Editor’s note: The following is an article introducing Watt’s life experiences. The article scientifically explains, using historical materialism, the historical background and class practical roots that enabled Watt to transform the steam engine, strongly refuting the bourgeois distortion of Watt as a “genius”—a reactionary genius theory. This is a strong critique of superstitious bourgeois experts and the superstitious “authority” of the white-special route.
Watt and the Steam Engine
Fudan University Natural Dialectics Major Student Yu Fangsheng Shen JilongWhere do scientific and technological inventions come from? Do they come from the social practice of the working people, or are they the products of individual “genius” or “inspiration”? Marxists have a completely opposite answer to this question compared to all revisionists. Marxists believe that all scientific and technological inventions are the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people and come from social practice. The counter-revolutionary ambitious and conspirator Lin Biao, however, widely propagates “inspiration,” nonsense about “flashes of thought” that, if grasped and held onto, will lead to inventions and creations, attributing all inventions and creations to the “genius” or “inspiration” of individuals. Throughout history, bourgeoisie and revisionist elements have always distorted and falsified materials from the history of science and technology as the basis for their promotion of “genius theory” and “inspiration theory.” The invention of the steam engine is a typical example. They once fabricated a distorted historical “myth,” claiming that Watt, as a child, accidentally saw water vapor lift the lid of a kettle, which triggered his “inspiration,” and thus he became the inventor of the steam engine.
Is the invention of the steam engine truly the product of Watt’s personal “genius” or “inspiration”? Absolutely not. Understanding the true historical facts of the steam engine’s emergence and Watt’s practical activities in transforming it helps us deepen our critique of Lin Biao and Confucius.
James Watt was born in 1736 in the small town of Greenock near Glasgow, a city with a very developed shipbuilding industry in Britain. At that time, the British bourgeoisie had already gained political dominance; economically, they accumulated a large amount of capital through the sale of black slaves and brutal plunder of colonies. Meanwhile, the large-scale “Enclosure Movement” within Britain promoted rural capitalism on one hand, but on the other forced many peasants to become landless, flooding into cities to provide cheap labor for industrial capitalists. This created social and economic conditions for further development of capitalist production relations. Shortly after the British bourgeoisie crushed the last feudal restoration attempt in 1715, industries such as textiles, metallurgy, military, and shipbuilding expanded further under the stimulus of domestic and foreign markets. Handicraft workshops were generally replaced by mechanized factories, with textile industry developing particularly rapidly, achieving technological reforms and transitioning to large industrial factories. Just a year before Watt’s birth, spinning machines appeared, marking the beginning of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution. Watt lived during this period of industrial revolution, when the bourgeoisie was vigorously expanding its ruling power.
Watt’s father was an experienced shipwright who also engaged in business selling candles, instruments, tools, and other supplies for ships. Watt was weak and often ill as a child, unable to attend school regularly, spending most of his time at home. Besides studying reading and writing with his parents, Watt often played with his father’s carpentry tools, knocking and imitating small mechanical models like cranes and pulleys, gradually developing an interest in mechanical manufacturing.
At the age of eighteen, Watt’s father failed in business and was heavily in debt, forcing Watt to seek work elsewhere. He first studied manufacturing teaching instruments in Glasgow but earned very little, unable to support himself. Soon he went to London. However, London was crowded with bankrupt farmers seeking work! Without relatives and social experience, Watt was looked down upon by capitalists everywhere he sought employment. After more than three weeks of wandering the streets, he finally became an apprentice at a clock shop without pay. During his free time, Watt learned craftsmanship from the local famous mechanic Morgan. Due to his diligent study and practical efforts, his skills quickly improved, and he soon could produce more difficult instruments like quadrants, azimuthal compasses, and theodolites. In a letter to his father, he wrote: “Although I am not as fast as skilled workers, I can do as well as them now.”
In August 1756, at just twenty years old, Watt suffered from severe rheumatism due to overwork and had to return home to recuperate. Soon after, he went to Glasgow to try to become a maker or repairer of instruments. However, at that time, the bourgeoisie enforced the “Guild Law,” which severely restricted the employment of skilled workers, requiring apprentices to serve seven years before becoming qualified mechanics. Watt, having only one year of apprenticeship, could not meet this requirement. Later, with help from others, he went to the University of Glasgow, which was not bound by the guild law, and became a repair worker for scientific instruments. The university had relatively good equipment at the time, which allowed Watt to contact advanced technology through repairing instruments, laying a foundation for his future improvements to the steam engine.
Before Watt, the steam engine already existed. For example, in Britain, the more advanced Newcomen steam engine was made by blacksmith Newcomen and lead pipe maker Cally. As early as 1712, this steam engine was used for mine drainage. With the development of British capitalism, the demand for mineral resources in metallurgy increased, but the Newcomen engine was inefficient, and many mines were abandoned due to water accumulation. The rapid development of capitalist industry made the improvement of the steam engine an urgent issue.
