Rethinking the Consistency of Marx and Engels’ Philosophical Thought

For a long time, some have held that there are significant differences, even mutual opposition, between the philosophical thought of Marx and that of Engels. This view has seriously affected the dissemination and development of Marxist philosophy. Overall, from the theorists of the Second International “orthodox” school, Plekhanov, and Lenin down to the majority of philosophers in our country today, all oppose the “thesis of the opposition between Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought” (hereinafter referred to as the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis”). Regarding the question of the consistency of Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought, philosophers who oppose the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” mainly emphasize that Marx and Engels worked hand in hand and fought together for nearly 40 years, with no divergence on any important issue; that dialectical materialism and historical materialism were their common worldview, and that they merely had different emphases in their research due to a division of labor, with their views complementing each other. This view is correct. However, with the publication in 1932 of Marx’s early works such as the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” gradually became popular, and the arguments in these works are often cited as evidence by scholars holding this thesis. By comparison, work based on the philosophical works and thought of Marx and Engels, offering a targeted theoretical refutation of the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis,” remains somewhat weak. This article attempts to rethink the consistency of Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought from this perspective, with the aim of advancing research into the philosophical thought of Marx and Engels.

长期以来，一直有人认为，马克思恩格斯的哲学思想存在重大区别，甚至相互对立。这种观点严重影响了马克思主义哲学的传播与发展。从总体上看，从第二国际“正统派”理论家、普列汉诺夫、列宁到今天我国的大多数哲学家，都反对“马克思恩格斯哲学思想对立论”(以下简称“马恩对立论”)。关于马克思恩格斯哲学思想的一致性问题，反对“马恩对立论”的哲学家们主要强调，马克思恩格斯携手合作、共同战斗近40年，在重要问题上没有任何分歧；辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义是他们共同的世界观，只是在研究中因分工不同而各自有所侧重，他们的观点相互补充。这种观点是正确的。但是，随着1932年《1844年经济学哲学手稿》等马克思早期著作的发表，“马恩对立论”逐渐开始流行，这些著作中的论述常被持“马恩对立论”的学者引为论据。相比之下，基于马克思恩格斯哲学著作和思想，有针对性地从理论上反驳“马恩对立论”，这方面的工作还略显薄弱。本文尝试从这个角度出发对马克思恩格斯哲学思想的一致性加以再思考，以期推动对马克思恩格斯哲学思想的研究。

I. The Basic Views of the “Marx-Engels Opposition Thesis”

一、“马恩对立论”的基本观点

In Western academia, there are two representative formulations of the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.”

在西方学术界，“马恩对立论”有两种具有代表性的说法。

The first originates from the arguments of György Lukács, the founder of Western Marxism, in his 1923 book *History and Class Consciousness*. Lukács is the founder of Western Marxism, and his *History and Class Consciousness* is known as the “Bible” of Western Marxism. In this book, for the first time, the philosophical thought of Marx and Engels is set in opposition. This view had a significant impact on the development of Marxist philosophy, including the later formation of the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.” In this book, Lukács first proposes that “materialist dialectics is a revolutionary dialectics,” and then points out that dialectics is manifested in the practice of the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle, and that the practice of the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle to transform the old society is carried out under the impetus of revolutionary theory, constituting the unity of theory and practice. He particularly emphasizes the role of the proletariat as the subject of social revolution, especially proletarian consciousness and the importance of revolutionary theory, which is its understanding of social-historical change. He says:

其一源自西方马克思主义创始人卢卡奇在1923年出版的《历史与阶级意识》中的论述。卢卡奇是西方马克思主义的奠基人，他的《历史与阶级意识》一书被称为西方马克思主义的“圣经”，书中首次把马克思恩格斯的哲学思想对立起来。这种观点对马克思主义哲学的发展，包括后来形成的“马恩对立论”，产生了重要影响。在该书中，卢卡奇首先提出，“唯物主义辩证法是一种革命的辩证法”，然后指出，辩证法是在无产阶级革命斗争的实践中体现出来的，而无产阶级变革旧社会的革命斗争实践是在革命理论的推动下进行的，是理论与实践的统一。他特别强调作为社会革命主体的无产阶级的作用，尤其是无产阶级的意识以及它对于社会历史变革的认识即革命理论的重要性。他说：

“Only when the emergence of consciousness becomes the decisive step that the historical process must take to achieve its own goal (a goal that arises from human will but does not depend on human arbitrariness, nor is it an invention of the human spirit); only when the historical role of theory is to make this step practically possible; only when a historical situation arises in which a class must correctly understand society in order to defend its own rights; only when this class’s understanding of itself means understanding the whole of society; only therefore when this class is both the subject and the object of knowledge, and in this way theory directly and fully influences the process of social transformation—only then can the precondition for the revolutionary role of theory—the unity of theory and practice—become possible.”

只有当意识的产生成为历史过程为达到自己的目的(这个目的来自人的意志，但不取决于人的任意妄为，也不是人的精神发明的)所必须采取的决定性步骤时；只有当理论的历史作用在于使这一步骤成为实际可能时；只有当出现一个阶级要维护自己的权利就必须正确认识社会这样的历史局面时；只有当这个阶级认识自身就意味着认识整个社会时；只有因此这个阶级既是认识的主体，又是认识的客体，而且按这种方式，理论直接而充分地影响到社会的变革过程时，理论的革命作用的前提条件——理论和实践的统一——才能成为可能。

Lukács believes that Marx’s dialectics is the dialectics of the proletariat’s social revolutionary practice. In the process of this revolutionary practice, the consciousness and theory of the proletariat as the revolutionary subject play an important role. Marx’s dialectics is limited only to the field of social history. Based on this understanding, Lukács criticizes Engels for acknowledging the existence of dialectics in nature, “erroneously following Hegel in extending this method (i.e., dialectics—author’s note) to the understanding of nature as well. However, the decisive factors of dialectics—the interaction of subject and object, the unity of theory and practice, the historical change in reality as the basis of categories as the fundamental cause of changes in thought, etc.—do not exist in our understanding of nature.” *Anti-Dühring* is an important philosophical work by Engels. Lukács criticizes Engels for, by acknowledging natural dialectics, failing to emphasize the unity of theory and practice as Marx did, and for failing to see the role of the subject and theory in the dialectical process of social development. He says:

卢卡奇认为，马克思的辩证法是无产阶级社会革命实践的辩证法，在这种革命实践的过程中，作为革命主体的无产阶级的意识和理论起着重要作用。马克思的辩证法只限于社会历史领域。基于这样的认识，卢卡奇批评恩格斯承认自然界存在辩证法，“错误地跟着黑格尔把这种方法(即辩证法——引者注)也扩大到对自然界的认识上。然而辩证法的决定性因素，即主体和客体的相互作用，理论和实践的统一，在作为范畴基础的现实中的历史变化是思想中的变化的根本原因等等，并不存在于我们对自然界的认识中”。《反杜林论》是恩格斯重要的哲学著作，卢卡奇批评恩格斯由于承认自然辩证法，因而没有像马克思那样重视理论与实践的统一，看不到主体和理论在社会发展辩证过程中的作用。他说：

“Engels’s exposition in *Anti-Dühring* had a decisive influence on the subsequent role of theory. … He believes that dialectics is a continuous process of transformation from one determination to another, the constant sublation of contradictions, the constant mutual transformation, so that one-sided and rigid causality must be replaced by interaction. But he does not even mention the most fundamental interaction, the dialectical relationship between subject and object in the historical process, let alone place it at the methodological center commensurate with it. Yet without this factor, the dialectical method ceases to be a revolutionary method…”

恩格斯在《反杜林论》中的论述对于后来理论的作用具有决定性的影响。……他认为，辩证法是由一个规定转变为另一个规定的连续不断的过程，是矛盾的不断扬弃，不断相互转换，因此片面的和僵化的因果关系必定为相互作用所取代。但是他对最根本的相互作用，即历史过程中的主体和客体之间的辩证关系连提都没有提到，更不要说把它置于与它相称的方法论的中心地位了。然而没有这一因素，辩证方法就不再是革命的方法……

The second originates from the views of the American philosopher Norman Levine. In 1932, Marx’s *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* was published, causing a strong shock in Western countries. Many claimed to see in it a humanist Marx different from the revolutionary Marx, and further proposed that the thought of the early Marx and the late Marx, as well as the thought of Marx and Engels, were fundamentally different. Against this background, the view of the opposition between Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought, proposed by Lukács in 1923, gained attention in Western countries. Levine is an American Marxologist who vigorously promotes the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.” His relevant ideas are concentrated in his 1975 book *The Tragic Deception: Marx contra Engels*. Levine’s 1985 book *Dialogue within the Dialectic* and subsequent works uphold and develop the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.” Levine believes that the philosophical views of Marx and Engels are different. Specifically, when Marx discusses humans, he emphasizes human productive practice, the transformation and influence of humans on external nature; when he discusses the insentient natural world outside humans, he focuses more on the extent and manner in which natural objects are changed and humanized by human activity, always emphasizing humans’ active practical activity and their efforts to obtain objects that satisfy their needs from the surrounding environment. Marx never regarded the inorganic world as an existence independent of humans with its own essence and laws; he applied dialectics only to the field of human history. In Levine’s view, Engels is a metaphysical materialist, believing that the basic forces in the universe are matter and motion, and that both nature and human history are derived from these two forces. Engels extended dialectics to nature, believing that all things in the universe are subject to the action of the three laws of dialectics, such as the transformation of quantity into quality. Based on this understanding, Levine believes that Marx and Engels are opposed to each other on a series of issues, including their views of history, communism, and the proletariat’s strategy of struggle.

