assail, the culture of the class that has not yet been broken, that embodies the authentic spiritual values Only the dialectics of history can create a radically new situation. This is not only because it relativises all limits, or better, because it puts them in a state of flux. Nor is it just because all those forms of existence that constitute the counterpart of the absolute are dissolved into processes and viewed as concrete manifestations of history so that the absolute is not so much denied as endowed with its concrete historical shape and treated as an aspect of the process itself. But, in addition to these factors, it is also true that the historical process is something unique and its dialectical advances and reverses are an incessant struggle to reach higher stages of the truth and of the(societal) self-knowledge of man. The relativisation of truth in Hegel means that the higher factor is always the truth of the factor beneath it in the system This does not imply the destruction of objective truth at the lower stages but only that it means something different as a result of being integrated in a more concrete and comprehensive totality. When Marx makes dialectics the essence of history, the movement of thought also becomes just a part of the overall movement of history. History becomes the history of the objective forms from which mans environment and inner world are constructe nd which he strives to master in thought, action and art, etc. (Whereas relativism always works with rigid and immutable objective forms. In the period of the"pre-history of human society and of the struggles between classes the only possible function of truth is to establish the various possible attitudes to an essentially uncomprehended world in accordance with man's needs in the struggle to master his environment. Truth could only achieve an objectivity relative to the standpoint of the individual classes and the objective realities corresponding to it. But as soon as mankind has clearly understood and hence restructured the foundations of its existence truth acquires a wholly novel aspect. When theory and practice are united it becomes possible to change reality and when this happens the absolute and its counterpart will have played their historical role for the last time for as the result of these changes we shall see the disappearance of that reality which the absolute and the relative expressed in like manner. This process begins when the proletariat becomes conscious of its own class point of view Hence it is highly misleading to describe dialectical materialism as relativism. For although they share a common premise: man as the measure of all things, they each give it a different and even contradictory interpretation. The beginning of a materialist anthropology'in Feuerbach is in fact only a beginning and one that is in itself capable of a number of continuations. Marx took up Feuerbach's suggestion and thought it out to its logical conclusion In the process he takes issue very sharply with Hegel: Hegel makes of man a man of self-consciousness instead of making self-consciousness the self-consciousness of man, i.e. of real man as he lives in the real world of objects by which he is conditioned. [52 Simultaneously, however, and this is moreover at the time when he was most under the influence of Feuerbach, he sees man historically and dialectically, and both are to be understood in a double sense. (1) He never speaks of man in general, of an abstractly bsolutised man: he always thinks of him as a link in a concrete totality, in a society. The latter must be explained from the standpoint of man but only after man has himself been integrated in the concrete totality and has himself been made truly concrete. (2)Man himself is the objective foundation of the historical dialectic and the subject-object lying at its roots nd as such he is decisively involved in the dialectical process. To formulate it in the initial abstract categories of dialectics: he both is and at the same time is not. Religion, Marx saysassail, the culture of the class that has not yet been broken, that embodies the authentic spiritual values. Only the dialectics of history can create a radically new situation. This is not only because it relativises all limits, or better, because it puts them in a state of flux. Nor is it just because all those forms of existence that constitute the counterpart of the absolute are dissolved into processes and viewed as concrete manifestations of history so that the absolute is not so much denied as endowed with its concrete historical shape and treated as an aspect of the process itself. But, in addition to these factors, it is also true that the historical process is something unique and its dialectical advances and reverses are an incessant struggle to reach higher stages of the truth and of the (societal) self-knowledge of man. The ‘relativisation’ of truth in Hegel means that the higher factor is always the truth of the factor beneath it in the system. This does not imply the destruction of ‘objective’ truth at the lower stages but only that it means something different as a result of being integrated in a more concrete and comprehensive totality. When Marx makes dialectics the essence of history, the movement of thought also becomes just a part of the overall movement of history. History becomes the history of the objective forms from which man’s environment and inner world are constructed and which he strives to master in thought, action and art, etc. (Whereas relativism always works with rigid and immutable objective forms.) In the period of the “pre-history of human society” and of the struggles between classes the only possible function of truth is to establish the various possible attitudes to an essentially uncomprehended world in accordance with man’s needs in the struggle to master his environment. Truth could only achieve an ‘objectivity’ relative to the standpoint of the individual classes and the objective realities corresponding to it. But as soon as mankind has clearly understood and hence restructured the foundations of its existence truth acquires a wholly novel aspect. When theory and practice are united it becomes possible to change reality and when this happens the absolute and its ‘relativistic’ counterpart will have played their historical role for the last time. For as the result of these changes we shall see the disappearance of that reality which the absolute and the relative expressed in like manner. This process begins when the proletariat becomes conscious of its own class point of view. Hence it is highly misleading to describe dialectical materialism as ‘relativism’. For although they share a common premise: man as the measure of all things, they each give it a different and even contradictory interpretation. The beginning of a ‘materialist anthropology’ in Feuerbach is in fact only a beginning and one that is in itself capable of a number of continuations. Marx took up Feuerbach’s suggestion and thought it out to its logical conclusion. In the process he takes issue very sharply with Hegel: “Hegel makes of man a man of self-consciousness instead of making self-consciousness the self-consciousness of man, i.e. of real man as he lives in the real world of objects by which he is conditioned.”[52] Simultaneously, however, and this is moreover at the time when he was most under the influence of Feuerbach, he sees man historically and dialectically, and both are to be understood in a double sense. (1) He never speaks of man in general, of an abstractly absolutised man: he always thinks of him as a link in a concrete totality, in a society. The latter must be explained from the standpoint of man but only after man has himself been integrated in the concrete totality and has himself been made truly concrete. (2) Man himself is the objective foundation of the historical dialectic and the subject-object lying at its roots, and as such he is decisively involved in the dialectical process. To formulate it in the initial abstract categories of dialectics: he both is and at the same time is not. Religion, Marx says