In my view...

In my view, the cause of contradictions in Marx is due to the fact that he himself was lesser of a Marxist than the majority of Marxists.

It is said that once in a gathering of ardent Marxists where Marx was trying to defend his position which contradicted his earlier position, he said: "I am not so much of a Marxist as you are." It is also said that in his later years Marx said: "I am Marx, not a Marxist." Marx's departure from Marxism in some of his views is because of the fact that Marx was too intelligent and ingenious to be a hundred percent Marxist. It needs some measure of stupidity in order to be a staunch Marxist.

Historical materialism, which is a part of Marxism and the subject of our present study, as explained earlier, consists of certain fundamentals and corollaries, which neither Marx the scholar could impose upon himself for ever, nor Marx the philosopher and the thinker could accept to be permanently saddled with. Now we propose to critically evaluate this theory. 1. Baselessness The first objection is that this view is not more than a mere `theory' without any proofs.

A philosophical theory of history ought to be based upon observation of contemporary events and historical facts, and should be applicable to other times also. Either it should be formulated on the basis of historical evidence, being in addition applicable to events of the present and the future, or it should have been deduced and inferred from a priori premises based upon a series of scientific, philosophical, and logical principles.

The theory of historical materialism does not fulfil the conditions of any of the above mentioned methods. Neither the historical events of the times of Marx and Engels can be explained on its basis ( as Engels himself has admitted. Engels says that he and Marx made a mistake in emphasizing the importance of the economic factor in some of their works.

But, he adds, they were saved from this error in case of their analysis of contemporary events where they were confronted with historical reality itself ), nor the historical events that occurred during thousands of years of human history confirm this theory. It ,is amazing to read the writings of some followers of Marxism who dogmatically try to explain the past history in the light of historical materialism, and read their master's opinions into the pages of history.

For instance in the book History of the Ancient world. [^53] 2.