其二源自美国哲学家诺曼·莱文的观点。1932年，马克思的《1844年经济学哲学手稿》出版，在西方国家引起强烈震动。不少人自称从中看到了与革命家马克思不同的人道主义者马克思，进而提出，早期马克思与晚期马克思的思想以及马克思与恩格斯的思想是截然不同的。在这样的背景下，卢卡奇在1923年提出的马克思恩格斯哲学思想相对立的观点，在西方国家受到关注。莱文是美国马克思学专家，大力宣扬“马恩对立论”。他的相关思想集中体现在1975年出版的《可悲的骗局：马克思反对恩格斯》一书中。莱文1985年出版的《辩证法内部对话》及此后的著作，坚持并发展了“马恩对立论”。莱文认为，马克思恩格斯的哲学观点是不同的。具体来说，马克思论及人的时候，强调的是人的生产实践，是人对外部自然界的改造和影响；当他论及人以外的无感觉的自然界的时候，更关注自然物在什么程度上以何种方式被人的活动所改变和人化，侧重点总是放在人的能动的实践活动以及人从周围环境中获取满足他们需要的对象的努力上。马克思从来没有把无机界看作有自己的本质和规律的独立于人之外的存在，他把辩证法仅运用于人类历史领域。在莱文看来，恩格斯是一个形而上学的唯物主义者，认为宇宙中的基本力量是物质和运动，自然界和人类历史都是从这两种力量中导引出来的。恩格斯把辩证法推广到自然界，认为宇宙万物都离不开质量互变等辩证法三大规律的作用。从以上认识出发，莱文认为，马克思恩格斯在历史观、共产主义、无产阶级的斗争策略等一系列问题上都相互对立。

The British philosopher Terrell Carver is another representative figure of Western Marxology. His 1983 monograph *Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship* systematically sorts out the academic thought of Marx and Engels, emphatically highlighting the differences in their academic thought. The mutual opposition of Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought is one of the basic views of this book.

英国哲学家特雷尔·卡弗是西方马克思学的另一位代表性人物，他于1983年出版的专著《马克思与恩格斯：学术思想关系》，系统梳理了马克思恩格斯的学术思想，着重强调了马克思恩格斯学术思想的区别。马克思恩格斯哲学思想相互对立是该书基本观点之一。

The above views holding that Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought are mutually opposed each have their own characteristics and involve many issues. This article cannot discuss them all one by one. It will only select their common and most basic features for analysis and criticism, in order to demonstrate the consistency of Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought.

上述认为马克思恩格斯哲学思想相对立的观点各有特点，涉及的问题较多，本文无法一一讨论，只选取它们共同的也是最基本的特点加以分析批评，以说明马克思恩格斯哲学思想的一致性。

II. The So-Called Opposition between Marx’s and Engels’ Philosophical Thought Does Not Conform to Historical Facts

二、所谓马克思恩格斯哲学思想 相对立与历史事实不符

Looking at the history of the formation and development of Marx’s and Engels’ philosophical thought, it can be seen that this process is also a history of close cooperation between the two thinkers. The view that their philosophical thought is mutually opposed does not conform to historical facts.

纵观马克思恩格斯哲学思想形成与发展的历史，可以看到，这一历程也是两位思想家紧密合作的历史，认为他们的哲学思想相互对立与历史事实是不相符的。

All of Marx’s writings, from his works from his middle-school years to *Capital* and the late anthropological notebooks, contain rich philosophical thought. But his innovations in philosophy and his main contributions to human philosophy are primarily embodied in his early works, specifically, mainly distributed in *A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: Introduction*, the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, *The Holy Family*, *Theses on Feuerbach*, and *The German Ideology*. After writing *The German Ideology* in 1845–1846, Marx never again concentrated his energy on specialized philosophical research. Engels participated in the writing of *The Holy Family* and *The German Ideology* in his early years; his independent philosophical research was mainly concentrated in his middle and later works such as *Anti-Dühring*, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, *Dialectics of Nature*, and his later letters. When discussing the differences between Marx’s and Engels’s philosophical thought, the so-called evidence most valued by the “Marx-Engels opposition theory” is the first thesis of the *Theses on Feuerbach*, written in the spring of 1845: “The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the *object* or of *contemplation*, but not as *sensuous human activity*, *practice*, not subjectively.” The “Marx-Engels opposition theory” holds that Marx here clearly points out the characteristic distinguishing his philosophical thought from other materialisms: he proceeds from practice to understand “the thing, reality, sensuousness,” i.e., the material world confronting humanity, treating the material world as the object and product of practical activity, rather than as an object opposed to humanity; this means that he takes humanity as the subject and views the world from the standpoint of human subjectivity—the material world is stamped with the imprint of humanity in practical activity and is humanized nature. Scholars who hold the “Marx-Engels opposition theory” believe that the old materialism Marx criticized includes Engels’s viewpoint, and that works such as *Anti-Dühring* expound precisely a worldview that explains the entire world through matter and its motion, in which the significance of human subjectivity and practical activity is invisible, humanity’s status is degraded, and things are seen but humanity is not.

马克思的所有著作，包括从中学时代的作品到《资本论》以及晚年的人类学笔记，都蕴含着丰富的哲学思想。但是他对哲学的创新以及对人类哲学的主要贡献，主要体现在其早期著作中，具体而言，主要分布在《〈黑格尔法哲学批判〉导言》《1844年经济学哲学手稿》《神圣家族》《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》《德意志意识形态》中。自1845年至1846年写作《德意志意识形态》之后，马克思再也没有集中精力专门从事哲学研究。恩格斯早年参与了《神圣家族》和《德意志意识形态》的写作，他个人独立的哲学研究主要集中在中后期的《反杜林论》《路德维希·费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》《自然辩证法》等著作以及晚年的书信中。在谈到马克思恩格斯哲学思想的区别时，“马恩对立论”最看重的所谓依据是写于1845年春天的《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》第一条，即“从前的一切唯物主义(包括费尔巴哈的唯物主义)的主要缺点是：对对象、现实、感性，只是从客体的或者直观的形式去理解，而不是把它们当做感性的人的活动，当做实践去理解，不是从主体方面去理解”。“马恩对立论”认为，马克思在这里明确地指出了他的哲学思想不同于其他唯物主义的特点：他是从实践出发去理解“对象、现实、感性”也即人所面对的物质世界的，把物质世界视为实践活动的对象与产物，而非与人对立的客体；这意味着，他把人作为主体，从人的主体性出发看世界——物质世界在实践活动中被打上了人的烙印，是人化自然。持“马恩对立论”的学者认为，马克思所批判的旧唯物主义包含了恩格斯的观点，《反杜林论》等著作阐述的正是一种用物质及其运动解释整个世界的世界观，在其中，看不到人的主体性和实践活动的意义，人的地位被贬低，见物不见人。

Emphasizing human subjectivity, viewing the world from the standpoint of humanity as subject, treating the external world as the object and product of practical activity, as humanized nature—this is indeed a basic characteristic of Marx’s philosophical thought. Related ideas were already formed in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*. In this work, Marx proposes that labor-practical activity is the species-being of humanity; the products of labor-practical activity bear the stamp of humanity and are humanized nature, which is the “real nature” confronting humanity; Marx also uses labor-practical activity to explain humanity, society, nature, and their entire history, pointing out that “the entire so-called world history is nothing but the creation of man through human labor, nothing but the emergence of nature for man.” However, we should also see that the early Engels likewise criticized old materialism for not viewing the world from the standpoint of humanity and for simply treating the material world as an object opposed to humanity, and moreover, his criticism came earlier in time than Marx’s. In the *Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy*, written before January 1844, Engels already criticized eighteenth-century French materialist philosophy for opposing “abstract materialism to abstract spiritualism… Materialism does not attack the Christian contempt for and humiliation of humanity; it merely sets up nature as an absolute in place of the Christian God and opposes it to humanity.” The thought expressed here is completely consistent with the first thesis of the *Theses on Feuerbach*.

