal to recognise the king as the head of the church.

More described a journey into Utopia, the unknown land (literally, a non-existent place) in his book A fruteful and Pleasaunt Worke of the best State of a Publyque Weale, and of the newe Yle called Utopia (1516). Till the very end of the 18th century it was a most important writing of socialist thought. More was the first to criticise extensively the system based on private property, the socio-political relations in England at his time. He portrayed a system in which public property dominates. He gave the first systematical enunciation of the idea of socialisation of production, linking it with the idea of a communist organisation of labour and distribution.

The chief economic unit in the ideal, free state of Utopia is the family; production is based on handicrafts. The Utopians live under democratic administration, enjoy equality in labour and freedom from antagonism between town and country or between mental and physical labour. People work six hours a day, the rest of the time being devoted to science and the arts. Great importance is attached to the allround development of the individual, to the fusion of theoretical education with labour. This idea is a rudiment of the socialist view of education. More did not understand that realisation of the socialist ideal necessitated a high development of technology. He dreamed of a peaceful transition to a new order.

Morelly

French utopian communist of the 18th century. His main work Le Code de la nature (1755) is a treatise which substantiates the principles of a society where collective ownership dominates. In his theory Morelly proceeded from rationalism, contrasting the rational social order to the irrational one. According to him, the contemporary system was irrational, it was the outcome of errors. Theory should "discover" a new, rational order, conforming to human nature, and its principles must become known to the people.

By the rational system Morelly has in mind a centralised economic community managed on the basis of a single economic plan which regulates production and distribution of goods. Morelly formulated three basic laws of society, meeting the demands of nature and reason: (1) abolition of private property, (2) the "right to existence" and the "right to labour", and (3) the obligation for all citizens to work.

Morelly was a typical representative of the so-called "rationalistic", vulgar egalitarian communism. He advocated moderation in food and prohibition of adornments. He provided for petty regulation of life, including marital relations. Morelly exerted considerable influence upon many utopian socialists of the 18th and 19th centuries: Babouvists (see Babouvism), Cabet, Blanqui, and others.

Moreno, Jacob (1892–1974)

American psychiatrist and sociologist, founder of sociometry, or microsociology. Main works: Who Shall Survive? (1936), Foundations of Sociometry (1954). As a sociologist Moreno studies the psychological aspects of the behaviour of small social groups: children up to school age, apartment neighbours, office employees, air crews, etc. By concentrating attention on emotional relations among people, for instance, on the feelings of sympathy, antipathy, or indifference to one another, Moreno tries to present these emotions and inclinations of men as the primary and decisive factor of social progress.

Acknowledging the crisis of capitalism in the USA, Moreno considers the regulation of relations among people and their organisation into groups according to their inclinations and sympathies to be the basic means of solving all social problems. The measures suggested by Moreno to "rally" American society do not affect the main pillars of capitalism: private ownership, the undivided rule of monopolies, and the exploitation of the working people.

Morgan, Lewis Henry (1818–1881)

American scientist, ethnographer, and archaeologist. He studied the American Indian's way of life and collected an enormous amount of factual material on the history of primitive-communal society. He generalized these facts in his book Ancient Society (1877). Morgan attempted at making the periodization of the history of pre-class society by linking each of the historical periods with the development of production techniques. The factual side of his periodization is, however, obsolete now.

Morgan was among the first to establish that the family is a historical phenomenon which changes with the development of society. He was highly appraised by Marx and Engels. Engels wrote that Morgan rediscovered "in his own way", the "materialist conception of history that had been discovered by Marx" (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 170). Engels used Morgan's investigations in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. He, however, not only enunciated Morgan's materials, but interpreted them along Marxist lines.

Morris, Charles (1901–1979)

American philosopher, who combines the ideas of pragmatism, especially the doctrines of the American philosopher George Mead, with concepts of logical empiricism. His main works, based on the tenets of behaviourism, analyse man's social and biological behaviour. While developing the views of C. S. Peirce, he formulated the fundamental concepts and principles of a new science—semiotics.

Main works: Foundations of the Theory of Signs (1938), Signs, Language and Behaviour (1946), Varieties of Human Values (1956).

