Is Marx A Spinozist ?

In the history of Marxist thought, using anti Marxist and non Marxist's ideas consciously or unconsciously to interpret, repair, reconstruction and promote the Marxist is a more general theory of events. Among them, Though Plekhanov and Marx Althusser all lead Spinoza but in a different way. These two different ways represent two typical paths. Evaluating and analysing these two paths have important theoretical and practical significance to clarify the nature of the connotation of Marxist historical dialectics.During the Second International(1889–1916), orthodox Marxism represented by the mainstream school such as Kautsky cut apart the unified relationship between Marxist methods and conclusions, theories and facts. Their positivist understanding of Marxism was neither dialectical nor critical. Finally, they fell back to Eclecticism in terms of revolution theories and practical strategies. Revisionism represented by Bernstein attempted to “rectify” the philosophical basis of Marxism under the banner of “return to Kant.” However, it fundamentally twisted Marxist historical dialectics. In the face of increasing challenges confronting Marxism, Plekhanov raised the slogan of “return to Spinoza,” emphasizing on that, only when Marxist philosophy inherited the theoretical tradition of modern Materialism could its foundation be sustained. Therefore, Plekhanov adopted a retrogressive path, attempting to “lead” the theoretical basis of new Materialism built up by Marxism finally to Spinoza via Feuerbach and materialists in the 18 th century. In essence, the method of Plekhanov aimed at equaling new Materialism of Marx to old Materialism, and regarding Marxism as a variation of Spinozism. Based on that, Plekhanov interpreted Marxism as the latest Materialism, namely dialectical Materialism. In this way, dialectical Materialism became efforts to deepen and promote the old Materialism; while the historical Materialism was the outcome of the dialectical Materialism in the historical field.In the 1960 s and the 1970 s, as the 20 th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union criticized Stalin, the Humanism was abused, and the Hegelianism was revitalized in Europe, Marxism was stuck in mud theoretically and practically. It was faced with severe theoretical crises. Althusser reflected on the interpretation mode of traditional Humanism and Dogmatism of Marxism, and sought the continuity relationship between ideas of Spinoza and Marx. On the one hand, Althusser thought that both Marx and Spinoza criticized the cognitive structure of the traditional Empiricism. Based on that, he proved the essence of the scientific epistemological methods and theories of Marxist philosophy. On the other hand, Althusser defined theories of Marx and Spinoza both as a structural outlook on causality. The structural outlook was antranscendence of the traditional one. Substantially, Althusser's interpretation of continuity of ideas held by Marx and Spinoza is an interpretation of Structualism. Through the structuralized setting, Althusser defined Marxism into a theoretical anti-Humanism and anti-Historicism. However, to him, history was a subject-free and aim-free process.Therefore, it can be seen that both Plekhanov and Althusser included Marxism into the fundamentally different Spinozism based on different theoretical demands and logic paths. Due to limits of their respective theories in terms of Naturalism and Structualism, they inevitably took a path deviating from the Marxist historical dialectics. Plekhanov regarded the nature, separated from human activities, as the cornerstone of the whole philosophical system, and the development of human society and history as a natural historical process. Therefore, his theory was much more biased to the natural Ontology. On the one hand, he separated the relationship between history and the nature; on the other hand, he removed humans from the position as subjects of history. Differently, Althusser proceeded from Structualism to downgrade subjects of history into functional undertakers, thinking that the process of historical development is reflected as structural rupture and transition of the productive relationship, thus ignoring the subject dimension of the Marxist historical dialects. Marxist historical dialects scientifically answers how the nature and history are integrated with each other as a whole via the medium of practical activities; confirms the internal unified relationship between historical subjects and social structures; and revealed the dialectical integration between facts and values. All these suggest that Marxism cannot be equal to Spinozist. On the contrary, the former has exceeded all kinds of old Materialism represented by Spinozism.