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Chapter 15

to be merged operates with unities that are absolutely different from the algebraic

ones. In practice, it always leads to the distortion of the essence of these systems.

In the article by Luria [1925, p. 55], for example, psychoanalysis is presented

as “a system of monistic psychology,” whose methodology “coincides with the meth-

odology” of Marxism. In order to prove this a number of most naive transformations

of both systems are carried out as a result of which they “coincide.” Let us briefly

look at these transformations. First of all, Marxism is situated in the general meth-

odology of the epoch, alongside Darwin, Comte, Pavlov, and Einstein,12 who to-

gether create the general methodological foundations of the epoch [ibid., p. 47].

The role and importance of each of these authors is, of course, deeply and funda-

mentally different, and by its very nature the role of dialectical materialism is totally

different from all of them. Not to see this means to deduce methodology from the

sum total of “great scientific achievements” [ibid., p. 47]. As soon as one reduces

all these names and Marxism to a common denominator it is not difficult to unite

Marxism with any “great scientific achievement,” because this was presupposed: the

“coincidence” looked for is in the presupposition and not in the conclusion. The

“fundamental methodology of the epoch” consists of the sum total of the discoveries

made by Pavlov, Einstein, etc. Marxism is one of these discoveries, which belong

to the “group of principles indispensable for quite a number of closely-related sci-

ences” [ibid., p. 47]. Here, on the first page, that is, the argumentation might have

ended: after Einstein one would only have to mention Freud, for he is also a “great

scientific achievement” and, thus, a participant in the “general methodological foun-

dations of the epoch.” But one must have much uncritical trust in scientific repu-

tation to deduce the methodology of an epoch from~ the sum total of famous names!

There is no unitary basic methodology of the epoch. What we have is a system

of fighting, deeply hostile, mutually exclusive, methodological principles and each

theory—whether by Pavlov or Einstein—has its own methodological merit. To distill

a general methodology of the epoch and to dissolve Marxism in it means to trans-

form not only the appearance, but also the essence of Marxism.

But also Freudian theory is inescapably subjected to the same type of trans-

formations. Freud himself would be amazed to learn that psychoanalysis is a system

of monistic psychology and that “methodologically he carries on... historical mate-

rialism” [Fridman, 1925, p. 159]. Not a single psychoanalytic journal would, of

course, print the papers by Luria and Fridman. That is highly important. For a very

peculiar situation has evolved: Freud and his school have never declared themselves

to be monists, materialists, dialecticians, or followers of historical materialism. But

they are told: you are both the first, and the second, and the third. You yourselves

don’t know who you are. Of course, one can imagine such a situation, it is entirely

possible. But then it is necessary to give an exact explanation of the methodological

foundations of this doctrine, as conceived of and developed by its authors, and then

a proof of the refutation of these foundations and to explain by what miracle and

on what foundations psychoanalysis developed a system of methodology which is

foreign to its authors. Instead of this, the identity of the two systems is declared

by a simple formal-logical superposition of the characteristics—without a single

analysis of Freud’s basic concepts, without critically weighing and elucidating his

assumptions and starting-points, without a critical examination of the genesis of his

ideas, even without simply inquiring how he himself conceives of the philosophical

foundations of his system.

But, maybe, this formal-logical characterization of the two systems is correct?

We have already seen how one distills Marxism’s share in the general methodology

of the epoch, in which everything is roughly and naively reduced to a common

denominator: if both Einstein and Pavlov and Marx belong to science, then they