Materialism and Empirio-Criticism

It is a devastating attack against modern idealism, a brilliant defense of materialist standpoint, and a development of basic ideas of dialectical materialism in the light of scientific discovery. It was written 1908, in the period following the defeat of the 1905-07 Revolution in Russia. It was a time great difficulty for revolutionary working class movement in Russia. Reaction was making savage attacks upon the working class, and with this went an ideological offensive against Marxism, which fashionable writers represented as being exploded and “out of date.” This situation affected a group of party intellectuals. They began to write books…