A Marxist Philosophy of Language (Historical Materialism)

In order to measure the distance between Stalin and Marxist orthodoxy on
this point, it is sufficient to reread Bukharin’s manual of Marxist sociology,
whose rigidity and dogmatism were criticised by Gramsci. The following two
passages situate Bukharin vis-à-vis the two theses of Stalin to which we have
thus far referred:

Languageand thought, the most abstract ideological categories of the

superstructure, are also functions of social evolution. It has sometimes been

fashionable among Marxists or pseudo-Marxists to declare that the origin

of these phenomena has nothing to do with historical materialism. Kautsky,

for example, went so far as to claim that the powers of human thought are

almost unchanging. Such is not the case, however; these ideological forms,

so extraordinarily important in the life of society, constitute no exception to

the other ideological forms of the superstructure in their origin and

evolution.... It would lead us too far a-field to point out in detail that the

character, the styleof a language also changes with the conditions of social

life; but it is worthwhile to mention that the division of society into classes,

groups, and occupations also impresses its mark on a language; the city-

dweller has not the same language as the villager, the ‘literary language’ is

different from ‘common’ speech. This difference may become so great as to

prevent men from understanding each other; in many countries there are

popular ‘dialects’ that can hardly be understood by the cultured and wealthy

classes; this is a striking example of the class cleavage in language.^16

These analyses are not strikingly original, but they indicate that the author
is conscious that a ‘national language’ is a historical and political construct,
and that the ‘language of the whole people’ is a myth which Marxists should
examine to see what politics it expresses.
The third thesis identified by Marcellesi and Gardin seems to effect a return
to a form of Marxism. It suggests that if language is not a superstructure, it
is because it is directly connected with production:

Language...is connected with man’s productive activity directly, and not

only with man’s productive activity, but with all his other activities in all

spheres of work, from production to the base and from the base to the

superstructure. That is why language reflects changes in production

The Marxist Tradition • 79

(^16) Bukharin 1925, pp. 214–15, 217.