In 1759, Watt heard from a friend that a steam engine was being prepared to power vehicles for increasingly busy freight transportation. This piqued Watt’s interest, and he began researching steam engine materials, understanding the state of steam engines already in use, and conducting a series of experiments on steam power. After some effort, Watt gained considerable knowledge about steam engines, but he had not yet engaged in practical reform or proposed any improvements.
In 1763, a model of the Newcomen steam engine in the university broke down, and Watt was asked to repair it. During the repair, he found that the boiler producing steam was large enough compared to the cylinder, but the steam only powered the piston a few times before condensing. With the help of two workers who had previously improved old steam engines, Watt analyzed all parts of the engine and identified the main reason for high steam consumption: the cylinder and piston were repeatedly heated and cooled. First, steam pushed the piston up, heating the cylinder and piston, then cold water cooled them down, causing steam to condense and the parts to cool, wasting a lot of steam. He also discovered that air inevitably mixed with the steam entering the cylinder, slowing the piston’s descent and affecting efficiency.
During the process of repairing the steam engine, Watt gradually formed ideas for improving it. In the following years, he conducted many experiments on the density, pressure, and temperature of water vapor and began reforming the steam engine. Initially, he tried to use heat-conducting wood, but failed. Then he had new ideas, hired assistants, and after hard work, built a steam engine that, however, leaked everywhere and could not operate at all. At this point, Watt was heavily in debt due to the experiments and could not continue. But capitalists, seeking profits and competition, wanted to develop production and needed to reform the steam engine. Soon, a coal mine capitalist willing to fund Watt’s experiments appeared, but several subsequent tests failed due to material and process issues. The costs were so high that the capitalist was unwilling to continue funding. Then, a major capitalist from Birmingham’s ironworks learned of Watt’s work and decided it was highly profitable, inviting Watt to produce steam engines in his ironworks. With the help of experienced mechanics, Watt spent three years repeatedly experimenting and finally produced a single-acting steam engine with a separate condenser and lubricated piston. This machine also used an improved air pump to exhaust air and residual water from the cylinder, increasing efficiency over the Newcomen engine.
The success of the steam engine reform was related to Watt’s long-term practical activities in reforming the steam engine, but “the reason why Watt and others’ inventions could be realized was only because these inventors found a considerable number of skilled mechanics who had already been prepared during the handicraft era.”[1] Only after the emergence of factory handicraft production relations, based on accumulated extensive technological experience, could the reform of the steam engine succeed. In fact, during the more than ten years of Watt’s reform, many workers repeatedly practiced with him and offered many reasonable suggestions. Ironworkers provided suitable metals for the steam engine; experienced gunsmiths and artillery workers solved the technical problems of manufacturing precise cylinders and pistons. Watt himself, at that time, was a humble instrument repairer in capitalist society, a member of the working people. His practical activity of improving the steam engine was also part of the social practice, connected with the practical activities of countless workers. Therefore, the improvement of the steam engine was a long-term achievement of the broad working masses.
The steam engine improved by Watt was officially put into production in 1774. Due to its much higher efficiency than previous models, it was soon widely used in mining. Mines that had been abandoned due to water accumulation were reactivated with this steam engine. However, this steam engine could only be used for pumping water and extracting saltwater, not as a general power machine for industrial use.
Capitalist production relations can only be truly established on the basis of large-scale mechanized industry. Therefore, transitioning to large-scale industrial production is an inevitable result of the development of capitalist production relations. Marx pointed out that advanced machine production consists of engines, transmission mechanisms, and machine tools or working machines. Since the invention of the “Jenny” spinning machine by textile worker Hargreaves in 1765, various machine tools have appeared one after another. The demand for more efficient power machinery became more urgent.
“It was precisely because of the creation of machine tools that the revolution of the steam engine became necessary.”[2] The increasing number of tools used in machine tools required greater power to drive them. In ancient times, animal, wind, and water power were used to drive tools, but horsepower was uneconomical, wind power was unstable, and water power was limited by water sources, flow rate, and seasons. The development of capitalist production urgently required a powerful, stable, and flexible power machine.
In the early 1780s, Watt designed several schemes for applying the steam engine to general industry. In 1781, another person invented a crank mechanism that converted linear motion into rotary motion. Watt adopted this method and, with workers, repeatedly tested it. After three failures, he finally produced a linkage-type steam engine in 1784 that had greater power and could drive general machinery. Once this steam engine appeared, it was immediately promoted across various industrial fields, and large machinery factories powered by steam engines were built that same year. It was soon applied to other industries: blast furnaces in ironmaking, water pumping and ore crushing in mines, and machinery in factories, as well as steam-powered trains and ships in transportation.
“The steam engine brought about a great liberating transformation in society”[3], further developing capitalist production relations, turning scattered rural workshops into centralized industrial cities. As a result, the productive forces of capitalism developed at an unprecedented speed.
