V. I.

Lenin

Ten Questions To a Lecturer [1]

1. Does the lecturer acknowledge that the philosophy of Marxism
is dialectical materialism ?

If he does not, why has he never analysed Engels’ countless statements on this subject?

If he does, why do the Machists call their “revision” of dialectical materialism “the
philosophy of Marxism"?

2. Does the lecturer acknowledge Engels’ fundamental
division of philosophical systems into idealism and materialism , [2] Engels regarding those intermediate
between these two, wavering between them, as the line of Hume
in modern philosophy, calling this line “agnosticism” and declaring Kantianism to be a
variety of agnosticism?

3. Does the lecturer acknowledge that recognition of the
external world and its reflection in the human mind form the
basis of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism?

4. Does the lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels’
argument concerning the conversion of “things-in-themselves” into
“things-for-us”? [3]

5. Does the lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels’
assertion that the “real unity of the world consists in
its materiality”? (Anti-Dühring, 2nd ed., 1886, p. 28, section I, part IV on world
schematism.) [4]

6. Does the lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels’
assertion that “matter without motion is as inconceivable as motion without matter"?
( Anti-Dühring, 1886, 2nd ed., p. 45, in part 6 on natural philosophy, cosmogony, physics and
chemistry.) [5]

7. Does the lecturer acknowledge that the ideas of causality,
necessity, law, etc., are a reflection in the human mind of
laws of nature, of the real world? Or was Engels wrong in
saying so? (Anti-Dühring, S. 20-21, in part III on apriorism, and S. 103-04, in part XI on freedom and
necessity.) [6]

8. Does the lecturer know that Mach expressed his agreement with
he head of the immanentist school, Schuppe, and even dedicated his last and chief philosophical
work [7] to him?
How does the lecturer explain this adherence of Mach to the
obviously idealist philosophy of Schuppe, a defender of
clericalism and in general a downright reactionary in philosophy?

9. Why did the lecturer keep silent about
“adventure” with his comrade of yesterday (according to the Studies), the Menshevik Yushkevich, who has
oday declared Bogdanov (following in the wake of Rakhmetov)
an
idealist ? [8] Is the lecturer aware that Petzoldt in his latest book has classed a number of Mach’s disciples
among the idealists ? [9]

10. Does the lecturer confirm the fact that Machism has nothing
in common with Bolshevism? And that Lenin has repeatedly
protested against
Machism? [10] And that the Mensheviks Yushkevich and Valentinov are “pure” empirio-criticists?

---
Notes:
[1]

“ Ten Questions to a Lecturer ” was written by Lenin during the first half of May 1908 in London. He had come there
from Geneva to work on his book Mateterialism and Empirio-criticism, and he sent the questions to
I. F. Dubrovinsky, a member of the Bolshevik centre and one of
he editors of the newspaper Proletary, as theses for a speech on the occasion of the lecture entitled “Adventures of
One Philosophical School” given by A. Bogdanov in Geneva on May 15 (28), 1908.

Bogdnnov, Lunacharsky and others, who supported Machist
standpoints in philosophy, took advantage of Lenin’s absence to
increase their activity. Under the guise of criticising
“materialism of the Plekhanov school”, they revised materialist
philosophy and tried to show that empirio-monism, the variety of
Machism invented by Bogdanov, and not dialectical materialism,
was the philosophy of Bolshevism.

In preparing his speech, Dubrovinsky made changes in the second,
hird and tenth questions and deleted the seventh question. In
his speech, which was based on Lenin’s theses, Dubrovinsky (who
used the pseudonym Dorov) sharply criticised Bogdanovs views,
declaring that Bolshevism had nothing in common with empirio-monism and showing that the advocacy of “god-building"
was incompatible with dialectical materialism.

[2]
See
F. Engels,

Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy

[3]
See
F. Engels, “ Special Introduction to the English Edition of 1892 ”
of his work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and his Ludwig Fuerbach end the End of Classical German Philosophy (K. Marx and
F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958,
pp. 99-102, 370-71).

[4]
See
F. Engels,

Anti-Dürhring, Moscow, 1959, p. 65.

[5]
See
F. Engels, Anti-Dürhring, Moscow. 1959, p. 86.

[6]
See
F. Engels, Anti-Dürhring, Moscow, 1959,
pp. 53-54,157.

[7]
Lenin is referring to Ernst Mach’s book Erkennt,,is und Irrtum. Skizzen stir Psyhrnlogie der Forsohung (Knowledge and Error .

Sketches of the Psychology of Investigation), the first edition of which was published in Leipzig in 1905.

For Lenin’s characterisation of the iminanentist school see
Al ateria 11am and Lmpirio-criticism, especially
Chapter Four, Section 3 (pp. 209-17 of this volume).

[8]
Lenin is referring to the chapter entitled “A. Bogdanov ’s
Empirio-monism”, in P. S. Yushkevich’s book Materialism and Critica1 hi Realism. Philosophical Trends in Monism,
St. Petersburg, 1908, pp. 161-93.

[9]
Lenin is referring to Joseph Petzoldt’s book Das Weltproblem von positivistischen Standpnnkte aus(The World Problem from the Positivist Standpoint).

[10]
See
Lenin’s letter to A. M. Gorky of February 12 (25), 1908 (present
edition, Volume 13 , pp. 448-54).