强调人的主体性、从作为主体的人出发看世界，把外部世界视为实践活动的对象和产物、视为人化自然，这确实是马克思哲学思想的基本特点。相关思想在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中便已形成。在这部著作中，马克思提出，劳动实践活动是人的类本质；劳动实践活动的产物带有人的烙印，是人化自然，它是人所面对的“现实的自然界”;马克思还用劳动实践活动解释人、社会、自然界及其全部历史，指出，“整个所谓世界历史不外是人通过人的劳动而诞生的过程，是自然界对人来说的生成过程”。但是，我们还应该看到，早年的恩格斯同样批判旧唯物主义不从人出发看世界，简单地把物质世界作为客体与人相对立，而且在批判的时间上比马克思还要早。在写于1844年1月以前的《国民经济学批判大纲》中，恩格斯便批评18世纪法国唯物主义哲学是用“抽象的唯物主义和抽象的唯灵论相对立……唯物主义不抨击基督教对人的轻视和侮辱，只是把自然界当做一种绝对的东西来代替基督教的上帝而与人相对立”。此处表述的思想与《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》第一条是完全一致的。

Regarding the consistency of Marx’s and Engels’s early philosophical thought, another piece of evidence can be found. In August 1844, before the writing of the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* was completed, Engels came to Paris for his second meeting with Marx. Concerning this meeting, Engels said in 1885: “When I visited Marx in Paris in the summer of 1844, our complete agreement in all theoretical fields became evident, and from that time on our common work began.” Marx said: “Since the publication of Friedrich Engels’s brilliant outline of a critique of the economic categories (in the *Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher*), I have been in constant correspondence with him, and he has arrived at the same result as I by a different path (see his *The Condition of the Working Class in England*). When in the spring of 1845 he also settled in Brussels, we decided to work out together the opposition of our views to the ideological views of German philosophy…” The above statements show that both Marx and Engels believed that in 1844 and the spring of 1845, that is, when Marx was writing the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* and the *Theses on Feuerbach*, their philosophical views were completely consistent.

关于马克思恩格斯早期哲学思想的一致性，还可以找到一条证据。1844年8月，《1844年经济学哲学手稿》的写作尚未结束，恩格斯来到巴黎与马克思第二次见面。关于这次会见，恩格斯在1885年说：“当我1844年夏天在巴黎拜访马克思时，我们在一切理论领域中都显出意见完全一致，从此就开始了我们共同的工作。”马克思则说：“自从弗里德里希·恩格斯批判经济学范畴的天才大纲(在《德法年鉴》上)发表以后，我同他不断通信交换意见，他从另一条道路(参看他的《英国工人阶级状况》)得出同我一样的结果。当1845年春他也住在布鲁塞尔时，我们决定共同阐明我们的见解与德国哲学的意识形态的见解的对立……”以上论述表明，马克思恩格斯都认为，1844年和1845年春天，也即马克思写作《1844年经济学哲学手稿》和《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》时，他们的哲学观点是完全一致的。

Marx’s philosophical thought has distinctive characteristics. His high regard for human practical activity and his observation of the world from the perspective of practice, as well as his criticism of old materialism for unilaterally understanding the world from matter and seeing things but not humanity—or, in other words, his humanist thought and his promotion of human subjectivity—are concentratedly embodied in *The German Ideology*, written between 1845 and 1846. When Marx and Engels met in August 1844, they found their philosophical thought completely consistent, and from this they began to jointly expound these ideas. The first work they co-authored was *The Holy Family*, published in early 1845, but the work that comprehensively expounds their philosophical thought at that time is their second co-authored work, *The German Ideology*, mainly concentrated in the first chapter of Volume I. This chapter contains content specifically criticizing old materialism, including Feuerbach’s, and Marx’s philosophical thought is here comprehensively and deeply elaborated. The book provides an argument from the perspective of natural science for why labor-practice is the species-being of humanity:

马克思的哲学思想具有鲜明特点，他对人的实践活动的高度重视和从实践的角度观察世界以及对旧唯物主义一味从物质出发理解世界、见物不见人的批评，或者说他的人道主义思想和对人的主体性的弘扬，集中体现在写于1845年到1846年的《德意志意识形态》中。1844年8月，马克思恩格斯会面时发现双方的哲学思想完全一致，由此开始共同阐述这些思想。他们合作的第一部著作是1845年初出版的《神圣家族》，但是全面论述二人当时的哲学思想的是他们合作的第二部著作《德意志意识形态》，主要集中于该书第一卷第一章。这一章包含专门批判包括费尔巴哈在内的旧唯物主义的内容，马克思的哲学思想在这里得到了全面、深入的阐述。该书从自然科学的角度对劳动实践何以是人的类本质作了论证：

The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organization of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go into the physical properties of people themselves, nor into the natural conditions—geological, orohydrographical, climatic and other conditions—which people find. Any historical writing must start from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the activity of people.

全部人类历史的第一个前提无疑是有生命的个人的存在。因此，第一个需要确认的事实就是这些个人的肉体组织以及由此产生的个人对其他自然的关系。当然，我们在这里既不能深入研究人们自身的生理特性，也不能深入研究人们所处的各种自然条件——地质条件、山岳水文地理条件、气候条件以及其他条件。任何历史记载都应当从这些自然基础以及它们在历史进程中由于人们的活动而发生的变更出发。

People can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything else you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to *produce* their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organization.

可以根据意识、宗教或随便别的什么来区别人和动物。一当人开始生产自己的生活资料，即迈出由他们的肉体组织所决定的这一步的时候，人本身就开始把自己和动物区别开来。

The book also deeply criticizes Feuerbach’s materialism, holding that it is divorced from practical activity and is therefore an unhistorical, abstract materialism:

该书还深入批判了费尔巴哈的唯物主义，认为它脱离实践活动，因而是非历史的抽象唯物主义：

He does not see that the sensuous world around him is not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is an historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations… Even the objects of the simplest “sensuous certainty” are only given him through social development, industry and commercial intercourse. The cherry tree, like almost all fruit trees, was, as is well known, only transplanted into this zone by commerce a few centuries ago, and therefore it was only by this action of a given society in a given age that it was given to Feuerbach’s “sensuous certainty.”

他没有看到，他周围的感性世界决不是某种开天辟地以来就直接存在的、始终如一的东西，而是工业和社会状况的产物，是历史的产物，是世世代代活动的结果……甚至连最简单的“感性确定性”的对象也只是由于社会发展、由于工业和商业交往才提供给他的。大家知道，樱桃树和几乎所有的果树一样，只是在几个世纪以前由于商业才移植到我们这个地区。由此可见，樱桃树只是由于一定的社会在一定时期的这种活动才为费尔巴哈的“感性确定性”所感知。

…

……

Feuerbach speaks in particular of the intuition of natural science, mentioning secrets that only the eyes of physicists and chemists can discern, but without industry and commerce, where would natural science come from? Even this “pure” natural science attains its ends and obtains its materials only through commerce and industry, through the sensuous activity of human beings. This activity, this continuous sensuous labour and creation, this production, is the foundation of the entire present sensuous world; were it to be interrupted for even a single year, Feuerbach would see that not only would enormous changes take place in nature, but the entire human world and his own capacity for intuition, and even his own existence, would soon cease to be.

费尔巴哈特别谈到自然科学的直观，提到一些只有物理学家和化学家的眼睛才能识破的秘密，但是如果没有工业和商业，哪里会有自然科学呢？甚至这个“纯粹的”自然科学也只是由于商业和工业，由于人们的感性活动才达到自己的目的和获得自己的材料的。这种活动、这种连续不断的感性劳动和创造、这种生产，正是整个现存的感性世界的基础，它哪怕只中断一年，费尔巴哈就会看到，不仅在自然界将发生巨大的变化，而且整个人类世界以及他自己的直观能力，甚至他本身的存在也会很快就没有了。

What the above discussion emphasises is precisely that objects, reality, and the sensuous—including the objective existence of human beings themselves—can only be reasonably explained from the standpoint of human practical activity.

