Quiz: Letters on Historical Materialism

10 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. 1. To what does Engels compare economic, political and other reflexes?

   Echoes in a mountain valley, which come back weakened Reflections of the hills in a still mountain lake Shadows cast on the wall of Plato’s cave by the fire Images in the eye, which appear upside down
2. 2. Why can economically backward countries lead in philosophy?

   Their rulers patronise philosophers Philosophy has no connection with economics Backward countries leave the educated more leisure for thought Philosophy builds on thought material handed down by predecessors
3. 3. How does Engels describe the materialist conception of history?

   As a branch of Hegel’s logic applied to the facts of economic life As a political programme to guide the party’s day-to-day agitation As above all a guide to study, not a lever for construction As a finished system that already answers every historical question
4. 4. What does Engels ask to show that political power matters economically?

   Why did Bismarck need the Anti-Socialist Law if the workers’ party had no power? Why do capitalists trouble to vote, if the economy decides everything for them? Why fight for proletarian dictatorship if state power is economically impotent? Why do governments fight wars at all, if conquest can never change economic life?
5. 5. In societies without a collective plan, what governs history according to the letter to Borgius?

   The will of great men, who shape events by their decisions Pure chance, which no science can reduce to any law Providence, working its purpose out through blind human action Necessity, whose complement and form of appearance is accident
6. 6. How does the state arise in Engels’s account to Schmidt?

   From people given common functions who become independent From a social contract freely made among equal individuals From the conquest of one tribe by another, and from nothing else From divine right, conferred on the first kings by the priests
7. 7. Why does law in a modern state reflect economic conditions inexactly?

   It is copied from Roman law It must also be internally consistent Judges are bribed Lawyers are ignorant of economics
8. 8. What, according to Engels, do Barth and similar critics lack?

   Knowledge of Greek Statistics Political courage Dialectics
9. 9. Which examples does Engels give of things it would be ridiculous to explain purely economically?

   The French Revolution and the drafting of the Code Napoléon The steam engine and the railway Every small German state and the High German consonant shift The Reformation and the Peasant War
10. 10. Why does Engels say he and Marx are partly to blame for overemphasis on economics?

    They had to stress the main principle against those who denied it They wrote only for economists They never wrote about politics They believed economics was the only determining factor in history