He Zhonghua: The Phenomenological Historical Narrative of Human Existence

The Communist Manifesto in the Context of Marx's Philosophy

The 160th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto (hereinafter referred to as the "Manifesto"), co-written by Marx and Engels, gives us a historical opportunity to re-read this classic. This is not only because it has experienced more than a century and a half worthy of memorability, but also because the maturity of history itself provides us with an increasingly profound background and anticipation for our rereading. Like any landmark monumental work, the Manifesto can be interpreted from all possible perspectives, but the basic disciplinary attribution of Marx's thought as a whole determines that its interpretation should return to its most authentic meaning, that is, to generate its possible connotations from the context of Marx's philosophy. This angle has the least limitations compared to other perspectives. Because without the philosophical context, it is difficult to integrate the various levels of Marx's thought to the greatest extent, so that it cannot fully derive its rich meaning. In the past, we have emphasized too much the political implications of the Declaration and forgotten its philosophical implications. This hinders the elaboration of its profound meaning and affects the proper understanding of Marx's thought. In fact, even its political connotations are, in the final analysis, subordinate to its philosophical implications.

　　This article attempts to explore the doctrinal significance of the Declaration from a philosophical perspective. Marx's thought is not divorced from practice in its disposition, for it is only in its natural connection with practice that it can become itself and thus acquire its authenticity. But this original sin-like relationship with practice does not prevent us from temporarily setting aside its entanglement with the current era and focusing on revealing its meaning in the context of Marx's philosophy from an academic point of view. In order to more deeply grasp the philosophical meaning of the Declaration, it is not limited to itself, but should further trace the ideas of Marx's early and later works and interpret it in the context of Marx's thought. Engels later recalled: "We never want to write new scientific achievements into thick books, but only to confide in the 'academic' community." On the contrary, the two of us have gone deep into political movements. [1] The genre of the Declaration and its universal nature both dictate that it is impossible to elaborate on the expression of a new world outlook in itself. But although the conclusion is simple, its conclusion and expression are all the condensation and accumulation of all previous discoveries. Although the Manifesto is mainly narrated in the form of conclusions, it contains the process and content of the past (the German Ideology is its representative), and indicates the orientation and ideological connotation of the future (Capital is its peak). The manifesto style and popularization motivation dilute the philosophical color of the Declaration to a certain extent, and increase the difficulty of our interpretation from the philosophical context, but this does not affect the richness and profundity of its connotation.

　　The author believes that only by reading the Declaration as a philosophy can we deeply understand the true meaning behind it. At the philosophical level, what the Manifesto reveals is, in the final analysis, a history of the unfolding of anthropological ontological paradoxes based on the original basis of practice, a philosophical grasp of the historical "present-likeness" (i.e., "phenomenon" as a verb rather than a noun) of the dualization of human existence. The general meaning of the Manifesto can be described as Marx's phenomenological thought on the existence of man and its concise representation.

　　First, the basis of the division of labor behind "class antagonism"

　　The significance of the Manifesto's theory of class antagonism lies not only in stating a basic fact, but more importantly in that it forms part of Marx's phenomenological presentation of the existence of man. Only by understanding Marx's class theory from this height can we fully highlight the philosophical meaning behind it.

　　The Manifesto puts forward the idea that the extreme division of classes has brought society to an abstract peak, pointing out: "Our epoch, the bourgeois epoch, has a peculiarity: it simplifies class antagonisms. Increasingly, society as a whole is divided into two antagonistic camps, into two classes that are directly opposed to each other: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. [2] As early as 1844, Marx had revealed the polarization of class differentiation under capitalism throughout society: competition among landowners further concentrated large estates, "and the result of this competition is that a large part of the estate falls into the hands of capitalists, who also become landowners, just as smaller landowners are now now merely capitalists." Similarly, some of the large landowners also became industrialists. The end result, therefore, is the disappearance of the distinction between capitalists and landowners, so that there are largely only two classes left among the inhabitants: the working class and the capitalist class"[3]. But "the opposition between proletarian and property, as long as it has not yet been understood as the opposition between labour and capital, is an insignificant opposition, an opposition which is not understood in terms of its dynamic relations, in its internal relations, and which has not yet been understood as contradictions" [4]. This means that only when it becomes the expression of the opposition between labor and capital can the opposition between proletarian and property really have a "contradictory" meaning. The difference between "opposites as contradictions" and opposites in other senses is that the former is intrinsic to each other and have no independent form, while the latter is the opposite. The former is possible only as a result of the "developed movement of private property" (here we adopt Mr. Liu Pikun's translation [5]), which, rather, constitutes precisely the profound historical connotation of this opposition as a contradiction.

　　In fact, the tendency of polarization and abstraction of class antagonisms peculiar to capitalist society is nothing more than the expression of the "abstraction" of history itself in class relations. For the abstraction of class relations, in the final analysis, derives from the division of history itself, its most primitive basis is the division of labour. Historically, as Engels put it, "the division of society into classes" was the "consequence" of the "division of labor" [6]. Thus, "the law of the division of labour is the basis of the division of classes" [7]. Hidden here is the philosophical significance of the "division of labor": as a historical manifestation of the double division of human existence, the division of labor is the product of the externalization of anthropological ontological paradoxes into social forms. The "division of labor" is generally regarded as an economic category, but in fact it is first or foremost a philosophical category in marx's context. There is no doubt that Marx made extensive use of the results of economic research, but this utilization can only be fully understood and become meaningful in the phenomenological sense of Marx's philosophy, that is, the existence of man, and thus the intellectual achievements drawn by Marx can be "alive" and become living ideas.

　　Marx, in his article "The Paris Reforme" on the Situation in France (2 November 1848), clearly pointed out: "Class antagonisms are based on economics, on the material mode of production that has hitherto existed and on the relations of exchange determined by this mode. [8] Therefore, the answer to the explanation of class relations needs to be found in the facts revealed by economics. In Marx's speech "Wage-Labour and Capital", which coincided with the writing of the Manifesto, he began by pointing out plainly: "We have heard accusations from all sides that we have not described the economic relations which form the material basis of the modern class and national struggles. [9] Apparently, the motivation for this speech was to respond to such "accusations". In Wage Labor and Capital, Marx reveals the essence of modern class antagonisms from the perspective of economic facts. Although, as Engels pointed out in his "Introduction" to the 1891 monograph Wage-Labour and Capital, "in the 1940s Marx had not yet completed his critique of political economy. This work was not completed until the end of the 1950s"[10], but it is also indisputable that Marx began this work long ago and made a fundamental breakthrough in the 1840s, thus laying the theoretical basis for the whole critique of political economy.