以上论述强调的正是对象、现实、感性这些包括人本身的客观存在，只有从人的实践活动出发才能对其作出合理解释。

Clearly, Marx’s thought in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* and the *Theses on Feuerbach*, which takes labour practice as the species-essence of humanity and the foundation of his entire philosophy, together with his critique of the old materialism represented by Feuerbach for understanding the material world apart from human practical activity, receives a fuller and deeper elaboration in *The German Ideology*. Yet we must not forget that *The German Ideology* was co-authored by Marx and Engels; this is the most powerful proof of the complete consistency of their early philosophical thought.

显然，马克思在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》与《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》中把劳动实践作为人的类本质和自己全部哲学的基础的思想，以及他对费尔巴哈所代表的旧唯物主义离开人的实践活动理解物质世界的批评，在《德意志意识形态》中得到了更为充分与深入的阐述。然而我们不能忘记，《德意志意识形态》是马克思恩格斯共同创作的，这是他们早期哲学思想完全一致的最有力证明。

Moreover, Engels adhered throughout his life to understanding the world from the standpoint of labour practice. The “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” holds that explaining the world through matter and its motion—that is, the dialectics of nature, or the ontology of dialectical materialism—is a philosophical thought of Engels distinct from that of Marx. This claim is likewise inconsistent with the objective facts.

不仅如此，恩格斯毕生都坚持从劳动实践出发理解世界。“马恩对立论”认为，用物质及其运动解释世界，即自然辩证法或者说辩证唯物主义的本体论，是恩格斯不同于马克思的哲学思想，这一说法同样与客观事实不符。

Engels’ *Dialectics of Nature* contains a famous essay, “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,” which elaborates how humanity emerged from the self-evolution of nature. He points out that humans evolved from apes through anthropoid apes; this is a process of biological evolution occurring in nature, following the laws of biological evolution that Darwin called. The decisive factor in this process is labour: the hand is not only the organ of labour but also the product of labour; language arose from labour and together with labour; first labour, and then language together with labour, became the two most essential driving forces; under their influence, the ape brain gradually transitioned into the human brain, and humanity finally separated from animals and became human. This process is a high degree of unity between the dialectical process of nature’s self-motion and the activity of labour manifesting a certain subjectivity.

恩格斯的《自然辩证法》中有一篇著名论文——《劳动在从猿到人转变过程中的作用》，阐述了人是怎样从自然界的自我演化中产生的。他指出，人由猿经过类人猿进化而来，这是发生在自然界的生物进化过程，遵循达尔文所称的生物进化规律。在这个过程中起决定作用的是劳动：手不仅是劳动的器官，还是劳动的产物；语言是从劳动中并和劳动一起产生出来的；首先是劳动，然后是语言和劳动一起，成了两个最主要的推动力，在它们的影响下，猿脑就逐渐地过渡到人脑，人最终脱离动物，成为人。这一过程是自然界自我运动的辩证过程与体现某种主体性的劳动活动过程的高度统一。

The materialist conception of history is the most important content of Marxist philosophy. As mentioned earlier, Marx takes labour practice as the cornerstone of his conception of history, proposing that the entire world history is the process of humanity’s genesis through human labour, the process of nature’s becoming for humanity. Engels not only elaborated this thought in detail in the early co-authored work *The German Ideology* but also adhered to it until his later years. In 1890 he said: “According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Neither Marx nor I have ever asserted more than this.”

唯物史观是马克思主义哲学最重要的内容。前面提到，马克思把劳动实践活动作为其历史观的基石，提出整个世界历史是人通过人的劳动而诞生的过程，是自然界对人来说的生成过程。恩格斯不仅在与马克思合著的早期著作《德意志意识形态》中详细阐述了这一思想，而且直至其晚年仍旧坚持该思想。他在1890年说：“根据唯物史观，历史过程中的决定性因素归根到底是现实生活的生产和再生产。无论马克思或我都从来没有肯定过比这更多的东西。”

The “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” holds that Engels’ *Anti-Dühring* sets forth a complete dialectical materialist world outlook, which epitomises a metaphysical materialism opposed to Marx’s thought. This claim cannot be sustained. In the preface to *Anti-Dühring*, Engels says: “The world outlook expounded in this book was in its overwhelming majority established and developed by Marx, and only an insignificant part belongs to me; therefore, it goes without saying between us that my exposition could not take place without his knowledge. Before printing, I read the entire manuscript to him, and the tenth chapter of the economics section (the ‘Critical History’ discussion) was written by Marx himself.” It is perfectly clear that Marx endorsed the thought of *Anti-Dühring*.

“马恩对立论”认为，恩格斯的《反杜林论》阐述了一个完整的辩证唯物主义世界观，集中体现了与马克思的思想相对立的形而上学唯物主义。这种说法不能成立。恩格斯在《反杜林论》的序言中说：“本书所阐述的世界观，绝大部分是由马克思确立和阐发的，而只有极小的部分是属于我的，所以，我的这种阐述不可能在他不了解的情况下进行，这在我们相互之间是不言而喻的。在付印之前，我曾把全部原稿念给他听，而且经济学那一编的第十章(《〈批判史〉论述》)就是马克思写的。”马克思是赞同《反杜林论》的思想的，这一点十分明确。

Levine argues that Marx did not actually agree with the metaphysical materialism elaborated by Engels in *Anti-Dühring*, but only refrained from opposing it against his conscience because he received too much material assistance from Engels in his life. This claim fully demonstrates that, limited by his breadth of mind and cognition, Levine is utterly incapable of understanding Marx. For the sake of pursuing truth and human liberation, Marx sacrificed his health, happiness, and entire life; his pursuit of and adherence to truth are evident to all, and such a practice of “bending the knee for five pecks of rice” [6]6 “Bending the knee for five pecks of rice” (为五斗米而折腰) is a Chinese classical allusion referring to the Eastern Jin poet Tao Yuanming, who resigned his post rather than compromise his principles for a meagre official salary; it is used here to mean acting against one’s principles for material gain. would also be despised by both great men.

莱文认为，马克思并不认同恩格斯在《反杜林论》中所阐述的形而上学唯物主义，只不过因为在生活上得到恩格斯太多的物质帮助，才违心地没有反对。这一说法充分表明，受心胸和认知的局限，莱文根本无法理解马克思。为了追求真理和人类解放，马克思献出了自己的健康、幸福与毕生精力，他对真理的追求与坚持是我们有目共睹的，“为五斗米而折腰”这样违背原则的做法也为两位伟人所不齿。

Regarding the consistency of Marx and Engels’ thought, we can also find another piece of evidence. In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, in order to explain that nature and humanity exist and evolve through themselves, Marx says the following: “The theory of the creation of the earth received a fatal blow from geognosy—that is, from the science which presents the formation, the genesis of the earth as a process, as self-generation. *Generatio aequivoca* [spontaneous generation] is the only practical refutation of the theory of creation.” What is embodied here is precisely the thought of the dialectics of nature, that is, the dialectical materialist world outlook. That Marx already had such thought as early as 1844 shows that he endorsed the views in *Anti-Dühring*.

关于马克思恩格斯思想的一致性，我们还可以找到一个证据。在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思为了说明自然界和人是通过自身而存在与演化的，说了这样一段话：“大地创造说，受到了地球构造学即说明地球的形成、生成是一个过程、一种自我产生的科学的致命打击。自然发生说是对创世说[Schöpfungstheorie]的唯一实际的驳斥。”这里体现的正是自然辩证法思想，也即辩证唯物主义世界观。早在1844年马克思就有这样的思想，这说明他是赞同《反杜林论》中的观点的。

III. The Misreading of Marx and Engels’ Philosophical Thought by the “Marx-Engels Opposition Thesis”

三、“马恩对立论”对马克思恩格斯 哲学思想的误读

Since the philosophical thought of Marx and Engels is consistent, why does the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” arise? The reason is that scholars who hold this thesis have misread the relevant expositions of Marx and Engels.

既然马克思恩格斯的哲学思想是一致的，那么为何会出现“马恩对立论”？原因是，持“马恩对立论”的学者们误读了马克思恩格斯的相关论述。

First, they misread the first thesis of the *Theses on Feuerbach*.

