When the Commies talk about the “dialectic” what do they mean? And did it ever “prove” anything?
It was/is a theory of historical progress, first set forth by Hegel but then Marx monkied with it a bit, so you hear either “Hegelian dialectic” or “Marxist dialectic” with slightly different connotations. In this view, precedent conditions, the thesis and antithesis, merge to form a new condition, the synthesis, which is a new thesis in a never-ending progression. That is the dialectic, and was an idealist proposition in Hegel. Marx develops a notion of “dialectical materialism,” which inverts the Hegelian dialectic (I’m fuzzy here-- many years since college philosophy-- these can be charted with pyramids, but don’t ask me to-- my Hegel is better than my Marx), and posits that in our present circumstances, Capitalism is a thesis which will merge with the revolution, the antithesis, with a synthesis result of Communism-- basically, revolution is a historical imperative.
Is this a helpful start?