　　Engels said: "Man also arises from differentiation. This is true not only in terms of individuals—from a single egg cell to the most complex organism produced by nature—but also historically. [11] The division of man in the course of evolution takes a direct form of social significance in the form of division of labor. For man to become human, that is, at the level of anthropological ontology, the real essential differentiation is the division of labor between material production and spiritual production. It differs from the division of labour in other senses in that it marks the real beginning of the historical occurrence of the division between human existence and essence. Therefore, Marx said: "The division of labor really becomes a division of labor only from the time when material and spiritual labor are separated." [12] For it is only this division of labour that directly acquires the nature of the unfolding paradox of anthropology ontology, thus means that the intrinsic paradox of human existence begins to be historically represented in a historical way at the level of the class. In a certain sense, the contradiction and struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is nothing more than the expression of the division of labour between material and spiritual labour in the class relations of modern society.

　　Engels gave its historical conditions and mechanism of occurrence: "When the productivity of human labour is still very low, and apart from the necessary means of subsistence which provides only a small surplus, the increase of productive forces, the expansion of contacts, the development of the state and law, the creation of art and science are possible only through a greater division of labour, which is based on a great division of labour between the masses engaged in purely manual labour and the few privileged elements who manage labour, run commerce and administer state affairs, and later engage in art and science." The simplest form of this division of labor, completely spontaneous, was slavery. [13] The philosophical significance of this true "division of labour" is that "the division of labour makes it possible, but also a reality, that spiritual and material activities, enjoyment and labour, production and consumption are shared by different individuals." [14] In the case of the individual man, the division of labour, as a manifest form of the dual structure of man's existence, implies the division of the real and complete individual; in the sense of the class, the division of labour is characterized by the division of society as a whole, thus making it possible that the two affirmative forms of human existence, namely, the spirit and the material, belong to different social groups, respectively, and that this is but the unfolding and expression of the inner contradictions of the individual human being at the whole social level. As the historical basis of the dualistic division of human existence, "the division of labor contains all these contradictions", that is, the contradiction between spiritual activity and material activity, enjoyment and labor, production and consumption. It can be seen that the division of labor is a historical form of the division of human existence, and it thus carries the meaning of the phenomenological way of presenting human existence. It is clear that, in Marx, the doubling of man's existence is by no means the result of speculative abstraction, but is entirely the product of material, empirically proving activity.

　　So, what does the "division of labor" depend on? Marx said: "The stage of the division of labor depends on the level of development of the productive forces at that time. [15] Philosophically, the state of productivity implies the maturity of practice. Marx pointed out in The Poverty of Philosophy: "To illustrate the value of exchange, there must be exchange. To illustrate exchange, there must be a division of labor. To illustrate the division of labour, there must be needs to make it necessary. To illustrate this need, it must be 'assumed' that it exists. [16] Marx had already made a classic account of human needs as early as the "Feuerbach" chapter of the German Ideology. He wrote: "We must first establish the first premise of the existence of all mankind, that is, the first premise of all history, and this premise is that in order to be able to 'make history', man must be able to live. But in order to live, you first need to eat, drink, live and wear and other things. Thus the first historical activity is the production of the means which satisfy these needs, i.e., the production of material life itself, and this is a historical activity, a basic condition of all history, which people must accomplish every hour of the day in order to be able to live, now and thousands of years ago. [17] Marx believed that by following this line of thought, the answers obtained would "provide a secular basis for history." He further points out: "The second fact is that the first need that has been satisfied itself, the activity that has been fulfilled and the tools that have been acquired to satisfy needs give rise to new needs, and the emergence of this new need is the first historical activity. [18] Marx here undoubtedly emphasized the preconditional meaning of human need, but as he himself put it, "Hunger is always hunger, but hunger quenched by eating cooked meat with a knife and fork is different from hunger that is quenched by gnawing raw meat with hands, nails, and teeth". In terms of pure nature, hunger makes no difference. It is only in the way needs are satisfied that the distinction between history and nature is reflected. Is it the use of knives and forks or the use of hands, nails and teeth to satisfy the appetite, which has essential significance? The social and historical significance needed is determined and acquired precisely through the "division of labor". Need itself is nothing more than an abstract, non-historical provision. It is only in the historical context determined by the "division of labour" that "need" becomes a concrete and historical stipulation.

　　In a certain sense, the phenomenon of class division and polarization of opposites that appears in modern society is nothing more than a repetition of the paradox of man's individual survival at the level of the class, which constitutes the phenomenological form of the historical manifestation and completion of human existence and its dualization. In the class relations of modern society, this dualization of human existence is historically characterized by the differentiation and confrontation between the wage-labourers engaged in material production and the bourgeoisie engaged in spiritual production. Therefore, Marx's theory of class struggle and the theory of political revolution are only necessary links for the realization of his entire philosophical self-fulfillment. From this height, the profound philosophical implications of the Declaration should be understood and recognized.

　　Talking about the Declaration today, there is an unavoidable question: how do we view the changes in class relations and their historical trends in the world today? Does the emergence of the new situation confirm or falsify Marx's idea of class antagonism? Marx's theory of classes is not or is not merely strategic but philosophical, but rather an indispensable and inalienable part of the manifestation and completion of Marx's philosophy itself. In this sense, the challenge to Marx's theory of classes is tantamount to a challenge to Marx's philosophy. Since globalization has brought about a historic change in the historical form of classes and their antagonisms, many people have used this to declare the failure of the historical logic revealed in the Declaration. In fact, this kind of rebuttal is very superficial, because it is only based on a historical appearance to make judgments. Rather than saying that Marx's assertions are outdated, it is better to say that the short-sighted and intuitive way of looking at the problem by critics makes the problem superficial.

　　It has been argued that with the advent of the new technological revolution on a world scale, the class antagonism between wage-labour and capital tends to weaken to the point of disappearing. Isn't this a falsification of Marx's class doctrine? This view is usually boiled down to two theories: first, that "in the advanced capitalist countries the working class is becoming less and less quantitatively as a result of the development of new technologies, which seems to cause the workers' movement to lose its mass social basis"; and second, "under capitalism, class society is generally on the verge of extinction." If there had been any reason to speak of classes in the past, then henceforth the leveling of the social status of the classes has been so great that it is impossible to draw a social class with clear social boundaries and characteristics" [20]. It is said that in the era of globalization, the structure of class relations has changed from "wine glass type" to "mallet type", and the middle class has occupied the dominant position. Wallerstein said: "For a long time, the theory of impoverishment has been strongly opposed, on the grounds that the real income of the working class in industrialized countries has been growing for at least a century. ...... Therefore, it is said that Marx was very wrong. ”[21]