第一，误读了《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》第一条。

The first thesis of the *Theses on Feuerbach* is the main basis for the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis.” In this thesis, Marx says: “The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the *object* or of *contemplation*, but not as *sensuous human activity*, *practice*, not subjectively.” Here Marx clearly distinguishes his own thought from old materialism and criticises the latter. Those who hold the “Marx-Engels opposition thesis” take *Anti-Dühring* and *Dialectics of Nature* as their basis, arguing that these works of Engels put forward a complete materialist world outlook that explains everything through matter and its motion, and that this thought belongs to old materialism. If we consider Engels’ exposition in *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, such an understanding is not without justification. In this work, Engels proposes: “The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being.” He further says:

《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》第一条是“马恩对立论”最主要的依据。在这一条中，马克思说：“从前的一切唯物主义(包括费尔巴哈的唯物主义)的主要缺点是：对对象、现实、感性，只是从客体的或者直观的形式去理解，而不是把它们当做感性的人的活动，当做实践去理解，不是从主体方面去理解。”马克思在这里明确地把自己的思想与旧唯物主义作了区分，并对后者提出批评。“马恩对立论”者以《反杜林论》《自然辩证法》为依据，认为恩格斯的这些著作提出了一个用物质及其运动解释一切的完整的唯物主义世界观，其思想属于旧唯物主义。如果考虑到恩格斯在《路德维希·费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》中的论述，这样的理解并无不妥。在这部著作中，恩格斯提出：“全部哲学，特别是近代哲学的重大的基本问题，是思维和存在的关系问题。”他进一步说：

What is primary, spirit or nature?—this question, in relation to the church, took the sharp form: Did God create the world, or has the world existed from eternity?

什么是本原的，是精神，还是自然界？——这个问题以尖锐的形式针对着教会提了出来：世界是神创造的呢，还是从来就有的？

Philosophers are divided into two great camps according to the way they answer this question. Those who assert the primacy of spirit over nature and, therefore, in the last instance, assume some kind of creation of the world… constitute the camp of idealism. Those who regard nature as primary belong to the various schools of materialism.

哲学家依照他们如何回答这个问题而分成了两大阵营。凡是断定精神对自然界说来是本原的，从而归根到底承认某种创世说的人……组成唯心主义阵营。凡是认为自然界是本原的，则属于唯物主义的各种学派。

Engels believed that the characteristic of materialism is to take nature as the origin and substance of the world; it is a kind of material ontology, a worldview that explains the entire world through matter and its motion. From such a perspective, the “Marx-Engels opposition theory” appears tenable. In fact, this is a misreading of Marx. Marx criticized old materialism but did not negate its basic viewpoints. Marx said: “The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism (that of Feuerbach included) is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism…” The word “only” here is extremely crucial; it indicates that when Marx emphasized understanding the world as practice from the subjective side, he did not deny the rationality of old materialism’s “conceiving the thing, reality, sensuousness in the form of the object or of contemplation,” that is, the material world. This shows that he recognized this perspective of observation and acknowledged that the world is the material natural world and its motion, existing outside of humans and independent of human will. In his view, the error of old materialism lay merely in starting from the objective side, not knowing that one could also change perspective and understand the world from human practical activity, i.e., human subjectivity. That is to say, Marx himself understood the world from two perspectives: one starting from “the thing, reality, sensuousness,” i.e., matter, and the other starting from practical activity, i.e., the human being as subject. The former answers the fundamental question of philosophy, giving rise to the materialist worldview and material ontology; the latter focuses on real human beings and the real material world as the human environment, which has been transformed by practical activity and bears the imprint of humans, emphasizing the role of practice and promoting human subjectivity and initiative. The “Marx-Engels opposition theory” asserts that Engels explained the world through matter and its motion, i.e., the dialectics of nature, thereby falling into old materialism; while Marx understood the world starting from practical activity, highlighting human subjectivity and initiative, and opposing the understanding of the world starting from matter. This is a misreading of Marx. It fails to recognize that using the material natural world and its motion to explain the world is not only Engels’ thought but also Marx’s thought; while viewing the world from matter, Marx also viewed the world from humans and their practical activity. Marx’s new materialist worldview contains the basic viewpoints of the old materialist worldview. He both answers the fundamental question of philosophy from matter and, at the same time, focuses on the relationship between the material world and humans and the active role of humans from the perspective of human practical activity. From this, it can be seen that it is precisely the misreading of Marx’s thought by some scholars that has created the so-called “opposition” between Marx and Engels’ philosophical thought.

恩格斯认为，唯物主义的特点是把自然界作为世界的本原、本体，它是一种物质本体论，一种用物质及其运动解释整个世界的世界观。从这样的角度看，“马恩对立论”似乎是可以成立的。实际上这是对马克思的误读。马克思批评旧唯物主义，但并没有否定它的基本观点。马克思说：“从前的一切唯物主义(包括费尔巴哈的唯物主义)的主要缺点是：对对象、现实、感性，只是从客体的或者直观的形式去理解，而不是把它们当做感性的人的活动，当做实践去理解，不是从主体方面去理解。因此，和唯物主义相反，唯心主义却把能动的方面抽象地发展了……”此处的“只是”二字十分关键，它表明，马克思强调要把世界当作实践从主体方面去理解时，并没有否认旧唯物主义“从客体的或者直观的形式去理解”对象、现实、感性也即物质世界的合理性。这说明，他认可这种观察角度，承认世界是存在于人之外、不以人的意志为转移的物质自然界及其运动。在他看来，旧唯物主义的错误在于仅仅从客体的角度出发，不知道还可以换个角度，从人的实践活动即人的主体性出发去理解世界。也就是说，马克思本人是从两个角度理解世界的，一个是从“对象、现实、感性”即物质出发，另一个是从实践活动即作为主体的人出发。前者回答哲学基本问题，产生了唯物主义世界观、物质本体论；后者关注现实的人和作为人的环境的、现实的、被实践活动改造过带有人的烙印的物质世界，强调实践的作用，弘扬人的主体性、能动性。“马恩对立论”认定，恩格斯用物质及其运动即自然辩证法解释世界，从而陷入旧唯物主义；马克思则从实践活动出发理解世界，突出人的主体性、能动性，反对从物质出发理解世界。这是对马克思的误读。它没有认识到，用物质自然界及其运动解释世界，不仅是恩格斯的思想，也是马克思的思想；在从物质出发看世界的同时，马克思也从人、人的实践活动出发看世界。马克思的新唯物主义世界观包含了旧唯物主义世界观的基本观点。他既从物质出发回答哲学基本问题，同时还从人的实践活动出发关注物质世界与人的关系以及人的能动作用。由此可以看出，正是一些学者对马克思思想的误读造成了所谓马克思恩格斯哲学思想的“对立”。

Second, there is a failure to truly understand Marx’s concept of practice.

第二，没有真正理解马克思的实践概念。

First, the “Marx-Engels opposition theory” emphasizes that the characteristic of Marx’s philosophical thought is to promote humanitarianism and human subjectivity, viewing the world from the perspective of practice. This statement is correct, but it fails to see that in Marx’s theory, practical activity itself embodies the interaction between matters that the dialectics of nature speaks of. For example, labor is the practical activity Marx valued most. In *Capital*, he points out:

首先，“马恩对立论”强调，马克思哲学思想的特点是弘扬人道主义和人的主体性，从实践出发看世界。这种说法是正确的，但它没有看到，在马克思的理论中，实践活动本身就体现了自然辩证法所讲的物质之间的相互作用。例如，劳动是马克思最重视的实践活动，他在《资本论》中指出：

Labor is, first of all, a process between man and nature, a process in which man, through his own activity, mediates, regulates, and controls the material interchange between himself and nature. Man himself confronts the material of nature as a natural force. In order to appropriate natural material in a form useful to his own life, he sets in motion the natural forces belonging to his own body—his arms, legs, head, and hands. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops the potentialities slumbering within his own nature, and subjects the play of their forces to his own control.

劳动首先是人和自然之间的过程，是人以自身的活动来中介、调整和控制人和自然之间的物质变换的过程。人自身作为一种自然力与自然物质相对立。为了在对自身生活有用的形式上占有自然物质，人就使他身上的自然力——臂和腿、头和手运动起来。当他通过这种运动作用于他身外的自然并改变自然时，也就同时改变他自身的自然。他使自身的自然中蕴藏着的潜力发挥出来，并且使这种力的活动受他自己控制。

Man himself is a natural force; labor activity is man’s use of the natural forces of his own body, such as arms, legs, head, and hands, to act upon and change nature outside himself. Marx also says: “The instrument of labor is a thing, or a complex of things, which the worker interposes between himself and the object of his labor and which serves as the conductor of his activity onto that object. He makes use of the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of some substances in order to set them to work as instruments of his power, in accordance with his own purposes, on other substances.” Therefore, he directly calls labor “the material interchange between man and nature.” It is evident that the labor practice Marx speaks of is an interaction between natural things. Practical activity is initiated and controlled by humans, fully embodying human subjectivity and initiative; without human participation, nature would have no practical activity. But the human being as the subject of labor, the object of labor, and the instrument of labor as the intermediary are all material existences. In the final analysis, practical activity is an interaction between material existences, and like the interactions of other material existences in nature, it obeys the natural laws revealed by physics and chemistry. Practical activity understood in this way is in no way contradictory to material ontology or the dialectics of nature. This fully demonstrates that the “Marx-Engels opposition theory” misunderstands Marx’s concept of practice.