Morris, William (1834–1896)

English socialist, poet, fiction writer, and artist. Though he came from a bourgeois family, he hated and severely criticized the bourgeois system. Initially, he shared the utopian views on art, which he regarded as the principal means for the peaceful transformation of society. He took an active part in the labour and socialist movements since the beginning of the 1880s and was acquainted with Marxism, but he was mainly "socialist by his emotions" (Engels).

The description of a future communist society (News from Nowhere, a utopian novel, 1891) was idyllic and therefore not scientific. In his creative and political activity Morris championed revolutionary principles. He made a valuable contribution to English democratic literature.

Motion

The key attribute and mode of existence of matter. Motion denotes all processes occurring in nature and society. Loosely, motion is change in general, any kind of interaction of material objects. No more can there be matter in the world without motion than motion without matter.

The motion of matter is absolute, while the state of rest is relative and just a moment of motion. A body at rest in relation to the Earth moves with the Earth round the Sun, and with the Sun round the centre of the galaxy, etc. Since the world is infinite, every body participates in an infinite number of forms of motion. Qualitative stability of bodies and of their properties is also a state of relative rest. But it is a stability that derives from a special type of interaction by microparticles in the body. It is, therefore, the result of the motion of microparticles. Thereby motion predicates the properties and structure of matter and the nature of its existence.

Motion of matter is diverse in its manifestations and multiple in form. Qualitatively new and more complex forms of motion appear in the process of the development of matter. Yet, even mechanical motion is not absolutely simple. A body in motion interacts all the time with other bodies through the electromagnetic and gravitational fields, and changes in so doing. The theory of relativity indicates that any increase in velocity of motion causes an increase in the mass of a body, while linear dimensions decrease in the direction of motion and the rhythm of processes occurring in the body becomes more rapid. At velocities approaching that of light, electrons and other particles are able to radiate electromagnetic quanta in the direction of motion (so-called spinning electrons). Thus, all motion includes the interaction of different forms of motion and their mutual transformations. Motion is just as inexhaustible as matter.

The motion of matter is a process of the interaction of opposites. Mechanistic motion, for example, is unity of the intermittence and non-intermittence of space and time. Electromagnetic, nuclear and gravitational motion is based on the unity of the opposite processes of absorption and radiation by microparticles of quanta of the electromagnetic, nuclear and gravitational fields. Chemical motion implies, among other things, association and dissociation of atoms. Vital processes are based on the unity of the assimilation and dissimilation of substances, stimulation and inhibition of cells, etc. The endless self-motion of matter in the Universe is also the result of the unity of the opposite processes of the dispersion of matter and energy (in the evolution of stars) and their reverse concentration which, in the ultimate, leads to the origination of stars, galaxies and other forms of matter.

If the motion of a material system obeys a single law and includes the overall change of the system, it represents, in effect, the process of the system's development. In ascendant development the connections, structure and forms of motion of material objects become more complex, constituting progressive transformations from lower to higher states. Descendant development, on the other hand, constitutes degradation and the disintegration of the system, a simplification of its forms of motion. Motion is a more general concept than development, because it connotes all changes, including external and accidental, which do not conform to the internal law governing the development of the system.

Mo Tzu, or Mo Ti (479–381 B.C.)

Founder of a school of philosophy (Moism) in ancient China which drew numerous followers. An opponent of Confucianism, he considered predetermined fate non-existent, a man's fate depending on the manner in which he practised the principles of "universal love" (tsan-ai), which are based on the "will of Heaven". He exhorted people to help one another, follow a useful occupation, reject the use of force and war, and appoint the wise and worthy to govern the country regardless of the position they occupy in society.

Though leaning towards mysticism, his teachings contained some elements of materialism. Thus, he maintained that our knowledge was a direct product of our investigation of reality. His followers subsequently developed his rational ideas into a naive materialistic theory of knowledge, which was destined to play an important role in the evolution of philosophy in ancient China. The school of Mo Tzu ceased to exist as an independent philosophical trend in the 2nd century B.C.

