GUSTAV A.

WETTER

THE AMBIVALENCE OF THE MARXIST CONCEPT

OF IDEOLOGY*

Marxism-Leninism defines 'ideology' as "the system of social (political,

philosophic, religious, artistic, etc.) ideas which are determined by and
in turn reflect the current material base of society". 1 A certain ambivalence
is given already at this point. If, as is the case in class society, social being
is ill, social consciousness will reflect reality in a distorted way. On the
other hand, a healthy social being will produce a healthy social con-
sciousness. 'Ideology', therefore, can designate true and false conscious-
ness. On the contemporary scene it is bourgeois consciousness which is
false and socialist consciousness which is true.
In addition to this ambivalence of the Marxist concept of ideology there
is another which will be our main concern here. Certain forms of social
consciousness - like morality, philosophy, art, etc. - are false conscious-
ness only in class society. The removal of class divisions under socialism
means the lifting of their illusory character. Other forms of social con-
sciousness - religion, above all - have truth value neither in class society
nor under socialism. Here the demarcation line between true and false
consciousness is no longer horizontal but rather vertical. Therefore, some
forms rank as 'essentially' false while others are false only under certain
circumstances, namely in class society. Why is there this ambivalence?
Was it the case for Marx? If not, is it nonetheless a consistent development
of his thought?
One can find an answer to this question only through a short analysis
of Marx' original line of thought. The relation between thought and being
is to be seen against the background of the different forms of dialectic
in the early works of Marx. We can here distinguish three stages in the
development of the thought of the young Marx: (1) The works before
1844; (2) The Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The Holy
Family; (3) The works of 1845 to 1848.
In the first period Marx has completed the basic break with Hegel but
has not yet come fully into his own historical-materialist position. It is
no longer the idea but history itself which will establish the truth of this

Studies in Soviet Thought 9 (1969) 177-183; © D. Reidel, Dordrecht-Holland

178 G U S T A V A. W E T T E R

world. But theory still has a positive role: the proletariat finds its spiritual
weapon z in it; and it becomes a material force as soon as it lays hold of
the masses. 8 However, this 'realization' of philosophy already implies its
Aufhebung and negation. 4 How this is concretely to be understood remains
obscure. For Marx, in agreement with Feuerbach, only religion qualifies
as illusory consciousness.
The year 1844 - with the Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts and The
Holy Family as inter-related in originating the philosophical starting
point - is an essential transitional stage along the road toward the final
materialist conception of history. The philosophical background contains
a double dialectic. On the one hand, the dialectic of man's self-creation
in work. On the other, the dialectic of man's alienation in the course of
history and his return from this alienation. While the first form of the
dialectic is a process which can in principle go on ad infinitum, the dialectic
of alienation leads to a final state.
It is against this background that one must understand the relation
between being and consciousness, as formulated by Marx in this period.
The basic situation is described as follows: "Thought and being ... are
of course different, but also together in unity." 5 This is explained by a
comparison between man and animal. The animal is immediately one
with his vital activity; for man the latter is the object of his consciousness;
he is it and knows it. 6 Being is, however, clearly primary in this unity.
While in the first developmental phase of his thought Marx recognizes
a positive role for philosophy, henceforth he repeats again and again that
the contradictions in reality are to be overcome not through solution in
thought but only through practice. 7
This unity of thought and being is disturbed by alienation. Conscious-
ness no longer directly overlies being; it becomes illusory. This illusory
consciousness finds expression in religion (defined in The Holy Family -
as in Engels' Anti-Diihring - as a 'phantastic reflection') above all, in
metaphysics, but also in philosophy in general, in law, state, family,
morality, science, art, 'etc.'.
This means that the overcoming of human self-alienation is "the return
of man out of religion, family, state, etc., into his human, i.e., social,
mode of being", s The works of this period do not have much to say as
to which form consciousness will have after the overcoming of alienation,
if philosophy, science, art, morality, religion, etc., are to be seen as struc-
 THE MARXIST CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY 179

