Feb, 25, 1949
Dear J:
Herewith Lenin's Notes on Essence;1 I am moving faster with the translation than I had counted upon, mainly because I had thought it would take time "to find" the quotations but now find that as I myself internalize Hegel I nearly always flip open the right page.
The deep richness of Lenin's Notes would overwhelm me if it were not for their utter simplicity. As if you did not believe me, let me cite but one instance. He is talking about a "purely logical" working out of the dialectic and continues "Das fallt zusammen.2 It must coincide as does induction and deduction in Capital".3 Not for one instance does he permit you to think that to compare the dialectic "merely" to the deductive and inductive method of Capital is "narrow" for the comment occurred as an addition to: "The continuation of the work of Hegel and Marx must consist in the dialectic working out of the history of human thought, science and technique".4 Moreover, "technique", or the technology which sets the ground for our mode of production, production relation and generally the whole intellectual development, is nowhere here so overpowering that you think of the mind's development as a mere reflection of the economic relations; that too not only has its own laws but "works upon" so-to-speak the economic material and the result is not any one of these things alone but all of them together. This can be seen, for example, in the three dates that he sets down for universal development:
(1) 1813 - Science of Logic5 or, the theory development.
(2) 1847 - the Communist Manifesto,6 or the application of dialectic to society.
(3) 1859 - Origin of Species,7 or "application" of dialectics to man.8
Whoever is still so fool-hardly as to look for a "primary cause" may do so if he has enough time to waste; Lenin will have none of that - he will have only totality and movement and break-up and movement.
If the three sections of the Doctrine of Essence had to be summarised in 3 words, I'd say Manifoldness for Show (Reflection), Law for Appearance and Totality for Actuality.9 Manifoldness is particularly important if you consider that Lenin wrote his Notes when the world was being rent asunder. Lenin, in quoting Hegel on the fact that both Scepticism10 and Idealism11 admitted manifoldness and yet they dared not "affirm 'it is'" and the other dared not "regard cognition as knowledge of the thing-in-itself", comments:12
"You include all the manifold riches of the world in Schein and you reject the objectivity of Schein!!!"13
Lenin notes, further, not only that Essence must appear, (or rather he comments on this statement of Hegel's, thus: "The little philosophers dispute whether one should take as basis the essence or the immediately given... Hegel substitutes 'and' for 'or' and explains the concrete content of this 'and'"14), but he emphasizes that even mere is "one of the determinations of essence".15 Naturally, he does not fail to underline that one-sided determinateness of Essence has no truth, but he emphasises also (permit me to skip here): "Causality is ordinarily understood by us as only a small part of the universal connection, but (a materialistic addition) the small part is not subjective but the objectively real connection".16 I could not help but feel that these "small parts" which had "objectively real connection" were the elements of the phenomena about him which became the book Imperialism.17
May I be permitted to linger a moment on Law of Contradiction, seeing that both Lenin and you considered so much the essence of them as to quote it in toto?18 I however wish to limit myself only to its relationship to the general contradiction of capitalism. I began to harp on the applicability of parts of the dialectic to that general contradiction even when I was in the Doctrine of Being (Section on Ought and Barrier in relation to infinite production - production for production's sake that is) and now I find that Hegel notes (p.67) "Infinity which is contradiction as it appears in the sphere of Being" and then moves rapidly on to demonstrate that "the principle of self-movement consists of nothing else but the exhibition of contradiction".19 Having moved that rapidly he concludes "Motion is existent contradiction". The emphasis is Lenin's and suit me perfectly for grappling with the law of motion of capitalist society in philosophic rather than in value terms. If am wrong, I can always return home - to the law of value but something bids me continue with it.
