A brief defense of Dialectical Materialism (I published this in a post a few days ago and an admin told me it's better suited here so here it is)

I often see in some discussions regarding Marxist Philosophy that it is very common the belief that Dialectical Materialism wasn't present in either Marx or Engels just because that formulation isn't found in their work, and that, instead, it was just a dogmatic theory (the "diamat") made by Soviet academics for their manuals; and, accompanying this conception, the conviction that Marx was just a purely socio-economic scientist and philosopher which didn't support any particular position regarding natural sciences nor any philosophical worldview.

This is not true, and is, in fact, a deep mistake that makes impossible to understand Marxism properly. I will try to explain here why in a very very basic, synthetic and even brute way, so that my general point can be easily digested, as far as I can.

I will quote two statements, and I will put their references as footnotes, like this: "blablabla". (n), where "n" will be the number of the footnote. In the footnote itself, I will write the source from where the quote is from (the APA thing), as well as the same quote repeated, but in Spanish. Why would I do that? Because I took these two references second-handly from a book in Spanish (whose argument is what I'm mainly following), and the book's references are from editions in Spanish. After all, It's easier to find the quoted statement in a book in its original language with just a quick word search (Ctrl-F). I will put the full reference this book at the bottom of the post ("consulted works"), and, below it, the full reference of another one that covers the same topic and I consider relevant as well. I'm not putting the quotes' references nor the books ones from editions in English cuz I'm lazy (and in the case of the books, idk if there are even editions in English). But if this gets some attention and the demand for it is high, I will put them as well.

I don't know if I have explained this clearly. Maybe I have put too much effort. Anyway, if you have doubts, feel free to ask.

I begin now.

Dialectical materialism was developed by both Marx and Engels, as well as their disciples: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Gonzalo, etc. It's true that the term "dialectical materialism" doesn't appear in their texts but rather later, first in the work of Plekhanov and then in the work from the rest of the founders of Marxism stated above, but that doesn't mean that their dialectical and materialist conceptions aren't, in fact, dialectical and materialist.

It's true that many Soviet manuals do commit deterministic and naturalistic mistakes, but this don't apply to the works of the founders of marxism. The idea that Marx didn't have any worldview, which has been propelled by academic revisionists such as the Neue Lektüre, and which has its root in an anti-engelsian current that appeared in "occidental marxism", is not consistent at all, and there is plenty of evidence of it:

Marx and Engels had to divide their work so that Marx could finish The Capital while Engels exposed the basic elements of dialectical materialism in Anti-Dühring and in Dialectics of Nature, and Marx never rejected it (he even wrote one of the chapters of the Anti-Dühring). Marx knew Engels work, both A-D and DoN, even praising the later in one letter to Wilhelm Alexander Freund stating that it was "incomparably more important" than the A-D. (1)

But even those that, independently of Marx's opinion, think that Engels' dialectics of nature was not marxist, aren't consequent knowing that many of this critics attack a supposedly mechanistic and deterministic base on Engels. This can't be the case knowing that Engels criticized these very mistakes from his own rivals in his letters, and that his emphasis on the materialistic side of his dialectical materialist thought comes from his historical context, in which he had to defend materialism against idealism (like with the left hegelians) than dialectics against metaphysics in order to demarcate and separate Marxism from other currents of though which, inversely, emphasized idealism.

But this doesn't come from forgetting the dialectical part, because, as it can be seen in his Ludwig Feuerbach..., it remains as the key to his criticism against those conceptions that require the supernatural and therefore God as the external-from-matter source of its movement, and this idea is not present in Engels' thought because he thinks dialectically. He understands that movement is the counterpart of matter, not an external addition to it. In other words, that matter doesn't move because of a finite chain of external causes that necessary lead to God, as movement is not external but intrinsic to matter (just as thermodynamic laws imply). Indeed, in LW..., he states against Hegel, the one that developed idealism the most, that if men "only existed out of condescension of the Idea", freedom would be impossible. (2)

This is absolutely incompatible with both idealism and mechanistic materialism. It's incompatible with idealism because it rejects that an absolute consciousness comes before matter in movement and instead accepts that infinite matter in infinite movement constitute the base of consciousness; but also incompatible with mechanistic materialism because accepting what we have just said means, one, to accept that causes of things are internal to them and therefore understandable only through them, not externally, mechanistically; and two, that human life must also be understood in the same way, which implies to assume volition, subjectivity, consciousness, as the specific way in which it determines itself on the base of its condition as an animal that objectifies/produces itself through labor. Determination of humanity comes mainly within it, not externally, mechanistically, and that's why it can free itself (specifically, through the Proletarian Revolution).

In conclusion, anti-Engelsianism, and therefore a "purely social philosopher" conception of Marx that reduces his thought to just the critique of political economy and that rejects "Orthodox Marxism" (which is really just Marxism) as the true development trajectory of Marxism after Marx, is simply and plainly unsustainable.

Footnotes:

1. Carlos Marx y Federico Engels: Cartas sobre las ciencias de la naturaleza y las matemáticas, ed. cit. , p. 90.; "Incomparablemente más importante".

2. Federico Engels: "Ludwig Feuerbach y el fin de la filosofía clásica alemana", en Carlos Marx y Federico Engels: Obras escogidas (en tres tomos), Ed. Progreso, t. lll, Moscú, 1980, p. 362.; "Existir solo por condescendencia de la Idea".

Consulted works:

Arencibia, P. R. (2019). Marxismo y dialéctica de la naturaleza. Edithor; M., B. A. J. (1979).

Ávila, B. J. Conocer Engels y Su Obra. DOPESA.

I hope I have written these well. I always make a mess with the APA thing.