　　It should be admitted that Marx predicted the advent of an era of globalization, for example, he proposed the idea of "the transformation of history into world history" in the German Ideology and "world literature" in the Manifesto (Goethe, although he said about 20 years before Marx: "National literature is not a very big thing in modern times, the era of world literature is coming soon." Now it's time for everyone to contribute to its sooner rather than later. [22] But for Goethe, world literature does not have the concept of the rich and broad historical connotations conferred by Marx, and in the preface to the Russian edition of the Manifesto and in a letter to Chassulich raises the question of the "leapfrogging" of Eastern society, and so on. For Marx, one of the philosophical implications of the age of globalization is that the laws of history themselves have become history. In 1877, Marx pointed out in a letter to the editorial board of the Chronicle of the Fatherland that "my critic ... I must thoroughly transform my historical overview of the origins of capitalism in Western Europe into a historical-philosophical theory of the general path of development, which is destined to be followed by all nations, whatever their historical circumstances,—— in order to attain, in the end, an economic formation which guarantees the most comprehensive development of the productive forces of social labour while guaranteeing the most comprehensive development of each individual producer. But I ask him for forgiveness. By doing so, he will give me too much honor and at the same time give me too much insult." It is evident that Marx has here made clear his disgust and disdain for the method of understanding the supra-historical, and he raises this question because of the emergence of a historical opportunity that seems to be a case but has a general methodological significance, namely the "history of the world". Based on this opportunity, Marx ironically said that the "greatest strength" of that "general philosophical theory of history" is that it is superhistoric. By 1881, Marx raised the issue more explicitly in his reply to Vië i Chasulich of Russia. It is epitomized in Marx's famous idea of "crossing the Capitalist Kafding Gorge" in his later years. Marx particularly emphasized the uniqueness of the historical environment in which the Russian village community system finds itself: "The historical environment of the 'rural communes' in Russia is unique! This peculiarity depends on "its historical circumstances, i.e., its simultaneous existence with capitalist production, which provides it with the material conditions for the formation of joint labour on a large scale." Thus, it is able to take possession of all the positive fruits created by the capitalist system without going through the Kafdin Gorge of the capitalist system".[25] Obviously, in Marx's view, this peculiarity is ultimately due to the fact that the historical environment faced by the Russian rural communes is no longer pre-"world history", but is shaped by "world history". It is the advent of "world history" that puts Russia in a pattern of "coexistence with capitalist production." The possibility of "leapfrogging" is precisely given by this particular historical situation, which changes the historical conditions under which historical laws can be characterized, and thus the way in which historical laws are represented themselves. In the preface to the Russian edition of the Manifesto, which Marx had written with Engels in early 1882, also pointed out: "Is the Russian Commune, the primitive form of public occupation of land, which has certainly been greatly destroyed, able to make a direct transition to a higher form of communist public appropriation?" Or, on the contrary, it must first go through the disintegration process that the historical development of the West has gone through?" In this regard, Marx argues that "the only possible answer at present is that if the Russian Revolution becomes a signal of the proletarian revolution in the West and the two sides complement each other, then the present-day public ownership of land in Russia can become the starting point for the development of communism" [26]. It should be said that this idea is consistent with the spirit of Marx's reply to Chassulich. The methodological implication of Marx's ideas is that we must look at Marx's doctrine itself historically. The author once proposed: "The emergence of 'world history' is a turning point with essential significance in the development of human history. Its reconstruction of the way of human existence has profoundly changed the way human nature is characterized and the unique way of human cultural evolution, and in turn changes the way of realizing the laws of history. Specifically, it is "the emergence of 'world history' that makes the laws of history themselves historical" [27].

　　With what Marx called the "transformation of history into world history," the advent of the era of globalization, class contradictions within capitalist countries have been externalized into contradictions between developed and developing countries on a world scale. This has been amplified by capitalist colonial rule into a system of contradictions for the whole world. The historical form of labor-capital contradiction itself has undergone historic changes through the mediation of globalization. Today, we should look at the essence of labor-management contradictions from this perspective. As Wallerstein points out: "The process described by Marx [the polarization process of the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer] takes place precisely in the capitalist world economy." [28] That is to say, the unit of analysis should no longer be a single capitalist country, but the entire capitalist world economic system. Marx pointedly pointed out: "The believers in free trade do not understand how a country can get rich at the expense of another, so we should not be surprised by this, because these gentlemen do not want to understand how in every country one class becomes rich at the expense of another." [29] Marx argued from the perspective of "world history": "All the destructive phenomena caused by free competition in any individual country will reappear on a larger scale on the world market." [30] This profoundly reveals the essence and root causes of unequal relations in the context of globalization. Marx's exposition is further confirmed by the "center-periphery" structure revealed by the "dependency theory" and the "world system theory" in contemporary development research.

　　As Wallerstein puts it: "This historical system originated in Europe in the late 15th century, expanding spatially, encompassing the entire earth by the late 19th century." [31] Therefore, our analysis of the class differentiation caused by the arrangement of the capitalist system and the polarization structure achieved by its bipolar abstraction should be based on the transformation of individual states into the entire world system. From the perspective of the contemporary situation, as Ito Makoto said: "As a globalized economic system, the accumulation of wealth centered on the large enterprises of the developed countries and the huge accumulation of poverty in the countries of the third world, as a theory of polarization on a world scale and the impoverishment of the proletariat, reproduce the correctness of the polarization theory of the Communist Manifesto." ”[32]

　　Even within capitalist countries, the situation today has not changed in heterogeneity. "People like liberals and conservatives believe that the middle class is growing and that its standard of living is steadily rising. In fact, it is shrinking, and its standard of living is deteriorating. [33] In his 2006 book The New Class Struggle, the French scholar Pierre Cours-Salies and others argued that the universalization of the "middle class" was merely a "myth" because it was merely a way of expanding the ranks of the employed. The American scholar Michael Zweig pointed out in his article "Six Classes" (2006): At present, the proportion of the three major classes in American society is roughly as follows: the working class accounts for 62% of the American labor force, the capitalist class accounts for 2%, and the middle class accounts for 36%. Thus, the traditional narrative of modern social structures–with a majority middle class in the middle and a minority of the rich and poor at both ends–is actually untenable .[35] Obviously, even in the present situation, the idea that the class structure has shifted from a "wine glass" to a "spindle" is untrue. Thus, "today, most people believe, and most employees, are nostalgic for the social view that 'the age-old formulas of class contradictions and class struggle seem to be very appropriate again for describing social and economic realities'" [36]. As long as the logic of capitalism (which, in the final analysis, is based on the game-like nature of the commodity economy) is at work, then polarization is an inevitable tendency and fact, although it may manifest itself in a variety of forms, either explicitly or implicitly, directly or less directly.

