The source I have found most helpful in understanding what Marx meant by idealism is Lucio Colletti's brilliant books *Marxism and Hegel*, and *From Rousseau to Lenin*. The essential message is summed up in his illuminating Introduction to the Penguin edition of Marx's *Early Writings*.
Idealism for Marx means the Hegelian position that the intelligibility of the world consists in that, *properly understood* (i.e. by Hegel), the world is as it is because it is so required by reason (the Idea, the Absolute): the actual is the rational, and the rational is the actual.
This is elaborated in the Introduction to Hegel's *Philosophy of Right*, in such metaphors as that the owl of Minerva flies only at dusk, and that when philosophy paints its gray on gray (e.g. the originally multicoloured Parthenon reduced to an engraving in a dictionary of antiquities?) a form of life has grown old. Philosophy can only interpret the world, not change it.
In Hegel's interpretation what is so required by reason is the Lutheran established state of Prussia, the fullest development of humanity and human rationality, whose bureaucracy (or civil service) is the universal class, because it serves no particular interest but the general interest (the ethical).
Marx also calls this "teleology" -- seeing reality as the fulfilment of a prior purpose (e.g. God's).
Materialism on the contrary consists in seeing that particular philosophical position (German Idealism) as *the German Ide(a)-ology* reconciling feudalism and the nascent bourgeoisie; and that what would be reason now would be to see the even more recently nascent working-class as the universal (ethical) class, whose particular interest is the general interest); and to see working class Communists as leading the movement of the most downtrodden of classes towards its opposite, the negation of class in a world community which would *really* (materially) be the fullest development of humanity and human rationality, springing from the base of production from each according to ability and distribution according to need.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Doss" <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 1:31 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] "Theory's Empire," an anti-"Theory" anthology
:
: I do not believe there have even been idealists of the
: sort Lenin thought he was describing. There has never
: been a philosopher or philosphical movement that held
: the belief that nothing exists outside the human mind.
:
: I personally think that both materialism and idealism
: are incoherent doctrines, although the latter makes
: marginally more sense.