munists in New York, she said she was the most surprised person in the world. She had no inkling that her son had any connection with the FBI and was shocked to tears when she learned her son had been an active Communist student in Cambridge for the purpose of supplying Federal officials with party information.

SPECIAL COURSE

Mrs. Philbrick stated her son had taken a special course at Harvard in psychology in 1941 and it was about that time that he became associated with a supposedly non-Communist group. He was also active at the same time in YMCA and church organization work.

Philbrick had charge of all the advertising for the M. and P. Theater chain, with headquarters in Scollay Square, and during the war promoted the very successful war-bond drives which the theaters sponsored and for which he was commended. All during this time he was attending the Communist school and learning of the plot to infiltrate into American industry, at the same time supplying the FBI with latest developments.

An aunt of the undercover agent, Mrs. A. Manning Remick, wife of the Rye police chief, said she believed her nephew had taken such an active part in the undercover activities for the Federal authorities because of his inability to enter the armed services because of an eye injury received several years ago while at work on an engineering job in Hampton, creosote from a piling had damaged the sight of one eye.

Philbrick assured his mother that he was well guarded and that he felt as if a terrific weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His wife, mother of his. four blonde daughters, was not at his Rye Beach summer home as had been reported. She called her mother-in-law from an unannounced location in New England, assuring her that she and the children were in good hands and under constant survey by Federal agents.

STRUIK EXHIBIT No. 2

(New Masses, July 8, 1947, pp. 12-15.)

MAN OVER MYTH

MARXISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC TRADITION-HOW THE FOUNDERS OF MODERN SOCIALISM TRANSFORMED THE RATIONALIST OUTLOOK INTO A SCIENCE

(By Dirk J. Struik)

The Communist Manifesto was written at the end of 1847-almost a century ago; it appeared in February of the next year, on the eve of the revolution of 1848. It was a manifesto, a political document, published as the platform of a small and rather obscure group, the Communist League. The temper of the pamphlet was polemical, defiant, passionate. Yet it was at the same time a scientific document, a presentation of a philosophy of history and of society in general. It established social science not only as a means of understanding the social structure, but also as a means of changing and controlling it. It marked the birth of Marxism, which now guides the lives, or helps to guide the lives, of millions of men and women throughout the world.

The fundamental proposition, the core of the manifesto, belongs to Marx. This we know from Engels himself, coauthor of the manifesto and lifelong friend of Marx. That proposition is that in every historical epoch the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, as well as the resulting social structure, form the basis from which the political and intellectual history of that epoch can be derived. Consequently the whole history of mankind after the disappearance of primitive tribal society has been a history of class struggles, of contests between exploiting and exploited, between ruling and oppressed classes. The history of these class struggles forms an evolutionary series in which nowadays the main oppressed class, the working class, can only emancipate itself from the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, by emancipating the whole of society from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions, and class struggles. The philosophy of the manifesto made it possible not only to explain the past of society, but also to understand the direction in which present society is going. By analyzing the past it helps to guide the future. Socialism was seen as a conscious act of delivery from the contradictions of capitalism, the possibility of full control of society was deduced from the direction in which the primitive controls of present and past society are necessarily developing.

Engels has remarked that this fundamental Marxian proposition is destined to do for history what Darwin's theory has done for biology. There, out of haphazard actions of living beings-of which Darwin only recognized natural and sexual selection-general patterns of life evolve which, if properly understood, will eventually allow conscious interference by man in shaping living creatures. Engels also pointed out how the fundamental ideas which Marx applied to the study of society have already been successfully applied to natural science, to the theories of gravitation and light, to electricity, inorganic and organic chemistry. The great contribution of the Communist Manifesto was its method of viewing all human activity, with respect to nature as well as society, in the light of science. From now on not only nature but also the social structure could be understood and its behavior forecast and even controlled. The Communist Manifesto sketched for the first time, with inimitable clarity, not only the rationalistic but also the scientific approach to the problems of society.

Two hundred and ten years before the publication of the Communist Manifesto another document had appeared which had sketched, for the first time, the rationalistic approach to nature. In 1637 there was published the Discourse on Method, written by the French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes. It is instructive to compare the two revolutionary documents, one of which stands. at the beginning of modern natural science and the other at the beginning of modern social science; one of which showed how to control nature, and the other how to control society.

The Communist Manifesto makes the impression of a highly emotional appeal,. addressing itself to the "proletarians of all countries." The Discourse is academic

in style, seems to attack nobody in particular, and explains the process by which one man, the author, has tried to establish "the method of rightly conducting the reason, and seeking the truth in the sciences." But a closer inspection reveals the fact that the Communist Manifesto seeks also to establish a method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking truth. And Descartes' discourse on reason was in reality a powerful battle cry, addressing itself to a revolutionary class, the emerging bourgeoisie, in an appeal to conquer the world by the use of science and invention. Cartesianism of the seventeenth century, like Marxism of today, was a highly controversial philosophy. Adherence to Cartesian principles brought many a good man in the time of Louis XIV into serious political, religious, and personal difficulties.

Descartes rejected established authority and tried to set down rational rules for research. The real criterion for truth, he proclaimed, lies in evidence and reason. And thus he established his rule "never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt." By using such purely rationalistic-we can say materialistic-methods, he saw enormous perspectives ahead:

"I perceived it to be possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life; and in place of the speculative philosophy usually taught in the schools, to discover a practical one, by means of which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies that surround us, as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans, we might also apply them in the same way to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature." Descartes himself tried to contribute to the execution of his program by research and discoveries in optics, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics.