　　With regard to the obsolescence of the Manifesto's description and prediction of class relations, in addition to considering the change in the historical form of class antagonism, i.e., from the industrial relations within a single state to the world-wide labour relations (as revealed by dependency theory and the theory of the world system), the following two aspects must be considered: First, the historical change in the form of alienation of man, that is, from the alienation of the flesh (the impoverishment of the proletariat under the conditions of early capitalism, the indicators of life, Deterioration of the quality of life) to spiritual alienation (the loss of man's own nature under the conditions of late capitalism). The slavery of capitalism has changed from an intuitive form to a covert form, obscuring the sharpness of class antagonisms and thus becoming more deceptive and hypocritical. The expansion of the middle class is nothing more than an illusion. Second, attention should be paid to the methodological characteristics of Marx's view of class relations. Marx pointed out in Capital, Volume 3, Chapter 52, "Classes": "In England, the economic structure of modern society has undoubtedly developed to the highest degree and most typical. But even here, this class structure has not yet emerged in its pure form. Here, too, there are various intermediate and transitional strata that go around blurring the boundaries (although this is much less common in the countryside than in the cities). However, this situation is irrelevant to our investigation. [37] The methodological requirements suggested by Marx meant that the superficiality of the problem could not change the essence of the problem. Don't be fooled by phenomena so as not to affect your insight into things. Therefore, Marx said that "this situation" is "irrelevant"! With regard to the new situation of class relations that has emerged in our era of globalization, we should also adhere to the methodological principles suggested by Marx.

　　Today, therefore, we have every reason to repeat Hobsbawm's statement: "The world described by Marx and Engels in 1848 ... It can be thought of as the world we live in now 150 years later. ”[38]

　　Examine the dual scale of history and its anthropological ontological basis

　　The Manifesto's interpretation of human history, especially capitalist phenomena, clearly embodies Marx's dual scale of examining the development of human society, that is, the historical and moral scales. Marx's unique contribution lies not only in the abandonment of the fatalism represented by Hegel with the recognition of historical necessity as the core and the historical sentimentalism represented by Romanticism, which is dominated by the affirmation of moral supremacy, but also in finding an anthropological ontological basis for examining the dual scale of human society.

　　Marx held a double scale for the development of human society, which was manifested in many ways. This characteristic is clearly reflected in the evaluation of capitalist colonial rule. Marx argued that capitalist colonialism was "based on the most brutal violence", but he nevertheless acknowledged that "violence is the midwife of every old society that gives birth to a new society". This also means that Marx considered from the historical scale and affirmed the historical progressive significance and role of "violence". Commenting on Britain's colonial rule over the Eastern countries, he pointed out with strong moral indignation that this was "pirate-style aggression", "pirate-style war", or "pirate-style hostility",[40] which brought deep disaster and suffering to the peoples of the colonial countries; he examined this act with a cold historical perspective, believing that "no matter how many crimes Britain has committed, it has caused this revolution to act as an unconscious tool of history" [41]. In addition, the idea of "crossing the capitalist Kafdinger Gorge" of Eastern society put forward by Marx in his later years also reflects the double scale of social development. On the one hand, he expects the countries of the East to use their heterogeneity to "leapfrog" the capitalist system in order to avoid the historical suffering that capitalism may bring and "not to endure the terrible twists and turns of capitalist production"; on the other hand, he believes that this "leap" must also be premised on "applying all the positive results created by the capitalist system to the commune", and that the only way out for Eastern society is still communism.[42] This different consideration clearly reflects the distinction between the historical scale and the moral scale.

　　Marx's evaluation of the capitalist system was equally dualistic. With his historicist attitude, he fully affirmed the historical role of capitalism and gave it legitimacy and legitimacy. For example, the Manifesto states: "The bourgeoisie has played a very revolutionary role in history". For "the modern bourgeoisie itself is the product of a long process of development, the product of a series of changes in the mode of production and the mode of exchange"[43]. This reflects Marx's historical vision and historicist stance. By the standards of the productive forces, he gave sufficient assessment of the special emancipatory and revolutionary significance shown by the capitalist system in relation to medieval feudal society. The Manifesto states: "The productive forces created by the bourgeoisie in its less than one hundred years of class rule are more and greater than the total productive forces created by all previous generations." ...... In what century would it have been expected that there would be such a productive force in social labour? [44] Specifically, it unleashed unprecedented human creativity, causing not only a change in the productive forces, but also a change in the mode of production itself. With regard to the revolutionary character of the bourgeoisie (manifested mainly through its historical emancipatory and historically creative role), Marx pointed out: "The bourgeoisie cannot survive unless it constantly revolutionizes the means of production, and thus the relations of production, and thus the relations of society as a whole." On the contrary, the maintenance of the old mode of production unchanged is the primary condition for the survival of all industrial classes of the past. The constant change of production, the constant upheaval of all social conditions, the perpetual instability and change, this is what distinguishes the bourgeois epoch from all previous epochs. [45] In Book 1 of Capital, Marx reiterated this view: "Modern industry has never regarded the existing forms of a certain process of production as and as the final form. Thus, the technical basis of modern industry is revolutionary, while the technical basis of all previous modes of production is essentially conservative. [46] Here he reveals the self-transcendent capacity of modern industry as the material and technological basis of the capitalist system. The revolutionary historical consequence of the bourgeoisie and capitalism is the opening up of "world history". Marx's so-called "subordination of the East to the West," as a result of "world history," seems to him to be the transcendence of civilization over the state of ignorance. For Marx affirmed the great value of "world history" in a progressive sense, and he also made a profound analogy between the bourgeoisie's replacement of the city with the subordination of the countryside to the subordination of the East to the West, and even the subordination of the East to the West on a world scale as the unfolding form and expression of the subordination of the countryside to the city.

　　Marx, on the other hand, examined the history of capitalism and its consequences from a moral point of view and came up with a negative assessment. The Manifesto says that bourgeois rule "leaves no other connection between men than naked interests, except for ruthless 'cash transactions'." It drowns the sacred attacks of religious piety, chivalry, and petty civic sentiments in the ice water of egoistic intentions. It transforms human dignity into exchange values, replacing countless privileged and self-asserted freedoms with a conscienceless freedom of trade. In short, it replaces exploitation disguised by religious and political fantasies with open, shameless, direct, and explicit exploitation." Marx pointed out in Capital: "Capital comes into the world, from head to toe, every pore is dripping with blood and dirty things. "This is clearly a moral indictment and condemnation of capital! What it expresses is absolutely a moral indignation. He added: "With the development of capitalist production in the period of workshop handicrafts, European public opinion has lost its last bit of shame and conscience. States shamelessly boast of all despicable acts as a means of capital accumulation. [48] While this reflects the contradiction between capitalism and morality, Marx still condemned it from a moral standpoint. It can be seen that he did not adopt a purely natural attitude towards capitalism and its institutional arrangements, and it was finished by reducing it to historical necessity.