Some time back I wrote to Grace20 about the fact that "kingdom of laws" in Phenomenology21 had me baffled since there seemed to be a contradiction between that analysis which fitted the primitive conception of the Stalinists and the economic laws to which Marx refers to as dominating over society regardless of the consciousness of men. I was on the point of considering myself still as a mere "woman of understanding"22 when I met with Lenin's notes on the Law of Appearance, where he not only sends himself back to the very same section in the Phenomenology, but after listing no less, than 10 definitions of law in Hegel, he concludes that all these definitely differ from the final conclusion, p. 135.23 Allow me to take these summations step by step as they will help me transit to totality. Law is, says Lenin, paraphrasing Hegel:
(1) unity of show and existence; (2) one of the steps of the cognition of unity and connection, of reciprocal dependence and totality of the world process; (3) the enduring and persistent in appearance; (4) the identity of appearance in its reflection (5) the quiescent reflection in appearance; (6) narrow, incomplete, approximate; (7) essential appearance; (8) law and essence of concept are homogeneous... expressing the deepening of man's knowledge of appearance; (9) reflection of essential; (10) a part; appearance, totality, wholeness is richer than law.24
But here Lenin stops himself to note: "But further, although it is not clear, it is acknowledged, it seems (pp. 135 especially) that law can overcome this inadequacy and grasp also the negative side, and totalitat der Erscheinung.25 Must return here!"26 Now p. 135ff has what appears to me the key sentence: "The determination of Law has thus changed Law itself".27 At which point Hegel proceeds to show what it was "at first", what it became as "negative intro-Reflection" developed it, and concludes "Thus Law is Essential Relation".28 The emphasis is Lenin's and brings us precisely to the comprehension of law in the sense in which Marx uses "absolute general law" which can only be abrogated by the mediation of the proletariat establishing different social relations.29
What a dialectician that Hegel was: nothing else can explain the sheer genius of that man's language which defines identity as "unseparated differences", and now as he enters Actuality and totalitat, asserts that totality is found as "sundered completeness".30 The emphasis is Lenin's, which shows he was not going to be outdone by a man who lived and died long before WWI.31 You will like the way Lenin weaves in the Smaller Logic to clarify the essence of the dialectic.32 He underlines Hegel's "The sum total of the elements which, as it opens itself out, discloses itself to be necessity". And then translates: "The unfoldment of the whole totality of moments of actuality NB = essence of dialectic knowledge".33 He also asks himself whether by "moments of concept" Hegel does not mean "moments of transition".34 He is full of "all-sidededness and all-embracing character of world connection".35 Always it is: Connection, relation, mediation, necessity, motion, unity of opposites, break-up of identity, transition and motion, motion and transition, and that is totality. I believe I am ready to follow him into Notion.36
Yours, R
1 In Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, the section on 'Book II (Essence)' can be found on pages #1515-1534. Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks on Hegel are on the MIA as, Conspectus of Hegel's book The Science of Logic, (1914).
2 German: translation into English: "that coincides"
3 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1524.
4 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1524.
5 GWF Hegel, Science of Logic, (1812-16).
6 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, (1848).
7 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, (1859).
8 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1522.
9 'Manifoldness' is a term that Dunayevskaya uses here to refer to the many-sidedness that is encapsulated in Hegel's concept of 'Reflection'. In Hegel Reflection refers to the relation between 'phenomena' and their 'essence'. The concepts of Appearance and Actuality are also used in different, multifaceted senses, in Hegelian dialectical thought. For more on Hegelian terminology, see the Glossary of Terms page of the Hegel section of the MIA website.
10 Scepticism is the philosophical current which emphasises doubt and the relativity of human knowledge. The Scottish empiricist philosopher, David Hume (1711-1776), was the main target of Hegel's critique of scepticism.
11 There are many different strands of the philosophical current referred to as Idealism. Hegel was an idealist philosopher, but he also had a critique of various forms of idealism. Idealism is often contrasted to materialism by saying that idealists consider thought to be primary and the material world as derivative, whereas materialists understand ideas as being derived from the material world. This materialism/idealism contrast is articulated by Engels in Chapter Two of Ludwig Feuerback and the End of Classical German Philosophy, when he says:
"The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being.... The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature... comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism."
Marx, however, had a different conception of the relation between materialism and idealism. In his 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts essay, 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy in General', he describes his own philosophy as a "consistent naturalism or humanism [which] is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both". Engels's conception of the relation between idealism and materialism, rather than Marx's, has more commonly been articulated by Marxists since the time of the Second International.