人自身是一种自然力，劳动活动是人运用自己身上的自然力，例如臂和腿、头和手，作用于人以外的自然并改变它。马克思又说：“劳动资料是劳动者置于自己和劳动对象之间、用来把自己的活动传导到劳动对象上去的物或物的综合体。劳动者利用物的机械的、物理的和化学的属性，以便把这些物当做发挥力量的手段，依照自己的目的作用于其他的物。”因此，他把劳动直接称作“人和自然之间的物质变换”。显而易见，马克思所说的劳动实践活动是一种自然物之间的相互作用。实践活动是人发动并控制的，充分体现了人的主体性、能动性，没有人的参与，自然界不会有实践活动；但是作为劳动主体的人、劳动对象和作为中介的劳动工具，都是物质存在，归根到底，实践活动是物质存在之间的相互作用，与自然界其他物质存在的相互作用一样，服从物理学和化学所揭示的自然规律。这样理解的实践活动与物质本体论、自然辩证法毫不矛盾。这充分说明，“马恩对立论”误解了马克思的实践概念。

In addition, after criticizing old materialism for not knowing to understand the world from practice and human subjectivity, Marx continues, “Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism.” Immediately after this sentence, he points out: “Of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such.” This criticism of idealism likewise shows that although Marx criticizes old materialism and praises idealism, he always stands on the basic materialist philosophical ground, insisting that even when emphasizing practice and human initiative, one must still take the materiality of the world as a premise.

除此之外，在批评旧唯物主义不知道要从实践和人的主体性出发理解世界后，马克思接着说，“和唯物主义相反，唯心主义却把能动的方面抽象地发展了”。在这句话后面他马上指出：“当然，唯心主义是不知道现实的、感性的活动本身的。”对唯心主义的这种批评同样表明，尽管马克思批判旧唯物主义、表扬唯心主义，但他始终站在基本的唯物主义哲学立场上，坚持认为即使重视实践与人的能动性，仍然必须以承认世界的物质性为前提。

This basic materialist stance is even more prominent in the second thesis of the *Theses on Feuerbach*. That thesis states: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice.” In the first thesis, Marx affirms that idealism understands the world from the subjective and active side; in the second thesis, he immediately proposes that whether human thinking possesses truth must be tested by practice. This fully shows that he, like old materialism, insists on the materiality of the world. Precisely because he recognizes the fundamental question of philosophy and the materialist answer to it, and insists on material ontology, Marx emphasizes that the understanding of the world, which fully embodies human subjectivity and initiative, must be tested by practice to determine whether it is consistent with objective material existence and its laws. Without insisting on material ontology, the question of practice testing the truth of thinking could not exist; and if one leaves aside the test of practice and reduces the characteristic of Marx’s philosophical thought to highlighting human subjectivity and initiative, one falls into idealism. It was for this reason that Lukács was accused of sliding into idealism, and he repeatedly criticized himself on this point in his later years.

这种基本的唯物主义立场在《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》第二条中表现得更为突出。该条指出：“人的思维是否具有客观的真理性，这不是一个理论的问题，而是一个实践的问题。人应该在实践中证明自己思维的真理性，即自己思维的现实性和力量，自己思维的此岸性。”在第一条中，马克思肯定了唯心主义从主体方面、能动方面出发理解世界，第二条又马上提出，人的思维是否具有真理性，必须由实践加以检验。这充分说明，他与旧唯物主义一样坚持世界的物质性。正是因为认可哲学基本问题以及对它的唯物主义回答，坚持物质本体论，马克思才强调，充分体现人的主体性和能动性的对世界的理解，必须经过实践检验，以确定它是否与客观物质存在及其规律相一致。不坚持物质本体论，就不可能存在实践检验思维的真理性这个问题；而离开实践检验，把马克思哲学思想的特点归结为突出人的主体性、能动性，就陷入了唯心主义。卢卡奇就因为这个原因被指责滑入唯心主义，他在晚年也就此一再作自我批评。

Second, the “Marx-Engels opposition theory” does not understand why Marx attached great importance to practical activity, or rather, it does not understand the significance of practical activity in Marx’s philosophical thought. Lukács mainly understood the practical activity Marx spoke of as the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, while Western Marxology understood Marx’s concept of practice from the perspective of promoting human subjectivity in opposition to materialist ontology and the dialectics of nature. Both of these are mistaken.

其次，“马恩对立论”不理解马克思为什么高度重视实践活动，或者说不理解实践活动在马克思哲学思想中的意义。卢卡奇把马克思所说的实践活动主要理解为无产阶级的革命斗争，西方马克思学则从弘扬人的主体性并与唯物主义本体论以及自然辩证法相对立的角度理解马克思的实践概念，这些都是错误的。

Marx’s entire theory and whole cause focus on human beings, human development, and human liberation. The purpose of his philosophical research was to establish a theory capable of scientifically explaining the mechanism of human development, thereby pointing the way for human liberation. This theory is the historical materialism mainly created by him. Historical materialism is a theory about human beings, human development, and liberation, founded on the basis of labor practice. This is the fundamental reason why Marx valued labor practice.

马克思的全部理论和整个事业聚焦人、人的发展与解放。他进行哲学研究的目的是建立一种能够对人的发展机制作出科学说明的理论，为人类解放指明道路。这个理论就是主要由他创建的唯物史观。唯物史观是关于人、人的发展与解放的理论，建立在劳动实践活动的基础上，这是马克思重视劳动实践活动的根本原因。

Marx believed that productive labor is the fundamental characteristic distinguishing humans from other animals, the life activity by which the human species maintains and perpetuates its existence, and the species-essence of humans. He proposed that when humans begin to produce their means of subsistence—that is, when they take the step determined by their physical organization—they themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals. He clearly stated: “Productive life is species-life. It is life producing life. The whole character of a species, its species-character, resides in the nature of its life-activity, and free, conscious activity is precisely the species-character of human beings.”

马克思认为，生产劳动是人与其他动物相区别的根本特征，是人这个物种维持和延续生命的生活，是人的类本质。他提出，当人开始生产自己的生活资料，即迈出由他们的肉体组织所决定的这一步的时候，人本身就开始把自己同动物区别开来。他明确指出：“生产生活就是类生活。这是产生生命的生活。一个种的整体特性、种的类特性就在于生命活动的性质，而自由的有意识的活动恰恰就是人的类特性。”

For Marx, labor practice is free, conscious activity; freedom is the species-character and species-essence of humans. As a materialist, Marx accepted the view of 18th-century French materialism that humans are products of their environment, and that the actual manifestation of human species-essence—or, in its reality—is determined by the natural and social environment, primarily the social environment. As is well known, Marx held that the essence of humans is not an abstraction inherent in the single individual; in its reality, it is the totality of all social relations. Precisely because of this, when private ownership of the means of production predominates, labor becomes alienated; humans fall under the domination of things, lose their freedom, and thereby forfeit their species-essence; mutual aid and fraternity among humans disappear, giving rise to class division and class struggle. Marxism takes the realization of communism as its goal, and the fundamental characteristic of communism is that “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” The realization of communism means that the alienation of labor is abolished, humans are liberated from the domination of things, and they enter the realm of freedom.

