This thesis —
马克思主义认为，政治权力是社会经济发展到一定历史阶段的产物，是以经济权力为基础的。经济上占据特殊地位的阶级要成为社会的统治阶级，必须把既有的经济权力提升为政治权力。
(“Marxism holds that political power is a product of social and economic development at a certain historical stage and is based on economic power. A class that occupies a special position economically must elevate its existing economic power into political power in order to become the ruling class of society.”)— is very well grounded in both Marx and Lenin. Below are the key supporting sources, with short explanations and citations.
I. Karl Marx
1. Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will… The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure… The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.”
→ Interpretation:
Political power and institutions (the superstructure) are determined by the economic base. Political domination arises when a class that controls the means of production organizes that control into a state apparatus.
2. The Communist Manifesto (1848)
“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”“Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class.”
→ Interpretation:
Economic dominance (bourgeois ownership of production) precedes and generates political dominance (state power). The transformation from economic to political rule is an historical necessity.
3. The German Ideology (1845–46)
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.”
→ Interpretation:
The ruling class’s economic power (material force) necessarily produces its political and ideological power. Political rule is the organized expression of the material dominance of a class.
4. Capital, Vol. 3 (1894), Chapter 52
“The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out of direct producers, determines the relation of rulers and ruled… and with it the entire shape of the state.”
→ Interpretation:
Political forms (ruling and ruled, state structure) arise directly from the economic relations of surplus extraction. This supports the idea that political power grows out of economic power at a given stage of development.
II. Friedrich Engels
1. Anti-Dühring (1878), Part III, Chapter 2
“The state is therefore by no means a power forced on society from without… It is rather a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself… In order that these antagonisms and classes with conflicting economic interests might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power… that seems to stand above society… and this power… is the state.”
→ Interpretation:
The state — and thus political power — is born of class contradictions rooted in economic structure. It arises only when social division (economic inequality) reaches a specific stage.
2. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884)
“The state is by no means a power forced on society from without… Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself.”
→ Interpretation:
Political institutions (the state) appear when economic inequality reaches a point that requires organized coercion to maintain class rule — i.e., economic power must be institutionalized as political power.
III. V. I. Lenin
1. The State and Revolution (1917), Chapter 1
“The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms.”“The state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of ‘order’ which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression.”
→ Interpretation:
Lenin reiterates Engels: the state (political power) is born of class antagonism that itself springs from economic inequality. Only a class with economic dominance can organize this “order.”
2. A Great Beginning (1919)
“Political power is the most concentrated expression of economic power.”
→ Interpretation:
Lenin makes the linkage explicit: political power is the concentrated expression of economic power. The transformation from economic to political dominance is essential for class rule.
3. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1918)
“Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
→ Interpretation:
Lenin argues that the working class must transform its economic position into political dominance — the dictatorship of the proletariat — to end bourgeois rule. Again, economic power must be elevated to political power.
IV. Summary of Theoretical Chain
| Stage | Marxist Source | Core Idea |
|---|---|---|
| Economic foundation | Critique of Political Economy, Capital | Economic relations form the basis of political institutions |
| Emergence of the state | Engels, Origin of the Family… | The state arises from class contradictions rooted in economic differentiation |
| Transformation of class power | Manifesto, Lenin’s State and Revolution | Economic dominance must become organized political rule |
| Synthesis | Lenin’s A Great Beginning | Political power = concentrated expression of economic power |