Lenin appears to have rethought his understanding of the relation of materialism and idealism by the time he finished taking his notes on Hegel's Science of Logic. As a summation of his notes on the book he wrote:
"NB: It is remarkable: in the whole chapter on the "Absolute Idea" there is almost not a single word on God (scarcely a "godly" "notion" slips out even accidentally) and moreover - this NB - this chapter almost does not contain idealism specifically, but its main object is the d i a l e c t i c method. The sum and summation, the last word and gist of the Logic of Hegel is the dialectic method - that is extremely remarkable. And another thing: in this m o s t i d e a l i s t i c work of Hegel, there is m o s t materialism. "Contradictory," but a fact!" (Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1570.)
12 The quotes are from Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin'sPhilosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1515.
13 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1516.
14 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1517.
15 Dunayevskaya's appears to be referring to the section of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, on page #1517, which she translated as:
"Show is Essence in one of its determinations, in one of its sides, in one of its moments. Essence appears thus. Show is the phenomenon (Scheinen) of Essence in itself".
16 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1532.
17 Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, (1916). Lenin's preparation for the book, Notebooks on Imperialism, written 1912-1916, were published posthumously in 1938 in the magazine Proletarskaya Revolutsia, No.~9
18 The Law of Contradiction is a reference to a section of Hegel's Science of Logic.
19 The quote is from #958 of Hegel's Science of Logic.
20 'Grace' is a reference to Grace Lee (Boggs), one of the three intellectual leaders, (Raya Dunayevskaya and CLR James being the other two), in the Johnson-Forest Tendency.
21 Hegel uses the phrase, the 'kingdom of laws' in the section of his Phenomenology of Mind (or Phenomenology of Spirit), (1807), on 'Force and the Understanding'.
22 Hegel, in the 'Shorter Logic' (Part One of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences), presents 'understanding' in the following terms:
"In point of form Logical doctrine has three sides: a) the Abstract side, or that of understanding; b) the Dialectical, or that of negative reason; c) the Speculative, or that of positive reason.
These three sides do not make three parts of logic, but are stages or 'moments' in every logical entity, that is, of every notion and truth whatever. They may all be put under the first stage, that of understanding, and so kept isolated from each other; but this would give an inadequate conception of them. The statement of the dividing lines and the characteristic aspects of logic is at this point no more than historical and anticipatory."
A 'mere "woman of understanding"' is, thus, a woman who only grasps the lowest stage of Logic.
23 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel. Lenin's notes on Appearance are on pages #1526-9.
24 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel. Lenin's ten aspects of law are on pages #1527-8.
25 'totalitat der Erscheinung' translates from German into English as: "totality of appearance"
26 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1528.
27 The quoted sentence ("The determination of Law has thus changed Law itself") is from Hegel's The Science of Logic, (#1100), not from Lenin's notes on Hegel.
28 The quoted sentence ("Thus Law is Essential Relation") is from Hegel's The Science of Logic, (#1111). Lenin cites the sentence in his notes on Hegel. See Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1529. And follows the quote by saying: 'Law is relation. This NB for the Machists and other agnostics, and for the Kantians, etc..'. The emphasis on 'relation' is Lenin's.
29 In Chapter Twenty-Five, Section Four, of Capital: Volume One, Marx talks about the 'absolute general law of capital accumulation'. The relevant paragraph reads:
"The greater the social wealth, the functioning capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and, therefore, also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of its labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital, develop also the labour power at its disposal. The relative mass of the industrial reserve army increases therefore with the potential energy of wealth. But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active labour army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus population, whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour. The more extensive, finally, the lazarus layers of the working class, and the industrial reserve army, the greater is official pauperism. This is the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation. Like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances, the analysis of which does not concern us here" (emphasis in the original).
30 The phrase "sundered completeness" is from Hegel's The Science of Logic. In the html version on the MIA the phrase is translated as 'dispersed completeness' (#1185).
31 'the emphasis' appears to be a reference to the underlining of the phrase 'sundered completeness', which was not emphasised by Hegel. 'WW1' is an abbreviation of 'World War One'.
32 The 'Shorter Logic', is a reference to Book One of Hegel's Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830).
33 Both quotes are from Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1531.
34 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1528.
35 Dunayevskaya's translation of Lenin's Philosophic Notebooks on Hegel, page #1532.
36 Subjective Logic, or The Doctrine of the Notion is the third, and final, section of Hegel's Science of Logic.