84
PARTISAN REVIEW
force was based on a painstaking analysis of the economic develop–
ment of capitalism. The restriction of the forces of production, with
concentration of wealth on one side and ever increasing exploitation
and poverty on the other-these are the material conditions which
make society ready for socialism. All that is lacking is the consciousness
of its interests on the part of the working class, and it is to the develop–
ment of
this
consciousness that Marx and his disciples devoted them–
selves.
That such will be the outcome of history cannot, of course,
be
metaphysically guaranteed. All that can be said-and all that Marx
did say-is that the alternative to socialism is barbarism or chaos; nor
has the evidence of history from the upheavals of 1848 to the October
Revolution and the Spanish civil war so far provided·any refutation of
Marx's political theories. It is true that Marx frequently spoke of His–
ory as though it were an autonomous force which could be depended
on to carry us into socialism and that he sometimes referred to the "in–
evitability of socialism." But it is obvious, even textually, that by His–
tory Marx meant nothing more mysterious than the total sequence of
events; including the revolutionary activity of the proletariat,. which
makes up the content of social life. And the "inevitability of socialism"
must be takeri as a short-hand way of saying that if Marx's analysis of
capitalism is correct, then socialism necessarily becomes the next stage
in history. It is also true that Marx sometimes made possibilities ap–
pear as certainties, but this he did for agitational purposes, when the
immediate tasks of persuasion and bolstering of morale obviously
called for rhetorical appeals.
3) It is difficult to follow Mr. Wilson's argument against the
well-known Marxian princjple that the economic factor is in the last
instance the determining factor of history. At one point Mr. Wilson
seems to be saying that Marx and Engels failed to write a history of
civilization, . illustrating and working out all the implications of this
idea-a legitimate disappointment, to be sure, but hardly a refutation.
Again, Mr. Wilson cites Engels'
co~fession
that both he and Marx
overemphasized the economic factor in their early writing, but he fails
to quote the very nt!'{t sentence of this letter: "But when it was a case
of presenting a section of history, that is, of a practictl application, the
thing was different, and there no error was possible."
Mr. Wilson also objects that the theory is formulated in ambigu–
ous terms. "Is the last instance," he asks, "last in time or is it ultimate
in
the quite different sense of being the fundamental motive of human
behavior? In neither case is the conception really clear." Quite natur·
ally, we might add, for neither interpretation which Mr. Wilson offers
is what Marx and Engels intended their theory to mean. Since, there-
