VULGAR misinterpretation of materialist philosophy has long been rife in our country as well as in others. This has been done by a section of its philosophical adversaries, i.e., the idealists, to degrade the materialists. In India, for example, the materialist school of Charvaka is falsely reduced lo crude advocacy of ego-satisfaction as the supreme aim of life citing one sloka out of context : “Live in pleasure and luxury, borrow money to drink milk and honey” (literally, ghee or purified butler). Here we cannot go into intricate philosophical debates. But we would like to clarify our own position and remove the unfounded apprehensions.

Before that let us better put a question. Those who have already attained enough economic power and social clout ask the havenots, to run after spiritual emancipation and forget material worries. They themselves, do not, however, miss any opportunity for sensual pleasure starting from alcohol to woman. Is this not our experience with Rajnish to Chandraswamy, from gurus of different creed to the Sankaracharyas? Is this not a clever ploy for protecting their own heaven of sensual pleasure and digress the heathen people's attention towards something else so that the latter do not stand up and stake a claim in this earthly heaven?

That the mass of the people excludes all vulgarities from what they mean by material prosperity is a different matter. Here we only intend to unearth the hypocrisy of the preachers of spiritualism.

For us materialism has nothing to do with hankering after material wealth and sensual pleasure.  As one of the two great camps of philosophy, materialism insists on the primacy of matter to mind, of objective reality to consciousness : white the other camp (idealism) insists on just the opposite. In our view, therefore, basically it is the social being of men and women — the material conditions of their life and work — which determines their consciousness, and not vice versa; although the latter does influence the former. In any country the social and political institutions, the legal systems, the cultural values and religious doctrines etc. together constitute a superstructure, so to say, rising on the economic structure or foundation. The structure basically determines the superstructure : in our country, for example, laws and government policies are framed to serve the exploitative economic system and to strengthen the positions of big capitalists and landlords; while the dominant streams in culture and media also serve the same interests. Of course, the superstructure too enjoys a degree of relative autonomy and reacts on the economic foundation : important shifts may take place in the government policies and affect the economic system for good or bad.

What are the practical-political implications of this viewpoint? If you are to change the realm of consciousness — the social, political and cultural values and attitudes — you cannot hope to do that simply by dim of the most sincere and convincing appeals and arguments; you must change the socio-economic foundations from which that realm and those values grow. If you want to bring about a great flourish of what may be called a spiritual civilisation, you must first create the material premise for that by radically transforming the economic and political situation which condemns the overwhelming majority to a subhuman existence and spiritual death.

As materialists we are working precisely for that. In all hitherto existing societies only a tiny minority used to have the privilege of engaging in scientific, artistic and other “creative pursuits”, while to make that possible the vast majority laboured like beasts. But now freed from the daily drudgery of repetitive labour, from all material worries, all men and women will energetically participate in all kinds of creative work. Communism will transform “spiritual development” from a prerogative of a privileged class into a way of life for all humanity.