tures of alienated consciousness. All the relevant assertions are based on

the conception of the immediate unity of consciousness and being. Generic
consciousness is designated by Marx as the repetition, confirmation and
being-for-itself of real social being. 9 Communism 'is' and 'knows itself'
as the interpreted mystery of history.10 This consciousness attains its
corresponding form in a new type of science, where natural science and
the science of man coincide. 11
Alongside this conception of the relation between consciousness and
being one finds other assertions which sound like the earlier conception
of the independent role of theory in the development of reality. Even in
alienation a greater role is attributed to consciousness than that of reflec-
tion of being. In his Paris manuscripts Marx says of political economy
that, on the one hand, it is to be considered a product of industry as it
"on the other hand, expedites the energy and development of this industry"
and "has turned it into a force of consciousness".1~ In the famous passage
on proletariat and wealth of The Holy Family, where Marx says that the
proletariat is driven to revolution by becoming conscious of its inhuman
condition 13, the conception of consciousness as knowledge about its being
is doubly sprung. The consciousness of the proletarian reflects not only
his being; it compares this factually given being to a being which is not
yet given but ought to be. Moreover, the consciousness of the proletarian
who is still living in alienation ceases to be false and becomes 'true' con-
sciousness, even though his being still lies in the domain of alienation.
The writings of the third period contain a basically similar view on the
relation between being and consciousness. But what is more important
for the further development of the concept of ideology in later Marxist
philosophy is the fact that the philosophical background has essentially
changed. A new factor begins to play a decisive role in Marx' historical
dialectic, the forces of production. In this context the contradiction which
drives history on also takes on a new form: this is the periodically recurring
contradiction between relations of production (which are usually desig-
nated in The German Ideology as 'intercourse' between men) and forces
of production. A further transformation of the historical dialectic involves
revolution. While it was the proletarian revolution as leading to the
Aufhebung of human self-alienation which was absolutely central to Marx'
earlier thought, Marx now talks about revolutionary upheavals which
periodically recur in history. The dialectical triadicity, which earlier ap-
180 G U S T A V A. W E T T E R

peared in the form of alienation and return from alienation as a uniquely

occurring rhythmic movement in history, is now located within the distinct
historical periods and thereby becomes a periodically recurrent phenome-
non. In every historical period there arises a contradiction between forces
and relations of production, which is resolved in revolution. The result
would have been a form of the dialectic which could and should extend
ad infinitum had Marx not introduced the idea - which issues from the
above notions - of the 'historical mission' of the working class, a mission
which consists in putting an end once and for all to class divisions and
conflicts. The resulting problem of a dialectical development within Com-
munist society is not our business here.
Now to the question of the relation between being and consciousness.
Here again the conception of consciousness as knowledge of its being
is pertinent. We find an unhoped-for precision: "Consciousness can be
nothing other than conscious being."14 Being once again has primacy:
"It is not consciousness which determines life but life which determines
consciousness ''15 is the passage in The German Ideology which is almost
identical with the classic formulation of 1859.
Although the concept of 'alienation' no longer plays a role in these
writings, we still find the conception of a 'false' consciousness which is
conditioned by social conditions. Such are all 'pure' theories: theology,
philosophy, morality - once again the list ends with an 'etc.'. Marx sees
the condition of possibility for the coming to be of false consciousness
in the division of work, especially in the division into physical and mental
work. 16 This possibility always becomes reality if there arises a contra-
diction between the existing social relations and the forces of production
at hand. 17 Concerning the form of 'true' consciousness, Marx opposes
to ideology history as the 'only science' which includes nature and man.
In his work against Proudhon he calls it a "conscious product of historical
motion"ls; in a certain sense, therefore, it is the very historical process
which is reflected in the science of history.
Even in this period one can detect an influence of the earlier conception
of theory as a positive historical force. Once in The German Ideology
Marx asserts that consciousness can occasionally outstrip empirical rela-
tions. 19 In the Theses on Feuerbaeh Marx reproaches previous philosophy
with having simply explained reality while the real task is to change it.
In The Misery of Philosophy and The Communist Manifesto, Communists
 T H E M A R X I S T C O N C E P T OF I D E O L O G Y 181

as the theoretlcians of the proletariat are said to have a 'true' conscious-

ness even in the time before the revolution. "They are able correctly to
see what goes on in front of them and to make themselves executors of the
movement" 2o; they have "over the rest of the proletariat the advantage
of an insight into the conditions, course and general results of the prole-
tarian movement". 21 This all assumes, however, that within alienated
being there can be a true consciousness, that this enjoys a certain independ-
ence vis-~t-vis being; i.e., it has a certain anticipatory character which
makes it able to recognize the direction in current developments and the
goal which is not yet given in reality.
Since the works of this third period contain all the fundamental notions
of what counts as the classical formulation of the Marxian materialist
conception of history, we can break off our analysis at this point.

