Various Marxist authors have focused on Marx's
method of analysis and presentation (historical
materialist and logically dialectical) as
key factors both in understanding the range
and incisiveness of Karl Marx's theoretical
writing in general and Das Kapital in particular.
One of the clearest and most instructive examples
of this is his discussion of the value-form,
which acts as a primary guide or key to understanding
the logical argument as it develops throughout
the volumes of Das Kapital.Marx himself presents
a simplified explanation in the Appendix to
the first German edition of Das Kapital published
in English translation in Capital & Class.
The need for this appendix was suggested by
Engels and there is an exchange of correspondence
concerning its purpose and form.
The two principal components of marxist science
are the dialectical method of logical deduction
and genetic synthesis and its application
to the evolution of real social history.
While in each of these areas considered separately
there are at least a number of scholarly works,
there are few examples of substantial exegesis
and fewer still successful applications of
marxian method to the fundamental obstacles
to class-consciousness today.
This is reflected both at the general level
of lack of understanding of the social nature
of technological change embodied in Marx's
theory of the value-form, reflected in widespread
ignorance of the detail of the 'rational kernel'
of Hegel's dialectic whose the principal 'forms
of being' Marx used to structure the whole
of the work on 'Capital'.
His analytical evolution of the relation between
subjective and objective development and their
qualitative and quantitatively measured forms
and functions which make up the logical skeleton
in his presentation are almost universally
ignored.
Compare Hegel's Logic for instance with Marx
the value-form.More than any other twentieth
century marxist Lenin selfconsciously assimilated
the fundamentals of this methodological approach
(to the careful study of which he returned
at the most critical political moments and
set about the task of applying it to the 'burning
questions of our movement'.
His appreciation of the importance of the
knowledge of real social movements is apparent
from his studies: The development of Capitalism
in Russia and his Notebooks on Imperialism.
Lukacs' revolutionary career is made more
problematic by his intellectual capitulation
to the pressures of stalinism.
The essays from his period of active revolutionary
leadership however are of unparalleled importance
for their reassertion of Hegel's contribution
to marxism.
In addition his critical review of Bukharin
published as Technology & Social Relations
remains of seminal importance as one of the
few direct attempts to deal with the problem
of the methodological degeneration of communist
theory on this question utilising an adequate
level of theoretical and historical understanding.
Rubin's 'Essays' shared this appreciation
of the weakness of communist theory (as did
the work of KORSCH & JAKUBOWSKI) but with
the exceptions of Henryk Grossman's work at
the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research,
and Evgeny Preobrazhensky's New Economics,
Rubin was in this period almost alone in articulating
the central methodological content embodied
in Marx's theoretical concepts.
Roman Rosdolsky's valuable study The making
of Marx's 'Capital' which re-emphasises the
importance of use-value in Marx's two-fold
analysis, was a result of his discovery of
one of the rare copies of Grundrisse Marx's
previously unpublished rough draft for 'Capital'.
Whereas Lenin had come to his understanding
of the importance of Hegel's Logic by extensive
study, Grossman's emphasis grew out of the
need to re-articulate the structural method
of 'Capital' in dealing with imperialism at
the necessary level of theory.
Rosdolsky was however able to read Marx directly
asserting his enormous debt to Hegel and exploring
out-loud the methodological problems of the
relation between the investigation and presentation
of his 'critique'.
Lukacs in 1930 had a similar experience in
his reading of the then recently deciphered
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
on which he subsequently commented: "the overwhelming
effect produced in me by Marx's statement
that objectivity was the primary material
attribute of all things 
and relations...that objectification is a
natural means by which man masters the world
and as such can be either a positive or a
negative fact...it 
became clear to us that even the best and
most capable Marxists, like Plekhanov and
Mehring, had not had a sufficiently profound
grasp of the universal nature of Marxism.
They failed, therefore, to understand that
Marx confronts us with the necessity of erecting
a systematic aesthetics on the foundations
of dialectical materialism.".