　　It must be noted, however, that Marx's moral appraisal differs in principle from romantic moral condemnation. Marx pointed out in Moralized Criticism and Critical Morality: "The question of property ... Can't be boiled down to... Simple conscience questions and words about fairness. [49] Marx opposed the "critical moralists and moralized critics" who viewed and evaluated history from a purely moral standpoint. He called them "pastoral poets", the kind of sentimentalists who indulged in the pastoral romantic imagination. He had criticized Kligey for "turning communism into a whisper of love", and Kligei as a "true socialist" carried what Engels revealed as "German-style philistine sentiments". In Capital, Marx also wrote: "Capital is not at all concerned with the health and longevity of the worker, unless society compels it to care." When people are indignant about physical and intellectual decay, premature death, the torture of overwork, capital replies: If this suffering increases our happiness (profit), why should we be troubled by it? But in general, this does not depend on the goodwill or malice of individual capitalists. Free competition makes the intrinsic law of capitalist production work for every capitalist as an external law of coercion. [52] The capitalists' making money is undoubtedly of an anti-moral character, but this is not, on the whole, the result of the moral errors of the individual capitalists, but the inevitable result of the conditions provided by history itself and the limitations of history. If it is reduced to personal moral responsibility, then the way out should appeal to the awakening of man's moral consciousness. This is precisely the fatal flaw in the idealistic view of history that Marx criticized. Marx believed that the fundamental way out of the problem was by no means in the improvement of individual moral consciousness, but in the revolutionary change at the level of social system.

　　It is an indisputable fact that Marx morally critiqued and condemned capitalism and its alienation. The question is whether this moral critique is motivated by the moral indignation of an ordinary person or from the intrinsic demands of Marx's thought, thus constituting an indispensable internal dimension of his philosophy. The question goes further: Was Marx a moralist? A more appropriate question is to ask: in what sense was Marx a moralist and in what sense was he not a moralist? He inherited the moral critique of the capitalist system by Romanticism and Utopian Socialism, and in this respect Marx is consistent with them; but unlike other moralists, he is also a conscious moralist, that is, in addition to making moral considerations and evaluations of reality, and holding a strong moral indignation against all evil things, he is also able to understand and realize more deeply morality as an ideology, how it is subject to historical conditions itself. Thus the secret of morality as a historical and cultural phenomenon is revealed. This is where Marx differs from the average moralist who is also superior to the average moralist. What gave Marx this advantage was the view of history based on the practical ontology that he discovered and constructed. This is where Marx differs from Romanticism, Utopian Socialism, feuerbach's humanistic materialism.

　　In Marx's case, is the crisis of legitimacy of the capitalist system based on objective or moral reasons? In other words, is the historical occurrence and abandonment of capitalism a purely natural historical process, and thus completely irrelevant to value (morality), or is it the opposite? Perhaps it is inappropriate to ask the question in this "either-or" way, but there is a problem of self-consistency and coherence in interpretation. If both are true, they must be intrinsically unified. Only in this way can Marxist philosophy be monist, so that it can achieve logical completeness. In the Manifesto, Marx profoundly revealed the negativity of bourgeois reflexivity: "The weapon used by the bourgeoisie to overthrow feudalism is now aimed at the bourgeoisie itself. [53] The capitalist system is of an intermediary character, it is not in itself the completion and end of history, but a relative stage in the process of historical development, which must also achieve self-transcendence and self-abandonment, which is precisely the noble mission entrusted by history to the proletariat, that is, the so-called "bourgeoisie not only forges weapons to put itself to death; it also produces the people who will use this weapon, the modern worker, the proletarian". Thus, "it first produced its own gravediggers".[54] This is ultimately determined by private property. Marx pointed out as early as "The Holy Family": "Private property has pushed itself to extinction in its own economic movement. [55] Later, in Capital, he pointed out: "Capitalist production, by virtue of the inevitability of natural processes, creates a negation of itself. [56] This is the dialectic of history! Therefore, Marx said: Although "no one likes bourgeois rule as much as we do", "I would rather suffer in modern bourgeois society than return to the old society that is outdated!" For modern bourgeois society creates material materials for the creation of a new society in which you can all be liberated by its own industry, while the old society throws the whole nation back into the barbarism of the Middle Ages under the pretext of saving your class! [57] The problem is that, in addition to this consideration based on historical necessity, Marx did deconstruct the historical legitimacy of the capitalist system from a value standpoint. But importantly, Marx found anthropological ontological basis for the intrinsic integration of the two scales of history and morality.

　　The category of morality is a historical prescription in Marx. As an ideology (marx, when he regarded morality as an ideology, he actually focused on its historical form), it is ultimately subject to specific economic conditions and historical foundations. Judging from the future possibilities of historical development, morality itself will eventually be surpassed by history. In this regard, Marx made it clear in the German Ideology that in the case of communism "the individual's consciousness of the interrelationship between individuals will be something else entirely, and therefore it will neither be the 'principle of love' or the deévouement [of self-sacrifice], nor will it be egoism." Thus, "The Communists do not oppose self-sacrifice with egoism nor with self-sacrifice, and theoretically neither from the form of emotion nor from the exaggerated form of thought, but in the matter of revealing the material root of this opposition, which naturally disappears with the disappearance of the material root" [58]. Marx believed that relative good and relative evil (which itself creates a moral context, and which can only be established in a moral sense) can be transcended only in the supreme good, but this transcendence can only be achieved as a result of history itself, and not in the human imagination or in the construction of man's ideas. From the perspective of history itself, Marx derived the logic of transcending the opposition between good and evil to achieve absolute good (this "good" no longer has a moral meaning). Therefore, in this sense, Marx has a transcendent attitude toward morality, and the transcendence of morality is reduced to a mature problem of history itself, rather than a question of the first change of man's moral concept.

　　It should be admitted that Marx was precocious in his speculative nature, because his mental course is not inductive, that is, the transition from experience to logic, but deductive, that is, there is a kind of logical transcendence, and then go deep into history itself, discovering the original foundation of human existence (practice). It was only then that Marx truly became Marx in the Marxist sense. He has been conscious of anthropological ontological paradoxes since his adolescence, for example, in his middle school essays he raised the question of the "unfortunate struggle" between "spiritual principles" and "physical principles". Its profoundness lies in the fact that it is an eternal question for man and his existence, for human history itself. In the 1844 Manuscript of the Philosophy of Economics, Marx further revealed the duality of human existence and its paradoxical nature: on the one hand, "man is directly a natural being." In this respect, man is a being governed by the laws of nature, that is, the nature of "man as a natural, physical, sensual, object being." On the other hand, "man is not only a natural being, but also a natural being of man, that is, a being that exists spontaneously" [60]. In this sense, man's existence is in turn subject to the constraints of the moral law. Here, Marx suggests the two-law inverse relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, freedom and self-action, action and agency, necessity and freedom. Therefore, Marx later wrote in the Draft Economics of 1857-1858 that "man" is reduced to "double existence": "Subjectively he exists as himself, and objectively exists in these natural inorganic conditions of his own existence." [61] The anthropological ontological paradox revealed by the young Marx can be seen as revealing the duality of man in the sense of logical presuppositions, providing a logical justification for the manifestation of man's duality. The conflict between man's physical principles and spiritual principles, the exposé of the contradictions between due and existing ones, etc., is only a kind of consciousness of the young Marx in the logical sense, but it has not really entered the historical level, because Marx has not yet found the ultimate original basis for practice in philosophy at that time. The division between essence and existence, once intrinsically derived from practice, acquires its profound connotations: first, philosophy truly returns to the dimension of human existence, thus basing itself on the origin of human existence; second, it finds its phenomenological representation form, that is, a series of contradictions and divisions in human history itself, thus returning to the authenticity of this fundamental paradox.