Later Marxist philosophy goes beyond the Marxian position in two

respects. First, it does not limit the ability to have a true consciousness,
even before the overcoming of human self-alienation, to the theoreticians
of the proletariat. The forms of social consciousness of earlier social for-
mations have, under certain circumstances, a relative - if not absolute -
validity. Recent Marxist-Leninist doctrine admits that there were in the
superstructural forms of earlier social formations certain elements of
generally human validity, i.e., forms of true consciousness.
Is this a deviation from Marx? It seems to me that it is rather a consistent
further development of the Marxian line of thought. For, in The German
Ideology Marx notes that a contradiction between social consciousness
and social being, i.e., a 'false' consciousness, arises when there occurs a
contradiction between social relations and the forces of production. It
logically follows, then, that the overcoming of the latter contradiction
removes the illusory character of social consciousness. One thus has the
possibility of justifying the appearance of true consciousness, after revolu-
tion has eliminated the contradiction between social relations and forces
of production and before a new contradiction has arisen (i.e., at the be-
ginning of a new social formation).
The second point, where later Marxist philosophy has gone beyond
Marx involves the character of the demarcation line between true and
false consciousness. Does it run horizontally, through all the different
forms of social consciousness (morality, philosophy, religion, etc.)? or
182 G U S T A V A. W E T T E R

vertically between them so that some forms - at least under certain con-
ditions and at certain times - are true and others essentially false? Marx
himself conceived it vertically, thus consistently considering not only reli-
gion but also philosophy, morality, law, etc., as forms of false conscious-
ness. In later Marxist philosophy this demarcation line was also drawn
vertically, but not in the same place as by Marx. Here only religion is
regarded as an essentially false form of social consciousness, while philos-
ophy, morality and the other superstructural domains are false only in
class society as the expression of the consciousness of the ruling class.
Can this adjustment of Marx also be seen as a logical consequence of
his own line of thought? It seems to me that it can. For if his new view
of the historical dialectic in the third period, with its periodically recurring
revolutions, offers the possibility - as we have seen - of justifying the
occurrence of true consciousness even in earlier social formations, there
is no reason why this should be limited to one form of consciousness.
Marx himself distinguished the forms of consciousness not according to
the criterion of true and false but according to the specific character of
each. 22 Even he distinguishes within the only form of consciousness he
recognized as true (i.e., the science of nature and man) what still belongs
to alienation (e.g., bourgeois national economy) and what is true. It is
impossible to see why the same would not be true of the other forms of
social consciousness.
In any case, the later Marxist philosophy was not consistent enough in
its rehabilitation of the various forms of social consciousness when it did
not include religion in this rehabilitation and when it did not distinguish
in it what is true and what is ideological, i.e., deformed by class interests.
If one recognizes religion as a specific form of social consciousness, one
has to attribute to it a specific relation to reality: it cannot then be con-
sidered an 'essentially' false form of consciousness. The different forms
of social consciousness are to be distinguished not according to true and
false but according to the specific character of their relation to reality.
What is more, it is a eontradictio in adjecto to speak of an essentially
false reflection of reality in human consciousness. A totally false reflection
is precisely no reflection at all.
It is apparent, then, that modern Marxism has the possibility - without
betraying itself or its theoretical foundations - of putting itself into a
positive relation to religion. This seems to me to be of tremendous im-
 THE MARXIST CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY 183

p o r t a n e e for the dialogue between Christians a n d Marxists, which r e m a i n s

one o f the m a i n challenges.

REFERENCES

* Translation of a paper read at the XIVth International Congress of Philosophy,

Vienna, September 1968.
1 Philosophisches W~rterbuch (ed. by Georg Klaus and Manfred Buhr), 2rid revised ed.,
Leipzig 1965, p. 251.
s Karl Marx: 'Kritik der Hegelsehen Rechtsphilosophie. Einleitung',in Friihe Schriflen,
Vol. I (ed. by Hans-Joachim Lieber and Peter Furth), Cotta-Verlag, Stuttgart, 1962,
p. 504.
2 Ibid., p. 497.
4 Ibid., p. 495,
5 Karl Marx: '0konomisch-philosophische Manuskripte', in Friihe Sehriften, p. 821.
6 Ibid., p. 567.
7 See, for example, 'Die deutsche Ideologie', in Friihe Schriften, p. 821.
s '0konomisch-philosophische Manuskripte', pp. 594ff.
9 Ibid., p. 597.
lo Ibid., p. 594.
11 Cf. ibid., p. 604.
12 Ibid., p. 585.
13 The Holy Family, pp. 703-705.
14 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: 'Die deutsche Ideologie', in: Karl Marx, Friedrieh
Engels: Werke, vol. III, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1958, p. 26.
15 1bid., p. 26f.
16 Ibid., p. 31.
17 Ibid., p. 31f.
is Karl Marx: Das Elend der Philosophie, in Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Werke, vol.
IV, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1959, p. 143.
1~ Die deutsche Ideologie, p. 73.
2o Cf. Das Elend der Philosophie, p. 143.
21 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: Das Manifest der Kommunistisehen Partei, in Werke,
vol. IV, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1959, p. 474f.
~ Cf. Okonomiseh-philosophische Manuskripte, p. 598.