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Special pages :
Letter to Sidney Hook, April 11, 1933
| Author(s) | Leon Trotsky |
|---|---|
| Written | 11 April 1933 |
Marxism As a Science
To Sidney Hook
Dear Professor Hook:
I read with interest your article in The Nation and it provoked in me some doubts.
1. The title of your article, Marxism — Dogma or Method? provokes a certain disquietude. The alternative does not cover the question. Marxism is not a dogma, but it is not only a method; it is also a doctrine. The materialist dialectic is a method. Marx, however, not only formulated this method, but applied it in two domains, by creating the theory of capitalist economy (science) and the theory of the historical processes (the "philosophy of history" — more exactly, a science).
2. The concluding phrase of your article declares that "it [Marxism] is neither dogma, myth, nor objective science, but a realistic method of class action." What means here the word "realistic"? Obviously it means based upon the true knowledge of the objective — in that case, social — processes; the knowledge of the objective is a science. The Marxian policy is realistic insofar as it is based upon Marxism as a science.
3. You say that the Marxian doctrine can no more be understood independent of its revolutionary aims than the prescriptions of a physician independent of the concern of health. Within certain limits it is possible to accept this comparison. But the only physician capable of giving useful prescriptions is one who bases his action upon anatomy, physiology, pathology, and a series of other positive sciences. How is it possible to detach the realistic practice from the scientific theory? In the final analysis all scientific knowledge — not only regarding medicine — grows from practical needs and serves these needs.
4. You write: "From the theoretical postulates of this science of Marxism, it followed that revolutionary opposition to the world war in 1914 was utopian, because the war and the war psychology inevitably flowed from the objective constellation of socio-economic forces of the time." This counterposing, it seems to me, is not understandable. The struggle against war would be "utopian" because the war flows inevitably from the objective circumstances. In the first place, the utopian ideas flow also from the objective circumstances. Secondly, the struggle against the "inevitable" events is not necessarily utopian, because the inevitable events are limited in time and space. Particularly, the war, being a historical "inevitability," proved "utopian" as a means of issuing out of the imperialist impasse.
5. You state: "Marx's gravest mistake was in not assigning greater values to the temporal coefficients of the process." This remark is just when applied to a great number of vulgar Marxists, especially of the epoch of the Second International, but it is absolutely false in relation to Marx himself.
When conditions permit, I will return to this question in more comprehensive form; meanwhile, I remain, with comradely greetings,
L. Trotsky