90 YEARS OF COMMUNISM IN CHINA: One German Who Is Partly Responsible for It (and no, I don’t mean Karl Marx)

The Communist Party in China just threw a big party. One person partly responsible for the rise of modern Communism, even if inadvertently, is Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), particularly his philosophy of history.

Now Hegel himself said that it is only possible to understand something in retrospect, after having the full picture, the implication being that those who wish to understand his philosophy basically need to read everything he has ever written. By that account, I am ill qualified to write this post, since I am still in the thick of Hegel’s mental forest, trees all around, and some of very peculiar shape. I have not yet made it out of the woods of Hegel’s thoughts far enough to look back and see the whole forest.

But others have, and they can provide the vision I am lacking. One of them is Darren Staloff, who said that Hegel’s philosophy of history can be summed up in four sentences:

1. History is the dialectical process whereby spirit comes to know itself and realizes its Idea.
2. Freedom is the idea of the Spirit and Spirit is Reason in-and-for-itself.
3. The means of this realization, or cunning of Reason, is the passions of the individual as both subject and object of history, and its form is the State.
4. The national spirit is a moment in the development of the World Spirit and for each such moment as for all, the owl of Minvera spreads its wings only with the setting of dusk.

Everything clear? No? Then let me try to elucidate.

1. History as a Dialectical Process

Hegel believed that history was a process similar to a thought process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This was later picked up by Karl Marx, an ardent Hegelian who saw history as a process in which the synthesis of Communism would arise out of the antithetical relationship between the working class and the ruling class. But Hegel, unlike Marx, did not think that this was a mindless process propelled merely by economic forces, but was actually the expression and realization of the “Weltgeist” (the “World Spirit/Mind”). I am still trying to wrap my mind around what exactly it is that Hegel means by this “Weltgeist.” It seems to me a kind of conglomerate of Christian theology, pantheism, nationalist sentiments, and faith in progress, producing a uniquely Hegelian “incarnation” that, through its pseudo-personal nature, allows Hegel to have his cake and eat it too. But more about that in a moment.

2. Freedom as the Idea of the Spirit and the Spirit as Reason

Here again, Hegel’s thinking is shaped by the concept of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. He sees Reason—that is, abstract, non-material thinking—as an expression of “God.” The antithesis of this divine Reason is Nature, and the synthesis of Nature with the divine Reason meets in the human race and thus produces the “Weltgeist,” the collective mind of man. This collective mind of man strives toward freedom, which does not mean freedom from state control, but freedom in the sense of Kantian autonomy, a freedom in which the “Weltgeist” becomes conscious of its own rationality. And, naturally, Hegel’s own philosophy is the primary means by which this happens.

3. The Realization of Reason in the Individual and the State

Hegel saw it as a positive occurrence when passion and ambition seized individual human beings to such a degree that they drove the process of history forward. History thus becomes incarnate in “Great Men”, in the Caesars and Alexanders and Napoleons of the world. They are the ones who move the “Weltgeist” toward its own realization. This self-realization of the collective “Weltgeist” takes place most fully in the modern State. Hegel, then, in contrast to John Locke, considers the State not to be merely a means to the happiness of individual human beings, but an end in itself. The individual human beings within the State are only the means by which the Whole is formed, similar to an eye in the human body that would be completely useless if separated from the body.

4. The Owl of Minerva

It follows from the last point that the Whole is always much more important than individual parts. In fact, it is only the Whole that gives meaning to the parts. That, for Hegel, is true for the modern sate as well as for the understanding of history. The particulars of history can only be fully understood in retrospect, when the “Weltgeist” becomes aware of itself and thus reveals how all the individual parts of history fit into the whole. Since Hegel claimed to have this holistic view of history, we must conclude that he thought human history was nearing its end.

Reasons for Hegel’s Views

As perplexing as Hegel can be, I find it much less perplexing why he should have come up with the philosophy he did. The late 18th and early 19th century saw the rise of modern Biblical scholarship that cast into doubt many of the Christian dogmas hitherto held in common by most people in Christian Europe, but that did not mean that people suddenly thought in completely non-Christian terms. Hegel could no longer affirm the orthodox doctrines of Christianity, but he retained many Christian ideas. Hence he divided history into the stages of the “Father,” the “Son”, and the “Holy Spirit,” and he viewed great leaders as a kind of “incarnation” of the “Weltgeist.” He could no longer fully believe in the personal God of Christianity, and yet he could not fully free himself from him. Hence his “God” is a pseudo-personal entity that is able to endow people with a sense of purpose without making the moral demands of orthodox Christianity.

Also, Hegel lived at the time of the Industrial Revolution when ideas of inevitable progress and evolution started to take hold of people’s minds. Hegel’s philosophy strongly reflects this blind belief in a constant forward-movement, this optimism about the unstoppable march of the human race toward ever greater achievements, ever greater understanding, ever greater triumph over Nature.

Furthermore, during Hegel’s lifetime, you had the rise of nationalism. The ripples of the French Revolution were felt throughout the world, and Napoleon united his people, while the German people were still divided among Prussia and the various German principalities. It is understandable that Hegel felt a great need for Germans to form a greater national identity and put the State over their individual interests. Therefore it is not surprising that his “Weltgeist” should manifest itself primarily through a national spirit, and particularly through Prussia.

All of this is understandable, and I think Hegel would have been a great poet who could have captured his “Zeitgeist” through subjective writings. The problem is that he wanted to be more than a poet and turned his subjective sentiments into a supposedly objective philosophy. As Bertrand Russell writes in his History of Western Philosophy, Hegel first formed his ideas through mystical experiences and only later intellectualized his essentially non-rational concepts.

Hegel might have been presumptuous about his interpretation of history, but he certainly left his own mark on history. It can be argued that without him, the world today would be radically different. Without Hegel, there would have probably been no Marx, and without Marx, there would have probably been no modern Communism, and without modern Communism, the whole 20th century would have been radically different. So yes, ideas can move history, albeit in a different way than Hegel proposed.