POL 315 MODULE 1
produces contradictions that result in social revolution and a new
society.
The conflict of opposite is the source of development: the conflict
between opposites signifies the striving of each to obtain predominance
over the other in a process or phenomenon. We have seen that there is
unity in the development of any process or phenomena? Hegel claimed
that the main thing in development is Unity, or essential identity of
opposites. Right or utopian socialism seeks to make use of this thesis of
Hegel to prove the possibility of social harmony. They wish to gloss
over the hostile contradictions in bourgeois society. It is the struggle
between opposites that plays the main part in development and not
Unity. This struggle is constant and never ceases. Conflict of opposites
is the source of development of motion. Development is the struggle of
opposites. For example in living nature, the external struggle of opposite
forces – mutation and heredity. A contradiction of any kind possesses,
so to say, a history of its own: its contradiction -emergence, growth
(sharpening) and resolution.
A conflict is resolved when the conflict between the opposites
comprising it becomes so sharp that their further existence together
becomes impossible. The essence of the law of unity and conflict of
opposites thus consists in the fact that internally contradictory aspects
indissolubly united but, at the same time, in constant conflict are
inherent in all things and processes. It is this conflict of opposites that is
the source - the driving force of progress. Lenin calls this law the heart
and soul of dialectics.
Examples of basic contradictions
(1) The complex two world system – capitalism and socialism
(2) Between capital and labor
(3) Imperial powers and their colonies
(4) Developed and developing countries etc
In addition to isolating the basic contradiction in any phenomenon we
must distinguish between internal and external, antagonistic and nonantagonistic
contradictions. It is internal contradiction that plays the
decisive role in all development. Antagonistic are based on
irreconcilable opposite class interest whereas non-antagonistic based on
forces that have common basic interest (e.g. between two workers).
Examples of Antagonistic forces are (between forces and classes,
between labor and peasantry (socialist societies) and between Colonial
people and imperialists).
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