　　On what basis was Marx's dual historical and moral yardstick established? Behind them are nothing more than the dual dimensions of reason and value. Marx's consideration of human history from the dimensions of reason and value is not due to his own willfulness or preference, but rather to the fact that they themselves are rooted in the paradoxical historical unfolding of human existence. The first is the dual attribute of history itself determined by the ontological paradox of anthropology, that is, the regularity (necessity) and the purposefulness (supposed), which give legitimacy to historical and moral considerations; secondly, Marx, based on the paradox inherent in human existence itself, discovers the original basis of the corresponding double scale. It can be seen that Marx in no way imposed on history a measure external to history from outside history; on the contrary, he returned to history itself the stipulations inherently derived from the unique nature of man's existence and its historical presentation. This proves once again that philosophical questions can only be properly understood and understood if they return to history itself, and that Marx's philosophy has a true sense of "history."

　　The duality of man's body and spirit requires two different dimensions of rationality and value as a way of self-affirmation. Thus, Marx's exposure to the ontological paradox of anthropology means giving the intrinsic justification for making possible the dual scales of history and morality, reason and value. Philosophically, he returns to the inherent nature of human existence itself, that is, to the origin of the fundamental significance of examining the different scales of human historical development. It is the paradox between man's body and spirit that determines that we must choose the corresponding rationality and value of different scales to look at and consider history; it is also the actual division and reversal of natural laws and moral laws in reality that determine the contradictions and conflicts between the dual scales of rationality and value that we hold when looking at and considering history. In the final analysis, the resolution of such contradictions and conflicts is not the task of theory, but the task of history itself. It is only when the development of human history is mature enough that it ceases to be a problem.

　　In short, the two measures of history are themselves, rooted in the paradox of human existence and its historical unfolding, and subject to the nature of history itself. The unity of the historical and moral dimensions is by no means a question of speculative logic, but a question of the maturity of history itself. It ultimately depends on the historical transcendence of anthropological ontological paradoxes. Confirming this is precisely the true meaning of Marx's philosophy.

　　III. The Division of Existence and Essence and the "Association of Free Men"

　　The freedom and emancipation of man is the theme of the Manifesto and of all of Marx's philosophy. In the Manifesto, Marx put forward the idea of "the association of free men". As a logical conclusion of Marx's entire philosophical thought, it implies the completion of history and the end of philosophy. Therefore, it is the result of the historical generation and historical dissolution of the division of human existence and essence, thus hiding the full rich connotation of Marx's philosophy. In this regard, without understanding its premise, it is impossible to deeply grasp its true meaning.

　　It should be said that the question of existence and essence and its relation is a question which has long been discussed in theology and philosophy in the past, and Marx's contribution is not to raise this question, but to bring it back to the basis of man's existence (of course, Feuerbach has his own humanistic position, but he is only satisfied with man's perceptual existence, after all, there is no basis for the division of existence and essence intrinsically from the point of view of man's perceptual activity), and this split and its tension structure become a historical question, That is, the representation of phenomenology.

　　Lenin said: "Practice is superior to (theoretical) knowledge, because practice has not only a universal character, but also a character of direct reality." [62] In fact, the dual character inherent in practice itself inherently implies the possibility of the division of human existence and essence in the generation of practice. The direct reality of practice shapes man's "existence" (i.e., "what is"), and the universal character of practice embodies man's "essence" (i.e., "what should be"). The division of man's existence and essence is manifested in the alienation of man. In speculative terms, "Alienation refers to the division between what people are now and what they should be" [63]. The alienation of man implies a split between man's "what is" and what man "should be" is, and what is is a real rule, and what should be is an essential rule. Therefore, alienation is also the rebellion and obedience of human existence and essence. For people, what is the question of "who should be" forced out? What are the historical premises on which it can be proposed? It is the reality of alienation that makes the essentialist inquiry of human nature both possible and necessary. In the 1844 Manuscript of Economic Philosophy, Marx explicitly regarded the resolution of the contradiction between existence and essence as the logical connotation and historical connotation of "communism". As Fromm put it: "For Marx, and in Hegel's view, the concept of alienation is based on the distinction between existence and essence, on the fact that man's existence is alienated from his essence." [64] But unlike previous philosophies, including Hegel's, in Marx's context the division between existence and essence is no longer a question of speculation, but of history itself; it is no longer a rule that has nothing to do with man's presence, but the historical destiny of man's existence itself. The realization of this transformation depends on Marx's discovery of the original basis for the division between existence and essence. It should be said that the discovery of this original foundation is Marx's unique contribution.

　　Marx further revealed the intrinsic relationship between "division of labor" and alienation, pointing out: "Division of labor is a national economic term about the social nature of labor within the scope of alienation. For "the division of labor is nothing more than the alienation and externalization of human activity as a real activity or as an activity of a human being." The "division of labour" is essentially nothing more than "this alienated and externalized form of human activity as an activity of the class".[65] The division of labour between material and spiritual labour throws man into the fate of being and essence alienating themselves: on the one hand, man's essence becomes an alienal stipulation of existence (reality) that wanders from man; on the other hand, man's existence is reduced to an other that deviates from man's essence (as it should). Thus, the self-consciousness of man's empty essence forms the basis of spiritualism, and man's secular existence forms the basis of materialism. Marx criticized Hegel by saying: "To separate the two categories of self and self, and to separate the entity and the subject, is abstract mysticism." [66] In fact, this "abstract mysticism" is not, in a sense, Hegel's "fault", but the ideological consequence of the inevitable birth of history itself, which in the final analysis refracts in a distorted way the social and historical fact of the division of human existence itself.