Münzer, Thomas (c. 1490–1525)

Anabaptist and preacher, one of the leaders of the great peasant war in Germany (1525), ideologist of the radical peasant-plebeian wing of the Reformation. Unlike Luther, the moderate reformer, Münzer energetically opposed not only the Catholic Church but Christianity and feudalism as a whole. For Münzer, the basic task of the Reformation was a socio-economic revolution of the peasants and the city poor, rather than a reformation of the church and its teachings.

Münzer's philosophy, which was formed under the influence of medieval peasant-plebeian heresy and mysticism, was pantheistic. For him, religious faith was the result of the awakening of reason in man, and the chasm between heavenly and earthly existence had to be bridged. His pantheism largely anticipated later philosophic criticism of religion (D. Strauss, L. Feuerbach, and others). Münzer used Christian slogans to announce a far-reaching revolutionary programme. He urged the revolutionary peasants to establish "God's kingdom on earth", i.e., a society without classes, private ownership or government. Münzer's religious philosophy was close to atheism, and his political programme greatly resembled equalitarian utopian communism. Münzer's ideals went far beyond the interests of the peasant-plebeian masses, anticipating, according to Engels, "the conditions for the emancipation of the nascent proletarian elements".

Mutakallimins

Proponents of medieval Muslim scholastic theology (kalam). Earlier Mutakallimins were members of a Shiite sect of Islam dating from the 8th and 9th centuries and were known as the Mutazilites (Arabic: seceders). Wasil bnu Ata, Jahiz, Muammar bnu-Abbad and other members of the Mutazilite school who introduced rationalism into Muslim theology, denied the multiplicity of God's attributes, the doctrine of the eternity of Koran and upheld the idea of free will. They regarded reason as the chief criterion of the truthfulness of knowledge and morals. Their philosophy relied on atomistic conceptions.

The later Mutakallimins (al-Ashari) used atomism to prove the validity of the Muslim dogmas, to deny the operation of the objective laws and the possibility of their cognition. Ibn-Rushd criticized this idealist teaching in his work Tahafut al-Tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence).

Mysticism

A religious-idealistic view of the world. Mysticism owes its origin to secret rites (mysteries) conducted by the religious societies of ancient Orient and Occident. The underlying feature of these rituals was contact between man and God, or some other mysterious being, and belief in the supernatural. Communion with God is supposedly achieved through ecstasy or revelation.

Elements of mysticism are peculiar to many ancient philosophico-religious doctrines (e.g., Confucianism, Brahmanism, Orphism, Pythagoreanism, Platonism, and Neo-Platonism). The mystical philosophy of the Middle Ages was developed by Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), J. Eckhart (1260-1327), J. Tauler (1300-1361), and others. It was also associated with sufism. Later mystics were Böhme and Swedenborg. To a greater or lesser degree mysticism is a feature of practically all idealist philosophies of modern times (particularly personalism, and some forms of existentialism).

In Russia, religious-mystical philosophy was developed by the Slavophiles, Solovyov and his adherents (Berdyayev, Trubetskoi), and others. Mystic philosophers consider revelation, a kind of mystical intuition, as the highest form of cognition, in which being is perceived by the subject immediately. Mysticism, as a rule, is preached by the ideologists of the reactionary classes, although there were cases (in feudal times) when progressive ideas (for instance, Eckhart's) or revolutionary opposition appeared in the form of mysticism.

Mythology

One of the oral forms of folklore, characteristic of the antiquity. Myths were narratives born in the early stages of history, whose fantastic images (gods, legendary heroes, big events, etc.) were but attempts to generalize and explain different phenomena of nature and society. "All mythology surmounts, subordinates, and forms the powers of nature in the imagination and with the help of the imagination. Hence, mythology disappears with the onset of a real dominance over these powers of nature." (K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd Russian ed., Vol. 12, p. 737.)

Many aspects of the world outlook of ancient society found their expression in mythology. It has elements of religion insofar as it contains the concepts of the supernatural. But at the same time it reflected moral views and man's aesthetic attitude to reality. In the words of Marx, mythology "is the unconsciously artistic reproduction of nature (by nature is understood all and everything material, including society)". That is why images of mythology have been often employed in the arts in various interpretations.