在马克思这里，劳动实践是自由的有意识的活动，自由是人的类特性、类本质。作为唯物主义者，马克思接受18世纪法国唯物主义的观点，认为人是环境的产物，人的类本质的现实表现或者说在其现实性上，是由自然环境、社会环境，主要是社会环境决定的。人所共知，马克思认为，人的本质不是单个人所固有的抽象物，在其现实性上，它是一切社会关系的总和。正因为这样，当生产资料私有制占主导的时候，劳动发生异化；人受物的支配，失去自由，从而丧失类本质；人与人之间不再互助友爱，出现了阶级分化与阶级斗争。马克思主义把实现共产主义作为奋斗目标，共产主义的基本特征是“每个人的自由发展是一切人的自由发展的条件”。共产主义的实现意味着，劳动异化被消灭，人从物的支配下解放出来，进入自由王国。

Private property and human alienation are products of a specific historical stage; they arise in the course of historical development and will likewise perish with the advance of history. In Marx’s view, historical development is the product of labor practice. Regarding history, he not only proposed that the entire so-called world history is the process of humans’ birth through human labor, and the process of nature’s becoming for humans, but also provided further elaboration:

私有财产和人的异化是一定历史阶段的产物，它们在历史发展中产生，也将随着历史的发展而消亡。在马克思看来，历史发展是劳动实践活动的产物。关于历史，他不仅提出整个所谓世界历史是人通过人的劳动而诞生的过程，是自然界对人来说的生成过程，还对它作了进一步的说明：

The greatness of Hegel’s *Phenomenology* and its final result—the dialectic, as the negativity of the moving and creative principle—lies first and foremost in the fact that Hegel grasps the self-generation of humans as a process, and objectification as de-objectification, as externalization and the sublation of this externalization; thus he grasps the essence of labor and comprehends objective humans, real humans, and therefore truly human beings, as the result of their own labor.

黑格尔的《现象学》及其最后成果——辩证法，作为推动原则和创造原则的否定性——的伟大之处首先在于，黑格尔把人的自我产生看做一个过程，把对象化看做非对象化，看做外化和这种外化的扬弃；可见，他抓住了劳动的本质，把对象性的人、现实的因而是真正的人理解为人自己的劳动的结果。

Why is it said that humans and human development are the result of labor? Marx states: “In the labor process, human activity, through the means of labor, effects a predetermined change in the object of labor. The process disappears into the product. Its product is a use-value, natural material adapted to human needs through a change of form. Labor is incorporated into the object of labor. Labor is objectified, and the object is worked upon. What on the side of the worker appeared in the form of activity now appears on the side of the product as a static attribute, in the form of existence.” Labor is the activity by which humans, through the means of labor, effect a predetermined change in the object of labor. This change in the object of labor first exists as a predetermined conception in the worker’s mind; the worker, using the instruments of labor, transforms the object of labor into a product that can satisfy his own needs. On the one hand, the product of labor directly satisfies human needs as an article of daily use, influencing their mode of life; on the other hand, as a new instrument of production, it changes humans’ productive forces and mode of production, and thereby changes their relations of production, social relations, and ideas. The essence of humans is, in reality, the totality of social relations. The product of labor and social relations constitute the human environment, determining the actual manifestation of human species-essence. At the same time, humans can see in the product their own predetermined conception of it, evaluate and reflect upon it, and, in the process of humans’ active labor activity transforming nature, acquire new information about nature and generate new scientific knowledge. Marx and Engels state: “The satisfaction of the first need itself, the activity of satisfying it, and the instrument already acquired for its satisfaction, lead to new needs; and this generation of new needs is the first historical act.” Because new needs drive humans to design new labor practices, and these new labor practices inevitably once again transform nature, giving it new forms to satisfy humans’ new needs. Natural objects with new forms constitute a new, once-again-changed environment for humans; humans are products of the environment, and the once-again-changed environment causes new changes in humans. This cycle, repeated endlessly, constitutes history and the development of humans. This is the materialist conception of history founded by Marx and Engels.

为什么说人和人的发展是劳动的结果？马克思说：“在劳动过程中，人的活动借助劳动资料使劳动对象发生预定的变化。过程消失在产品中。它的产品是使用价值，是经过形式变化而适合人的需要的自然物质。劳动与劳动对象结合在一起。劳动对象化了，而对象被加工了。在劳动者方面曾以动的形式表现出来的东西，现在在产品方面作为静的属性，以存在的形式表现出来。”劳动是人借助劳动资料使劳动对象发生预定变化的活动。劳动对象的这一变化首先作为预定、设想存在于劳动者的头脑中，劳动者借助劳动工具使劳动对象发生变化，成为能满足自己需要的劳动产品。劳动产品一方面作为生活用品直接满足人的需要，影响其生活方式；另一方面作为新的生产工具改变人的生产力、生产方式，进而改变他们的生产关系、社会关系和思想观念。人的本质在现实性上是社会关系的总和。劳动产品和社会关系构成人的环境，决定人的类本质的现实表现，与此同时，人又可以在产品中看到自己关于产品的预定、设想，并对它加以评价与反思，还可以在人的能动的劳动活动改变自然界的过程中获得关于自然界的新信息，产生新的科学知识。马克思恩格斯说：“已经得到满足的第一个需要本身、满足需要的活动和已经获得的为满足需要而用的工具又引起新的需要，而这种新的需要的产生是第一个历史活动。”因为新的需要推动人设计新的劳动实践活动，新的劳动实践活动必然再一次改变自然界，使它具有新的形式以满足人的新的需要。具有新形式的自然物构成人的新的被再次改变的环境，人是环境的产物，再次改变的环境引起人的新的变化。如此循环往复就是历史，构成人的发展。这就是马克思恩格斯所创建的唯物主义历史观。

In *The German Ideology*, Marx and Engels comprehensively expounded the materialist conception of history, and its basic spirit is summed up in one sentence: “This conception shows: humans create the environment, and equally the environment creates humans.” Why did Marx attach such great importance to labor practice and emphasize its theoretical value? The answer is clear: because he comprehended real, and therefore truly human, beings as the result of their own labor. That is to say, human liberation is, in the final analysis, the process of humans’ self-generation determined by labor practice; labor practice is the ultimate driving force of all history and human liberation. And labor practice is humans’ active, planned transformation of the external world, the concentrated expression of human subjectivity. As mentioned earlier, human liberation is the core and focus of all Marxist theory; how great the significance of labor practice is for Marx need not be elaborated. In his later years, Engels referred to himself and Marx as “the new school that found the key to understanding all social history in the history of labor’s development.” In summary, it can be seen that labor practice fully embodies human subjectivity and initiative. However, to reduce Marx’s emphasis on practical activity to a mere promotion of human subjectivity and the construction of a worldview that understands the world from the standpoint of practice and human subjectivity, and to set this in opposition to old materialism—including Engels, who adhered to materialist ontology and the dialectics of nature—is a misunderstanding and belittlement of Marx’s philosophical thought.

马克思恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中对唯物史观作了全面的阐述，它的基本精神被概括为一句话：“这种观点表明：人创造环境，同样，环境也创造人。”马克思为什么高度重视劳动实践活动，并强调它的理论价值？答案很清楚：因为他把现实的因而是真正的人理解为自己的劳动的结果。也就是说，人类解放归根到底是由劳动实践活动决定的人的自我产生过程，劳动实践活动是整个历史和人类解放的最终推动力量，而劳动实践是人主动地、有计划地发动的对外部世界的改造，是人的主体性的集中体现。前面提到，人类解放是整个马克思主义理论的核心、焦点，劳动实践活动对马克思而言意义多么重大，毋庸赘言。恩格斯在晚年曾把自己和马克思称作“在劳动发展史中找到了理解全部社会史的锁钥的新派别”。综上可以看出，劳动实践活动充分体现了人的主体性和能动性，但是把马克思重视实践活动归结为旨在弘扬人的主体性与建构一种从实践和人的主体性出发理解世界的世界观，认为其与旧唯物主义也包括坚持物质本体论和自然辩证法的恩格斯相对立，则是对马克思哲学思想的误解与贬低。

However, one fact cannot be denied: Marx’s philosophical works—for example, the early *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, *Theses on Feuerbach*, and *The German Ideology*—prominently emphasize the theoretical significance of practical activity, human subjectivity, and agency, and stress human development and liberation. Engels’s philosophical works—mainly the middle-to-late *Dialectics of Nature*, *Anti-Dühring*, and *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*—are chiefly characterized by the establishment and detailed exposition of a materialist-dialectical worldview that explains the entire world through matter and its dialectical movement, thereby establishing dialectical materialism as ontology. The distinction between them is obvious: the theoretical focus of the former is the human being, while the theoretical focus of the latter is matter. Why does this difference exist? The reason lies in the fact that the pursuit of human liberation was the lifelong goal of Marx and Engels, and revealing the laws of human development was the problem that the young Marx and Engels first needed to solve. To this end, their urgent task was to understand the laws of the development of history as a whole and to create the materialist conception of history. Creating the materialist conception of history meant that they had to advance one step further on the basis of Feuerbach’s materialist-naturalist philosophy: on the one hand, affirming his materialist worldview; on the other hand, overcoming the defect that his conception of history had not escaped the mire of the idealist conception of history. Marx discovered the core concept of the materialist conception of history—labor practice. Therefore, while adhering to the materialist ontology of matter, he emphasized the significance of labor-practical activity. This task was mainly accomplished by Marx, who held a doctorate in philosophy. He created the materialist conception of history by criticizing and transcending Feuerbach’s materialism, not the idealism of the Young Hegelians. The reason Engels emphasized the dialectical-materialist worldview and the dialectics of nature was that after the 1870s, Neo-Kantianism and Dühring negated the dialectical-materialist worldview and exerted great influence within the workers’ movement. Negating the materiality of the world and the lawfulness of material movement necessarily negates the lawfulness of historical development, and thereby negates the historical inevitability of socialism replacing capitalism and the historical significance of the proletariat’s class struggle, thus fundamentally shaking the theoretical foundation of the workers’ movement. It can be seen that it is not that Marx’s and Engels’s philosophical thought are opposed to each other; rather, in different periods, starting from the needs of different practical struggles, they respectively selected different aspects of their shared thought to elaborate. The “opposition between Marx and Engels” is an illusion produced by some people.

