Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"Engels, Friedrich
Philosophy
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"
Engels, Friedrich
Dialectical materialism; Dühring, E. (Eugen), 1833-1921; Economics; Philosophy; Socialism
That is the moral of our history of modern infantry. The second moral
which brings us back to Herr Duehring is that the entire organization
and methods of warfare of modern armies and, with them, victory and
defeat, are dependent upon material things, that is upon economic
conditions, upon soldier material and upon weapon material and
therefore upon the quality of a population and upon technique. Only a
hunting people like the Americans could rediscover the sharpshooter.
Now the Yankees of the old States have, from purely economic causes,
become transformed into farmers, industrialists, sailors and
merchants, who no longer shoot in the primeval forests and on that
account have become all the more successful in the field of
speculation where they have developed into colossal appropriators.
Only a Revolution like the French which emancipated the burghers and
still more the peasants could discover the simultaneously massed
armies and free advance by which they overcame the stiff old line
formation, the military product of the absolutism against which they
fought. And as for the advances in technique as soon as they were
applicable and were applied, forthwith changes, nay revolutions, in
the methods of warfare were at once made, often against the will of
the military leaders as we have seen over and over again to be the
case. A diligent subaltern could explain to Herr Duehring how at the
present day the making of war is dependent upon the productivity and
means of communication of the back country as well as of the theatre
of war. In short, economic conditions and means of power are always
the things which help "force" to victory, and without them "force"
comes to an end. So that he who would reform the art of war according
to the axioms of Herr Duehring would only get a flogging for his
pains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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