It was a bold scheme, this program of Descartes, not only because research in natural science was only in its beginnings, but also because most people still had to be convinced of the rationality of a method which proclaimed that the only way of obtaining truth in the sciences is through experiment and reason. Medieval belief in authority was all-powerful. Classical, biblical, and ecclesiastical statements were considered absolutely binding; to break preconceived notions through the combination of reason and experiment was considered heretical. Catch-all words were used to denounce Cartesianism; it was condemned as "atheistic," just as now Marxism is condemned as "totalitarian." Both Calvinists and Jesuits opposed Cartesianism. Descartes' books were placed on the Index in 1664. Three years later the interment of Descartes' ashes in a Paris church was forbidden. This persecution could not frighten philosophers and scientists; even Catholic priests turned to Cartesianism. In Descartes' steps followed the great thinkers of the later seventeenth century, a Spinoza, a Huygens, a Newton, and a Leibniz. In the early eighteenth century Cartesianism even became quite fashionable in France. The triumph of natural science became the triumph of Cartesianism.

Descartes has now won his battle; reason and experiment are universally accepted as the basis for truth in natural science. Much of his specific teachings, on substance, on vortices, on the relation of body and soul, are forgotten. His method remains. There exists at present no reasonable scepticism concerning the truth value of natural science; few people doubt that logical and experimental evidence are able to solve those problems on which there is uncertainty. Not only academic teaching but grammar-school education is impregnated with Cartesian thinking. Every teacher of science, whether in Ohio or in Shansi, is in his own way a disciple of Descartes.

We might also speak of a Marxian rationalism, since Marxism believes in man's ability to obtain objective information concerning the universe, and rejects supernaturalism. However, it differs from Cartesian rationalism in at least two important respects. In the first place, it extends its domain to the field of social relations. At the very beginning of his exposition Descartes made sure that he kept religion outside of his argumentation. He established a dualism of body and soul, of materialism and idealism. Marx subjects not only religion to his materialistic criticism, but the whole of man's social relations. With Marx all human activity, in nature as well as society, can be subjected to the Cartesian test of truth. Descartes made man and his powers of reasoning and of acting supreme in matters pertaining to substance, to natural science. Marx showed that man can become master of his destiny.

A second point of difference exists. Cartesianism is entirely unhistorical. The very idea that history, or human relations in general, can be subjected to scientific analysis, and that such analysis may show that society is in a state of development-this very idea is alien to Descartes. Marxism, on the contrary, is based on the understanding that society is in constant change, and points to the fundamental cause of this change in class society-namely, the existence of the class struggle. Cartesianism, as compared to Marxism, is static, it knows no evolution; its dynamics is restricted to dynamics in the sense of mechanics, and even this in a primitive way. The emphasis on social change in Marxism is combined with an equally strong emphasis on the interrelation of the sciences and the historical character even of natural science-all elements which are missing in Descartes.

These differences are so vital that it is better not to speak of Marxian rationalism at all, but to use another term and to speak of Marxian dialectics. There is also a dialectical element in Cartesianism-for instance in its relation of algebra to geometry, of numbers to points on a line-but it is rather primitive. We might call it an early seventeenth century form of dialectics. Common to both modes of thought is the materialist rejection of supernaturalism; with Descartes in the domain of natural science, with Marx in the domain of all human thought and activity.

The differences between Descartes and Marx are between a revolutionary thinker living at the beginning of the capitalist period and a revolutionary thinker living at a time when the industrial revolution was well on its way. Descartes, consequently, was an individualist, while Marx was socially conscious. Descartes' Discourse opened with a remark on the common sense of man and lets him doubt about the problems of his existence. Then, with the discovery "I think, hence I am," man starts out on his philosophy of certainty. The opening lines of the Communist Manifesto are equally characteristic; they introduce man as a social being: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." These examples are typical. The Meditations of Descartes open with the author's own desire "to establish a firm and abiding superstructure in the sciences."

Marx's Capital starts by introducing a commodity-producing form of society. Both Descartes' Discourse and the Communist Manifesto derive their primary importance from their method. Now, more than 300 years after the publication of Descartes' work, almost all of Descartes' specific contributions to science are antiquated. Several specific proposals contained in the Communist Manifesto for immediate political action have also lost their importance for today, though its basic analysis and major predictions have stood the test of time. In both Descartes and Marx the method of thinking has retained its full value, and Marx's, being the modern method, has a far wider appeal. Philosophy, in Marx's words, becomes material power when it directs the action of the masses. The most striking thing about the Communist Manifesto is its uncanny timeliness; but for some details the pamphlet could have been written today. How many political or sociological documents written a hundred years ago have this same immediate appeal? There are not many scientific papers of the years before 1850 which possess this timeless aspect; the only documents I can think of are some books by the mathematicians Gauss or Laplace. Helmholtz' historic presentation of the principle of conservation of energy was also published in 1847-a worthy companion to the Communist Manifesto in the sweeping grandeur of its ideas. Yet the full text of Helmholtz' pamphlet has definitely lost its actuality. Natural science has moved fast in the past century, while social science has moved much slower, despite the enormous increase in specialized information. Marx and Engels are as timely today as they were in 1847.

What are the main contributions to social science laid down in the Communist Manifesto? The core of the argumentation is the principle of historical materialism, which we have already given in Engels' formulation. Moreover we find, in few but meaningful words:

1. The statement that every form of society is in a state of evolution, each form passing into another one.

2. An analysis of the origin of the two principal classes of capitalist society, the employers and the workers ("bourgeosie" and "proletarians").

3. A description of the revolutionary role which the employing class has played, and of the way in which the laws of capitalist society itself force workers into organizations of their own choosing.

4. An account of the causes which make the bourgeoisie more and more unable to remain the ruling class.