Although they greatly admired Darwin, Marx and Engels were by no means uncritical of his theories. Engels understood that Darwin’s ideas would be later refined and developed – a fact confirmed by the development of genetics. He wrote to Lavrov in November 1875: “Of the Darwinian doctrine I accept the theory of evolution, but Darwin’s method of proof (struggle for life, natural selection) I consider only a first, provisional, imperfect expression of a newly discovered fact.” And again in his book Anti-Dühring:

The theory of evolution itself is however still in a very early stage, and it therefore cannot be doubted that further research will greatly modify our present conceptions, including strictly Darwinian ones, of the process of the evolution of species.

Engels sharply criticised Darwin’s one-sidedness as well as the Social Darwinism that was to follow. “Hardly was Darwin recognised,” states Engels, “before these same people saw everywhere nothing but struggle. Both views are justified within narrow limits, but both are equally one-sided and prejudiced…Hence, even in regard to nature, it is not permissible one-sidedly to inscribe only ‘struggle’ on one’s banners. But it is absolutely childish to desire to sum up the whole manifold wealth of historical evolution and complexity in the meagre and one-sided phrase ‘struggle for life’. That says less than nothing.” He then goes on to explain the roots of this error:

The whole Darwinian theory of the struggle for life is simply the transference from society to organic nature of Hobbes’ theory of Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes (the war of each against all – ed.), and of the bourgeois economic theory of competition, as well as the Malthusian theory of population. When once this feat has been accomplished (the unconditional justification for which, especially as regards the Malthusian theory, is still very questionable), it is very easy to transfer these theories back again from natural history to the history of society, and altogether too naïve to maintain that thereby these assertions have been proved as eternal natural laws of society.[80]

The Social Darwinian’s parallels with the animal world fitted in with the prevailing racist arguments that human character was based upon the measurement of men’s skulls. For Daniel G. Brinton, American linguist and anthropologist, “the European or white race stands at the head of the list, the African or Negro at its foot” (1890). Cesare Lombroso, an Italian physician, in 1876, argued that born criminals were essentially apes, a throwback in evolution. It was part of the desire to explain human behaviour in terms of innate biology – a tendency that can still be observed today. The ‘struggle for survival’ was seen as innate in all animals including man, and served to justify war, conquest, profiteering, imperialism, racialism, as well as the class structure of capitalism. It is the forerunner of the cruder varieties of sociobiology and the theories of the Naked Ape. After all, was it not WS Gilbert whose satire proclaimed:

“Darwinian Man, though well-behaved,
At best is only a monkey shaved!”

Darwin stressed that “Natural Selection has been the most, but not the exclusive, means of modification.” He explained that the adaptive changes in one part could lead to modifications of other features that have no bearing on survival. However, as opposed to the idealist conception of life, epitomised by the Creationists, the Darwinians scientifically explained how life evolved on the planet. It was a natural process which can be explained by the laws of biology, and the interaction of organisms with their environment. Independently of Darwin, another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, had also constructed the theory of natural selection. This prompted Darwin to go into print after more than twenty years delay. However, an essential difference between Darwin and Wallace, was that Wallace believed all evolutionary change or modification to be determined solely by natural selection. But the rigid hyper-selectionist Wallace would end up rejecting natural selection when it concerned the brain and intellect, concluding that God had intervened to construct this unique creation!

Darwin explained that the evolution of life, with its rich and varied forms, was an inevitable consequence of the reproduction of life itself. Firstly, like breeds like, with minor variations. But secondly, all organisms tend to produce more offspring than survive and breed. Those offspring which have the greatest chance of survival are those more equipped to adapt to their surroundings, and, in turn, their offspring will tend to be more like them. The characteristics of these populations will, over time, increasingly adapt to their environment. In other words, the “fittest” survive and spread their favoured characteristics through populations. In nature, Darwinian evolution is a response to changing environments. Nature “selects” organisms with characteristics best able to adapt to its surroundings. “Evolution by natural selection,” says Gould, “is no more than a tracking of these changing environments by differential preservation of organisms better designed to live in them.” Thus, natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. This discovery by Darwin was described by Leon Trotsky as “the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter.”

  1. Engels, F. Anti-Dühring, pp. 92 and 208-9.