In ancient times, humans invented friction-based fire-starting and converted mechanical motion into heat; the invention of the steam engine enabled humans to convert heat into mechanical motion. Without social practice demanding large power, this conversion would be impossible and unusable. As early as 120 BCE, Greek Hero invented a device that used water vapor to rotate a small ball. However, because there was no social need at the time, it was only a magic toy. In the 16th and 17th centuries, European capitalist industry began to rise, and blowers and air pumps were used in industry, accumulating knowledge about gases, pressure, and vacuum. Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, and more than twenty others had already envisioned and designed machines powered by steam, some designed to create vacuum and atmospheric pressure to pump water, others to use steam pressure for water jets, but without urgent social needs, most remained on paper. In 1680, Dutch scientist Huygens designed a piston and cylinder, attempting to use gunpowder explosions inside the cylinder to drive the piston. Later, his assistant Papin used water vapor instead of gunpowder and built the first steam engine, but because Europe’s production level was lower than Britain’s, and the need for large power was not urgent, their inventions remained experimental. In the second half of the 17th century, Britain’s metal smelting industry promoted mining development, and how to drain water from mines became a prominent problem. Driven by this need, a soldier-turned-miner named Savery, based on previous research, and with workers, built a steam engine specifically for mine drainage. Due to high fuel consumption and low efficiency, it was later replaced by the Newcomen steam engine. The utilization and improvement of the steam engine were first realized in Britain, the earliest industrial revolution, demonstrating that only when social practice has needs and conditions for technological development are mature, can Watt’s improvements to the steam engine occur. Even without Watt, others would have eventually transformed the steam engine. For example, Birmingham’s Hossbrough nearly simultaneously invented a double-cylinder steam engine. The steam engine is an inevitable product of social production reaching a certain level in history.
Of course, Marxists never deny the role of individuals in history. Watt made a historical contribution to the improvement of the steam engine because he responded to social practice needs, critically inherited previous achievements, personally participated in the reform of the steam engine, especially in collaborating with skilled mechanics, listening to others’ opinions, not fearing failure, persevering, and practicing repeatedly. Watt’s ideas for improving the steam engine were continuously refined and perfected through practice. It would be absurd to claim, as bourgeois ambitious and conspiratorial Lin Biao and double-dealers, traitors, and traitors do, that “good ideas are often like lightning, fleeting.” If Watt had not participated in the reform of the steam engine, just sitting in a room pondering, even if he watched the water vapor lift the kettle lid a thousand times, he would never have “inspired” the improved steam engine.
Watt also invented some other devices, such as centrifugal governors to regulate the speed of the steam engine, smoke eliminators, and steam hammers, all created in practice together with the working masses.
After the 1880s, Watt became famous and his status changed from a “humble” instrument repairer to the owner of Boulton-Watt Company, sharing one-third of the profits. The change in class status also changed his thinking, from a daring practitioner to a cowardly, conservative noble. He distanced himself from productive practice and from the workers who had practiced with him. Leaving the masses and social practice, he would inevitably achieve nothing. In his later years, Watt not only made no further inventions but also suppressed others’ inventions with “authority.” After 1800, he often lived in a rural villa far from the factory area, immersed in fame, status, and bourgeois luxury, until his death in 1819.
The facts of Watt’s reform of the steam engine tell us that scientific and technological inventions are by no means products of some “genius”'s “inspiration,” but are the result of long-term practical experience of the broad working people in the struggle of production; whether a scientific and technological invention can play a role, and how it does, depends not on the subjective wishes of individuals, but on the nature of social production relations. Capitalist production relations have historically played a role in promoting scientific and technological inventions and utilization. However, after capitalism entered the imperialist stage, monopoly economy dominated, and “it is also possible to artificially hinder technological progress” in the economic sphere.[4] Today, capitalist production relations have become a shackle on scientific and technological inventions and creations. Only the socialist system creates excellent conditions for fully utilizing the wisdom of workers, peasants, soldiers, and revolutionary intellectuals, opening up a vast space for scientific and technological inventions and creations.
Originally published in "Journal of Dialectics of Nature", 1974, Issue 2
Marx: “Capital,” Volume I, in “Marx and Engels Collected Works,” Vol. 23, first Chinese edition, People’s Publishing House, 1972. ↩︎
Same as above. ↩︎
Engels: “Anti-Duhring,” in “Marx and Engels Collected Works,” Vol. 20, first Chinese edition, People’s Publishing House, 1971. ↩︎
Lenin: “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” in “Selected Works of Lenin,” Vol. 2, second Chinese edition, People’s Publishing House, 1972. ↩︎
Watt also did not attend university; he invented the steam engine through practice. It reminds me of a quote from Zhang Chunqiao, who once said, “In fact, for thousands of years, those who truly contributed to the Chinese people were mostly graduates from non-key schools, or those who didn’t attend any school at all.”
The bourgeoisie always talks about Watt inventing the steam engine but never mentions the workers who invented and created it together with Watt, which is completely promoting reactionary genius theory. It also makes me think of myself before working in a chemical plant—thinking I was smart, but in reality, because I didn’t participate in production activities, I knew nothing about the operation of various pipelines in the chemical plant. Meanwhile, veteran workers with 20 years of factory work, though not highly educated, are proficient in the functions of all the pipelines.