It was in this period that Lukacs began his
twin study of The Young Hegel and The Destruction
of Reason on the one hand looking at the contribution
Hegel made to the rational scientific basis
of dialectical materialism and on the other
how in a direct reaction to the development
of Marxism the irrationalist elements of Hegel's
thought were promoted and the revolutionary
critical element dismembered in the process
of the degeneration of bourgeois philosophy.
The immediate post-war period produced little
that was marxist by these criteria, with perhaps
the sole exception of Paul Mattick's essays
which defended the orthodox theoretical marxism,
particularly on the issue of Marx's theory
of crisis, against revisionists such as Paul
Sweezy.
Mattick's essay Technology and the Mixed Economy
(1966) was a rare articulation of the limitations
and social origin of the drive for labour
productivity.
Mattick drew substantially on Grossman's 1929
study The law of accumulation and the breakdown
of capitalism defending its analysis against
Sweezy 1942] and other anti-marxists who sought
to eradicate the connection between capitalist
accumulation and the theory of crises.
Mattick argued that despite the appearance
of the post-war boom capitalism would continue
to retard the development of productive forces
and that the limits to capital accumulation
would reassert themselves.
Until Grossman's work becomes fully available
in English, Mattick's Economic Crisis and
Crisis Theory remains the most readily available
articulation of the necessity of revolutionary
theory for today's conditions.
The 1970s saw a resurgence of marxist studies
which sought to assimilate the theoretical
gains which had been lost to working class
politics in the middle decades of the twentieth
century.
Drawing on these and other forgotten works
in the marxist tradition and a renewed study
of the methodologically explicit drafts and
early writings and correspondence of Marx,
a tendency began to emerge which struggled
to return theoretically to an authentic "Marx's
Marxism" and come to terms with the outstanding
problems facing marxist critique of capitalist
society in the second half of the twentieth
century.
Unfortunately the political hiatus caused
by the largely unexpected collapse of the
Soviet Union, resulted in a widespread fragmentation
and demoralisation even amongst those marxist
writers who were critical of the stalinist
state formations.
The nature of the Soviet Union, the political
tenacity and character of stalinism itself,
an explanation of the political hold of and
contemporary forms of Reformism in the working
class and the restatement of the fundamentals
of the marxist struggle against the state,
and the bourgeois ideological weapons of nationalism,
imperialism and the oppression of nations
and nationalities, racial and women's oppression
and the economic role of the family under
capitalism.
This tendency has yet to re-articulate Marx's
critique of ideological power of the politics
of productivity theoretically in challenging
the revisionist acceptance of technological
mystification.
== Readings on Marx’s method ==
Henryk Grossman focussed considerable effort
in often difficult circumstances in pursuing
fundamental research into Marx’s method.
His studies resulted amongst others in his
masterwork: The Law of Accumulation and the
breakdown of the Capitalist System: Being
also a theory of crises Pluto 1992.
Evald Ilyenkov The Dialectics of the Abstract
and the Concrete in Marx's Capital Progress
Moscow 1982
Andrey Maidansky "The Dialectical Logic of
Evald llyenkov and Western European Marxism"
[1]
Franz Jakubowski in his Ideology and Superstructure
in Historical Materialism Pluto 1990
Karl Korsch Three Essays on Marxism Pluto
1971 and Marxism and Philosophy Monthly Review
1970
György Lukács in "What is Orthodox Marxism?",
defined orthodoxy as the fidelity to the "Marxist
method"
Karl Marx 'The Value-Form' Appendix to the
1st German edition of Capital, Volume 1, 1867
Geoffrey Pilling Marx’s Capital: Philosophy
and political economy RKP 1980
Roman Rosdolsky particularly in The Making
of Marx's Capital Pluto 1980
Isaak Illich Rubin Essays on Marx’s Theory
of Value Black & Red 1972
Jindřich Zelený The Logic of Marx Blackwell
1980
Victor Alekseyevich Vaziulin The Logic of
K. Marx's "Capital" 1968 [2]
Victor Alekseyevich Vaziulin The Making of
K. Marx's Scientific Research Method 1975
[3]
== References ==
=== Bibliography ===
Marx, Karl & Engels, Frederick 1983 Letters
on ‘Capital’ New Park
== External links ==
Appendix to the first German edition
