Marxism

Amongst Marxist scholars, it is generally acknowledged that Marx's work emerges from three sources. It is, as Lenin has noted, the “direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism” (Lenin, 1977/13: 21). Within German idealism, Marx looked to the works of Fichte, Kant and Hegel. From the first two he formed the idea of human history as a more-or-less rational movement towards a free and peaceful society (McLennan, 1980: 134). Through Hegel, Marx came to understand history as the unfolding development of dialectical contradictions. While he would eventually place Hegel's idealist dialectic on a materialist footing, Marx repeatedly described himself as “the pupil of that great thinker” (1976/1867: 103). Writing in the last year of his life, Marx said this of his relationship to Hegel: “[It] is very simple. I am a disciple of Hegel, and the presumptuous chattering of the epigones who think they have buried this great thinker appear frankly ridiculous to me.” ¹