不过，有一个事实不能不承认：马克思的哲学著作，例如早期的《1844年经济学哲学手稿》《关于费尔巴哈的提纲》《德意志意识形态》，突出强调实践活动以及人的主体性、能动性的理论意义，强调人的发展与解放；恩格斯的哲学著作，主要是中晚期的《自然辩证法》《反杜林论》《路德维希·费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》，主要特点是建立并详细论述了一个用物质及其辩证运动解释整个世界的唯物辩证的世界观，建立了作为本体论的辩证唯物主义。它们之间的区别显而易见：前者的理论焦点是人，后者的理论焦点是物质。为什么会有这样的区别？原因在于，追求人类解放是马克思恩格斯毕生的目标，揭示人的发展规律是青年马克思恩格斯首先需要解决的问题；为此，他们的迫切任务是认识整个历史的发展规律，创建唯物史观，而创建唯物史观意味着必须在费尔巴哈唯物主义自然主义哲学的基础上前进一步，一方面肯定他的唯物主义世界观，另一方面克服其历史观没有跳出唯心史观泥淖的缺陷。马克思发现了唯物史观的核心概念——劳动实践，因此，他在坚持唯物主义物质本体论的同时，强调劳动实践活动的意义。这一任务主要由作为哲学博士的马克思完成。他是通过批判和超越费尔巴哈的唯物主义，而不是青年黑格尔派的唯心主义，创建唯物史观的。恩格斯之所以强调辩证唯物主义世界观、自然辩证法，是因为19世纪70年代以后新康德主义以及杜林否定辩证唯物主义世界观并在工人运动中产生很大影响，而否定世界的物质性和物质运动的规律性，必然否定历史发展的规律性，进而否定社会主义取代资本主义的历史必然性和无产阶级阶级斗争的历史意义，从而从根本上动摇工人运动的理论基础。可见，不是马克思恩格斯哲学思想相对立，而是他们在不同时期从不同的斗争实践需要出发，分别选取共同思想中的不同方面加以阐发。“马恩对立”是一些人由此产生的错觉。

Conclusion

结语

In summary, the philosophical thought of Marx and Engels is completely consistent, and the “theory of the opposition between Marx and Engels” cannot be established. However, this conclusion will not end the reconsideration of the consistency of Marx’s and Engels’s philosophical thought; rather, it raises new demands for us. The vast majority of philosophers in the Soviet Union and China hold the view that the philosophical thought of Marx and Engels is consistent. Yet for a long time, they have mainly emphasized that Marx also possessed the dialectical-materialist and historical-materialist worldview primarily expounded by Engels. They have lacked in-depth research on the practical materialism mainly expounded by the young Marx and the grand materialist conception of history based on it, on the realistic humanism within it, and on the unity of practical materialism with dialectical materialism and historical materialism. To this day, they have not established a systematic theory that fully embodies the unity and consistency of the philosophical thought of Marx and Engels. It must be emphasized that establishing such a systematic theory is a theoretical need of Marxist philosophy and also has important practical significance; it is an urgent demand of real life. Eighteenth-century French materialism and the dialectical materialism expounded by Engels, starting from people’s actual needs, promoted scientific rationality, cleared away the dregs of feudalism, and provided an inexhaustible driving force for the development of science and technology and productive forces, and for the modernization movement of many countries, achieving brilliant results. However, the modernization movement up to the present has, on the one hand, caused increasingly serious crises in resources, the environment, ecology, and climate; on the other hand, people’s spiritual needs and all-round development have been suppressed, people have lost their critical capacity toward real life, and have become “one-dimensional persons.” [11]11 “One-dimensional persons” (单向度的人) is a reference to Herbert Marcuse’s concept of the “one-dimensional man,” critiquing the loss of critical thought in advanced industrial society. The rapid rise of artificial intelligence after the 2020s may cause many people to lose job opportunities, bringing about unprecedented social problems, and the development of artificial intelligence may escape human control and in turn pose a threat to the whole of human civilization. Real life urgently requires thinking of people’s material needs and spiritual needs, the human being and nature, human beings and human beings, and nations and nations, as an organic whole. In short, what is needed is a philosophical theory that can combine humanism with scientific rationality. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on Chinese-path modernization take a huge population size, common prosperity for all, the coordination of material and cultural-ethical progress, harmony between humanity and nature, and taking the path of peaceful development as its important characteristics. [12]12 “Chinese-path modernization” (中国式现代化) is a key concept in Xi Jinping Thought, referring to a modernization model distinct from Western capitalism, emphasizing socialist characteristics and Chinese conditions. This is a theoretical demand that real life presents to the philosophical community, pointing out a new direction for the development of Marxist philosophy. The grand materialist conception of history jointly created by the early Marx and Engels, starting from the materialist worldview, focuses on the problem of the human being on the basis of labor practice, and emphasizes the interactive and coordinated development of the human being, nature, and society. This is of great significance for our in-depth understanding of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and for promoting the construction of Chinese-path modernization. Reconsidering the relationship between the philosophical thought of Marx and Engels, recognizing their consistency, and revealing its rich connotations is an important opportunity for the development of Marxist philosophy.

综上所述，马克思恩格斯哲学思想是完全一致的，“马恩对立论”不能成立。但是，这一结论不会结束关于马克思恩格斯哲学思想一致性的再思考，而是对我们提出了新的要求。苏联与中国的绝大多数哲学家持马克思恩格斯哲学思想相一致的观点，然而长期以来他们主要强调的是马克思也拥有主要由恩格斯阐发的辩证唯物主义历史唯物主义世界观，对于主要由青年马克思阐发的实践唯物主义以及以此为基础的大唯物史观，对于其中的现实人道主义，对于实践唯物主义与辩证唯物主义、历史唯物主义的统一，缺少深入研究，至今没有建立起完整体现马克思恩格斯哲学思想统一性、一致性的系统理论。需要强调的是，建立这样的系统理论是马克思主义哲学的理论需要，同时具有重要的现实意义，是现实生活的迫切要求。18世纪法国唯物主义以及恩格斯阐述的辩证唯物主义，从人的实际需要出发，弘扬科学理性，清除了封建主义遗毒，为科学技术和生产力的发展，为众多国家的现代化运动，提供了源源不竭的动力，取得了辉煌成就。但是，迄今为止的现代化运动一方面造成了日益严重的资源、环境、生态、气候方面的危机，另一方面人的精神需要、人的全面发展受到压制，人失去对现实生活的批判能力，成为“单向度的人”。21世纪20年代后迅速崛起的人工智能则有可能使很多人失去工作机会，带来前所未有的社会问题，而且人工智能的发展有可能摆脱人的控制反过来对整个人类文明构成威胁。现实生活迫切需要把人的物质需要与精神需要、人与自然界、人与人以及国家与国家，作为有机整体来思考。简言之，需要一种能把人道主义与科学理性结合起来的哲学理论。习近平总书记关于中国式现代化的重要论述，把人口规模巨大、全体人民共同富裕、物质文明和精神文明相协调、人与自然和谐共生、走和平发展道路作为其重要特征。这是现实生活向哲学界提出的理论要求，为马克思主义哲学的发展指明了新的方向。马克思恩格斯早期共同创立的大唯物史观，从唯物主义世界观出发，在劳动实践的基础上聚焦人的问题，强调人、自然界、社会相互作用协同发展，对我们深入理解习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想，推动中国式现代化建设，意义重大。再次思考马克思恩格斯哲学思想的关系，认识它们的一致性并揭示其丰富内涵，是马克思主义哲学发展的重要契机。