Page 153 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

4 Toward

a Reconstruction

of Historical

Materialism

Only twice did Marx express himself connectedly and fundamen-
tally on the materialist conception of history;’ otherwise he used
this theoretical framework, in the role of historian, to interpret
particular historical situations or developments—unsurpassedly
in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Engels character-
ized historical materialism as a guide and a method.” This could
create the impression that Marx and Engels saw this doctrine as
no more than a heuristic that helped to structure a (now-as-be-
fore) narrative presentation of history with systematic intent. But
historical materialism was not understood in this way—either by
Marx and Engels or by Marxist theoreticians or in the history of
the labor movement. I shall not, therefore, treat it as a heuristic
but as a theory, indeed as a theory of social evolution that, owing
to its reflective status, is also informative for purposes of political
action and can under certain circumstances be connected with the
theory and strategy of revolution. The theory of capitalist develop-
ment that Marx worked out in the Grundrisse and in Capital fits
into historical materialism as a subtheory.
In 1938 Stalin codified historical materialism in a way that has
proven of great consequence;’ the historical-materialist research
since undertaken has remained largely bound to this theoretical