　　Long before the Manifesto, Marx had established his own ontological position on practice and unveiled practice as the ultimate primordial category, thus laying the foundation for his entire philosophy. The split between matter and spirit derived from the original basis of practice inevitably plunges both into an abstract fate at the same time. In this historical context, it is only in this historical context that spiritualism and materialism and their opposition become understandable ideological phenomena. As early as 1843, Marx pointed out: "Spirit is only an abstraction divorced from matter." It is thus clear that it (for this abstract form should be its content) is precisely the opposite of abstraction, that is, the object from which itself abstracts, but the object which is grasped in abstract form. So here, abstract materialism is its real essence. [67] Marx's critique here later developed into the basic position and orientation of Article 1 of the Theses on Feuerbach.

　　In modern society, the materialization and spiritualization of man is the division of existence and essence, which is manifested as the division of civil society and the political state. The division of human existence and essence corresponds to the division of matter and spirit, which in turn corresponds to the confrontation between civil society and the political state. The political state, which represents abstract universality, forms the basis of spiritualism because it embodies a spiritual pole. Marx said: "In a real state there is no agreement between the real estate, industry and the material sphere as such crude material components with the state; in such a state there is only spiritual power; ... The state runs through the whole of nature with some spiritual threads, and at every point it is necessarily manifested that what dominates is not matter, but form, not the nature without a state, but the nature of the state. [68] In contrast, civil society, as the other pole, indulges in material life. Marx said: "All the premises of this selfish life of material life are precisely the characteristics of civil society that continue to exist outside the state, exist in civil society. For "in civil society man is a secular being"[69], and "practical necessity and egoism are the principles of civil society". It is in this sense that Marx said that "civil society constantly produces Jews from within itself" because "Jews, as a special component of civil society, are only a special expression of the Jewish character of civil society".[70] It is not difficult to understand why Feuerbach's "intuitive materialism", based on civil society, found "practices" can only be "expressions of the despicable Jews". Thus, civil society, which represents narrow particularity, forms the basis of materialism. In this respect, it is rather that materialism and spiritualism are nothing more than the ideological rhetoric of civil society and the political state; and the opposition between materialism and spiritualism is nothing more than the conceptual expression of the opposition between civil society and the political state.

　　The division between "civil society" and the "political state" creates the mutual externality of their relations with each other. "The state is not within civil society, but outside it." For "the state exists purely as an antithesis of private life". Thus, the "state", as the "other thing" of civil society, is opposed to civil society: "The state' is a thing on the other side that is incompatible with the essence of civil society, which opposes civil society through its own representatives, thus consolidating its position. [72] In social-state relations, the dualistic division of human existence and essence is characterized by "the separation of civil society and the state." Thus, the citizens of the State and the citizens who are members of civil society are also separated from each other. Therefore, man cannot but double himself in essence"[73]. Man is in the midst of the exclusion of "bureaucratic organization" and "social organization", and this division is but an externalized form of the division of man.

　　In Marx's view, it is the development of the division of labor that has actually led to the division and contradiction between special interests and common interests. For "with the development of the division of labour also arises a contradiction between the interests of the individual or of the individual family and the common interests of all the individuals who interact with each other; and this common interest does not exist in ideas only as a 'universal thing', but first of all in reality as an interdependence between individuals who have a division of labour from each other". When the special interest becomes external to the common interest, the latter inevitably degenerates into a "universal thing", which "takes the independent form of the state, which is divorced from the actual individual and total interests, and at the same time takes the form of an illusory community". And this separation "is in ... "[75] has been produced on the basis of classes already determined by the division of labour". That is to say, it always manifests itself as a division and antagonism of classes. For Marx, alienation itself was a manifestation of the split between special interests and common interests. Thus, "as long as there is a division between special interests and common interests, that is to say, as long as the division of labour is not voluntary, but is naturally formed, then man's own activity becomes for man an alien, opposing force, which oppresses man, rather than man controlling it." In the state of alienation, "since the common activity itself is not spontaneous but naturally formed, this social force is not seen by these individuals as a joint force of their own, but as some kind of alien coercive force outside them". In this sense, the abandonment of the contradiction between special interests and common interests means the transcendence of alienation. The renunciation of this contradiction transforms the "illusory community" into a "real community," that is, a "union of free men." "Under the conditions of a true community, each individual acquires his own freedom in his own union and through this union." [77] This is the true historical connotation of the Conclusion of the Manifesto that "in place of the old bourgeois society, where there are classes and class antagonisms, there will be a union in which the free development of every human being is the condition for the free development of all"[78].

　　The dualization of man's existence and essence, its historical form is manifested as the split between "life in heaven" and "life on earth", so that man is thus torn apart by the dual personality. This is the inescapable fate that people face in modern society. Marx said: "Where the political state really takes place, man lives a double life not only in thought, in consciousness, but also in reality, in life—the life of heaven and the life of the earth." [79] This is what Marx called the split between the "public" and the "private",[80] expressed in the individual. Marx's so-called split between man's "personal life" and "class life", the "duality" of "civil society life" and "political life", is, in the final analysis, the manifestation of the split between human existence and essence, and the historical representation of the mutual external relationship between the individual and the class of man. Therefore, the separation of "citizen" and "citizen", as a split of man's dual personality under the conditions of modern society, is nothing but a historical form of the unfolding of the original division of man. Marx emphasized the "duality" of "personal and quasi-life" and "civil social life and political life". The "accidental individual" is already involved here. In his view, the kind of "people who are controlled by inhuman relations and forces" can only be "people who exist by chance." Such a "person", "in a word, is not yet a true being".[81] Only those who are in the "union of free men" are "individuals with personalities" and thus become "true beings." Its historical condition is the transformation of an "illusory community" into a "real community", which in turn depends on the transition of special interests and general interests from the external antagonistic relationship to the internal unity relationship of mutual intermediaries, that is, the real solution of the contradictions between them (in the words of the 1844 Philosophical Manuscripts of Economics, the final solution of the contradiction between the individual and the class of man).

　　How did the common interest of the people change from concrete universality to abstract universality due to the separation of civil society from the state? "The separation of civil society from the political state necessarily manifests itself in the separation of the political citizen, the citizen, from civil society, from his own inherent, real, empirical reality, for as the idealist of the state the citizen is a completely different being, who is different from his reality and is opposed to it. ...... The universal really moves from the self into itself, that is, becomes the opposite of the special thing. [82] Marx revealed the historical and logical differences between the "illusory community" (or "false community" or "pretend community") and the "real community". What are the differences between them? The illusory community as an external alien force for the individual is opposed to the individual, leading to the loss of man's freedom (the alienation of man). The "person who is a member of civil society" is the kind of person who is "an individual who is closed to himself, to private interests, to private willfulness, and at the same time to detached from society as a whole.". Thus, the opposition of different individuals (atomic existence due to the differentiation of interests) reduces the community to an empty abstract universality, in Marx's words, the so-called "illusory community." That is to say, the universality embodied in the community at this time is no longer the specific universality achieved through the intermediary of individual people and their special interests, but the universality of being on the "other side" of special interests. This determines that the "illusory community", as the carrier and representation of this abstract universal interest, is in opposition to the special interest and its field, civil society, in an external opposition to each other, and is no longer an internal relationship of mutual intermediary. Thus, the existence of the individual man and his "life-like" are incompatible because they are disconnected from each other. Marx revealed that in the rights of man under the conditions of civil society, "man is by no means a kind of existence; on the contrary, the class of life itself, that is, society, is an external limitation of the individual, but it is the limit of their original independence." The only bond that binds people and society together is natural necessity, necessity and private interests, protection of their property and egoistic individuals".[83]

