Plan of Hegel’s Dialectics (Logic)-contained in a notebook directly following the conspectus of Georges Noel's book Hegel's Logic and a list of “writings on Hegelianism”; written in 1915. Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible where they were located in the original manuscript.

The concept (cognition) reveals the es- sence (the law of causality, identity, difference, etc) in Being (in immediate phenomena)—such is actually the gen- eral course of all human cogni- tion (of all science) in general. Such is the course also of natural sci- ence and political economy [and history]. Insofar Hegel’s dialectic is a generalisation of the history of thought. To trace this more concretely and in greater detail in the history of the sep- arate sciences seems an extraordinarily rewarding task. In logic, the history of thought must, by and large, coin- cide with the laws of thinking.

It is stikingly evident that Hegel some- times passes from the abstract to the con- crete (Sein (abstract)—Dasein (con- crete)—Fürsichsein) and sometimes the other way round (the Subjective Notion— the Object—Truth (the Absolute Idea)). Is not this inconsistency of an ideal- ist (what Marx called the “Ideenmystik” in Hegel?) Or are there deeper reasons? (e.g., Being = Nothing—the idea of Be-

coming, of development). First of all im- pressions flash by, then Something emerges, —afterwards the concepts of quality # (the determination of the thing or the phe- nomenon) and quantity are developed. After that study and reflection direct thought to

cognition of identity—of difference—of Ground—of the Essence versus the Pheno- menon—of causality, etc. All these mo- ments (steps, stages, processes) of cognition move in the direction from the subject to the object, being tested in practice and arriving through this test at truth (= the Absolute Idea).

Quality and sensation (Empfindung) are one and the same, says Feuerbach. The very first and most familiar to us is sen- sation, and in it these is inevitably also quality....

If Marx did not leave behind him a “Logic” (with a capital letter), he did leave the logic of Capital, and this ought to be utilised to the full in this question. In Capital, Marx applied to a single science logic, dialectics and the theory of knowl- edge of materialism [three words are not needed: it is one and the same thing] which has taken everything valuable in Hegel and developed it further.

The history of capitalism and the anal- ysis of the concepts summing it up.

The beginning—the most simple, ordi- nary, mass, immediate “Being”: the single commodity (“Sein” in political economy). The analysis of it as a social relation. A double analysis, deductive and inductive —logical and historical (forms of value).

Testing by facts or by practice respec- tively, is to be found here in each step of the analysis.

Cf. Concerning the quesiton of Essence versus Appearance

— price and value — demand and supply versus Wert (= krystallisierte Arbeit) —wages and the price of labour power.