Remarks on Marx and Changing the World

The article considers the personal interest of Marx and the Marxist tradition in changing the world. As a rule, and this can be explained by political reasons, Marx and Engels are credited with an identical position on this issue. The author shows that this is a simplification and offers his interpretation based on the primacy of philosophical origins for the development of Marx's ideas. In this case, Marx turns out to be a Hegelian and a critic of Aristotle, while Engels remains an anti-Hegelian. Engels follows Schelling in denying Hegel, and Marx builds his concept on the basis of Hegel's theory of the modern world, while simultaneously challenging the Aristotelian concept of economic value. Engels denies contemporary philosophy, giving priority to science and so-called scientific socialism. Marxist economics, on the other hand, arises as a reaction of Marx to Aristotelian intuitions. The author shows that Marx's philosophy and the Marxist tradition should be distinguished not only because of the various embodiments of the latter, but primarily because of their different philosophical origins. This differentiation of the ideas of Marx himself and the Marxism growing out of Engel's interpretation can be carried out based on the formulation of the question of the relationship of being and thinking in cognition proposed by Parmenides. For Engels, questions of epistemology boil down to the fact that thinking about being and being itself should coincide. Later, this materialistic approach will form the basis of reflection theory. Marx's position is more complicated and can be characterized as idealistic. It is this fundamental discrepancy that determines the difference between the attitude of Marx and the Marxist tradition to the question of the longing to change the world.