　　Corresponding to the "illusory community" is what Marx called the "accidental individual." What is the historical connotation of the "accidental individual"? On the contrary, for the proletarians, their own conditions of subsistence, their labour, and the whole conditions of existence of contemporary society have become an accident, which the individual proletarians cannot control, and which no social organization can control them. The personality of the individual proletarian and the contradiction between the conditions of life imposed on him, that of labour, are evident to the proletarian himself, especially since he has been a victim from an early age, for he has not had the opportunity, within the limits of his class, to acquire the conditions which have enabled him to transform into another class. [84] This is ultimately determined by the compulsory division of labour (the old division of labour) and modern private property. Labor (practice) is originally man's self-affirmation activity, man's way of self-affirmation, according to Marx, "in my personal activity, I directly confirm and realize my true essence, that is, my human essence, the essence of my society." Thus it is determined that "my labor is the expression of a free life, and therefore the joy of life." Under the conditions of private property, however, labour is reduced to the enslavement of man, to the form of man's self-deprivation and self-denial. For it is "merely a forced activity, and it is imposed on me only by external contingent needs, not by internal necessity".[85] This externality and other laws reduce man to "contingent individuals." Thus, "in bourgeois society capital has independence and individuality, while those who are active have no independence and individuality" [86]. The "active person" loses his "independence" and "individuality" and thus becomes an "accidental individual". In his Manifesto, Marx pointed out in his Manifesto the historical connotations of human emancipation and freedom: "There (referring to the association of free men - the introducer's note), the free development of each person is the condition for the free development of all people. And the freely developing individual, that is, the "individual with personality", is no longer an "accidental individual". Marx once pointed out: "The difference between the individual with individuality and the contingent individual is not a conceptual difference, but a historical fact." [87] The "individual with personality" is the self-determined individual, that is, the individual who has attained a state of self-discipline; the "contingent individual" is the individual governed by external, alien regulations, that is, the individual in the state of other laws. The former can only be confirmed through "individually independent activity". What makes "individual autonomous activity" possible is the attainment of man's intrinsic necessity. What is the historical premise on which the "individual with individuality" is established? Marx emphasized: "The transformation of the relation of the individual to its opposite, to the relation of pure things, the distinction between individuality and contingency by the individual himself,...... is a historical process which, at different stages of development, has different, increasingly acute and universal forms. In modern times, the domination of the individual by the relation of things, the repression of individuality by chance, has taken on the sharpest and most universal form, thus setting a very clear task for the existing individual. This situation presents them with the task of establishing the rule of the individual over chance and relationship, replacing it with the rule of relations and chance over the individual. [88] It is clear that Marx appealed to history itself the establishment of the "individual with individuality": "The proletarians, in order to realize their individuality, must abolish the conditions of existence which they have hitherto faced, the conditions of existence which, at the same time, the whole of hitherto society, i.e., abolish labour. Thus they are in direct opposition to the state in the form in which the various members of society have so far manifested themselves as a whole, and they must overthrow the state so that their individuality can be realized. ”[89]

　　In short, the logical essence behind the separation and even opposition between civil society and the state is the mutual externalization of special interests and common interests. This determines that the individuals shaped by civil society inevitably become "contingent individuals." Since the particularity of the "contingent individual" is not mediated by universality, it can only be subject to the external coercion and domination of the universality of aliens, and is therefore forced to be in a state of other law, unable to achieve self-discipline, and thus lose its freedom. The common interest represented by the state, on the other hand, can only be an abstract universality, that is, a universality that does not contain particularities and is prescribed in itself, and the community determined by it has to become an "illusory community" rather than a "real community". What is a "true community"? According to Marx, "the essence of man is the true community of man." In this "community", the opposition between material life and spiritual life is overcome. Marx pointed out: "That community is life itself, that is, material and spiritual life, human morality, human activity, human happiness, human essence." [90] This community is completely different from the "illusory community" that Marx criticized in the German Ideology. For only "the community that leaves the individual and provokes him to rebel is the true community of man, the essence of man".[91] What Marx called the "true community of man" is the abandonment and historical transcendence of the logic of the "abstract whole" that is external to the real individual, that is, the individual with personality. The transcendence of the "illusory community" and the "contingent individual" occur simultaneously, rather two aspects of the same process. The historical consequence is that the "true community" and the "individual with a personality" are born at the same time, because the "individual with personality" is mediated with each other, and the relations they construct can only be expressed as "the association of free men".

　　In order to achieve the historic transformation of the "contingent individual" into the "individual with personality" and the "illusory community" to the "real community", Marx proposed the task of "fighting for the abolition of the (Aufhebung) state and civil society"[92], stating: "It is necessary to avoid the re-establishment of 'society' as an abstraction against the individual. [93] The essence behind this lies in the final settlement of the contradiction between human existence and essence, between the individual and the class. In the final analysis, this solution depends on the historical activities of "abolishing the division of labor," "abolishing private property," and "abolishing labor" on the basis of man's practice. The final settlement of the contradiction between the existence and essence of man, the individual and the class, as shown in Marx's philosophy, means the complete emancipation of man and the completion of history itself. When history is completed by itself, the "philosophy at the service of history" naturally "ends."

　　【Notes】

　　[1] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 4, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 197.

　　[2] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 273.

　　[3] Marx, Manuscripts of Economic Philosophy in 1844, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 2000, p. 44.

　　[4] Marx, Manuscripts of economic philosophy in 1844, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 2000, p. 78.

　　[5] Marx, Economics-Philosophy Manuscripts of 1844, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1979, p. 70.

　　[6] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 4, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 169.

　　[7] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 632.

　　[8] The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 5, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1958, p. 533.

　　[9] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 331.

　　[10] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 321.

　　[11] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 321.

　　[12] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 82.

　　[13] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 525.

　　[14] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 83.

　　[15] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, vol. l, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 135.

　　[16] The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 4, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1965, p. 78.

　　[17] The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, pp. 78-79.

　　[18] The Collected Works of Marx and St. Ges, Vol. 1, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1995, p. 79.

　　[19] The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 46, Beijing: People's Publishing House, 1979, vol. 1, p. 29.

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