Now we come to the part of Communism with which more people are familiar. At least, more people have heard about the Communist plan of action than the Communist philosophy of nature which we have just covered. Here are some questions that every student of Communism should be able to answer concerning the Marxist solution to world problems:
• Why did Marx and Engels think they had discovered an inexorable law in history which made it possible for them to predict the course of future human development?
• What is “Economic Determinism”? What is the “Activist Theory”? According to Marx and Engels is there any such thing as “free will”? Can men choose the kind of society in which they will live or are they victims of material forces which surround them?
• How did Marx and Engels explain human progress as a product of class struggle?
• What is the Communist theory of private property? Why is it considered a curse?
• How did Marx and Engels account for the origin of the State? Why did they think it was “unnatural”?
• How did they account for the origin of religion, morals and jurisprudence?
• What was supposed to be accomplished during the Communist “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”?
• Why do the Communists say “socialism” is only a temporary stage of human progress?
• How did they propose to develop a civilization which would consist of a classless, stateless society?
Today very few people have had occasion to sit down with a professional Communist and listen to his views. Should such an occasion arise the student would receive the immediate impression that a Communist has a reverential regard for the record of man’s past. This is because Marx and Engels thought their studies of the past had led them to discover an “inexorable law” which runs through all history like a bright red thread. They further believed that by tracing this thread it is possible to predict with positive assurance the pattern of man’s progress in the future.
What did Marx and Engels discover during their study of history? First of all they decided that self-preservation is the supreme instinct in man and therefore his whole pattern of human conduct must have been governed by an attempt to wrest the necessities of life from nature. It is a dialectical process—man against nature. This led them to a monumental conclusion: all historical developments are the result of “Economic Determinism”—man’s effort to survive. They said that everything men do—whether it is organizing a government, establishing laws, supporting a particular moral code or practicing religion—is merely the result of his desire to protect whatever mode of production he is currently using to secure the necessities of life. Furthermore, they believed that if some revolutionary force changes the mode of production, the dominant class will immediately set about to create a different type of society designed to protect the new economic order.
“Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views and conception, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of material existence…. What else does the history of ideas prove than that intellectual production changes in character in proportion as material production is changed?”{23}
To appreciate their point of view, it is necessary to understand Marx and Engels’ mechanistic conception of the way the human mind works. They said that after the brain receives impressions from the outside world, it automatically moves the individual to take action (this is their Activist Theory). They did not believe knowledge could be acquired without motivating the owner to do something about it. For example, when men became aware that slavery was a satisfactory way to produce crops, construct buildings and enjoy various kinds of services, this knowledge moved the dominant class to create a society which protected the interest of the slave owners. And in modern times Marx and Engels believed that the bourgeois or property class have done the same thing by instinctively creating a society to protect their capitalistic interests. As they said to the bourgeois in the Communist Manifesto:
“Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence (system of law) is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your class.”{24}
From this it will be seen that Marx and Engels did not believe that men could arbitrarily choose any one of several forms of society but only that one which promotes the prevailing mode of production. The very nature of man’s materialistic make-up requires him to do this. “Are men free to choose this or that form of society? By no means.”{25} According to Marx the thing which we call “free will” is nothing more nor less than an awareness of the impelling forces which move an individual to action; in taking action he is not free to change the course his very nature dictates.
“Communism has no idea of freedom as the possibility of choice, of turning to right or left, but only as the possibility of giving full play to one’s energy when one has chosen which way to turn.”{26}
In other words, human minds receive knowledge of existing economic circumstances and “choose” to turn in the direction which is necessary to preserve the current mode of production. They are then free only in the sense that they are moved to decide that they will expend vast quantities of energy in building a superstructure of government, morals, laws and religion which will perpetuate these basic economic circumstances. At the foundation of all activities of society lies “Economic Determinism.” “The mode of production in material life determined the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life.”{27}
Marx and Engels now felt they had discovered something much more vital to human welfare than simply a philosophical explanation of history. In fact, they believed they had identified Economic Determinism as the basic creative force in human progress. Having made this important discovery they felt that if they could somehow force upon mankind the influence of a highly perfected system of economic production it would automatically produce a highly perfected society which, in turn, would automatically produce a higher type of human being. In other words, they would reverse the Judaic-Christian approach which endeavors to improve humanity in order to improve society. Here again they were reaffirming their conviction that human beings are not the creators of society but its products: “The final causes of all social changes and political revolution are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s insight into eternal truth and justice… but in the economics of each particular epoch.”{28}
Therefore, Marx and Engels advocated a change in economic structure as the only valid way of improving society and refining the intellectual make-up of humanity. But how can a new, improved system of production and distribution be introduced among men? What historical procedure has Economic Determinism unconsciously followed to bring mankind to its present state of advancement?
Marx and Engels answered their own question by deciding that from earliest times the mode of production and the means of distribution have always produced two basic classes of people: those who owned the means of production and thereby became exploiters, and those who owned nothing and therefore had to sell or trade their physical labor to survive. The element of conflict between these two groups was identified by Marx and Engels as the basic force in history which has prompted the evolution of society toward ever-ascending levels of achievement.
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted… fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”{29}
Here again Marx and Engels were applying the principles of Dialectics. All past societies have been a combination of opposite force or classes—the exploiters and the exploited. The clash between them has always generated the dynamic force which has propelled society into some new development. The transition, they noted, was often accompanied by revolution and violence.
But must the course of human events always follow this never-ending cycle of clashes between the two opposing classes of society? Must there always be revolution to produce new orders which in turn are destroyed by revolution to produce others? Marx and Engels visualized a day when there would be unity among men instead of opposition, peace instead of war. Such a hope, of course, violated their own theory of dialectics which says nothing in nature can be at rest—everything is a unity of opposing forces. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels reasoned that since they had discovered the inexorable law of history with its self-improving device of class struggle, they would use one final, terrible class struggle for the purpose of permanently eliminating the thing which had caused all past conflicts in society. What is this one terrible feature of all past societies which has caused selfishness, jealousy, class struggle and war? Marx and Engels thought all of these things could be traced to one root—private property. If they used a final revolutionary class uprising to overthrow private property, it would mean that class struggle would become unnecessary because there would be nothing to fight over!
Why do Communists believe that private property is the root of all evil?
Engels wrote that in primitive times he believed all people followed the principle of common ownership of everything except the most personal belongings such as clothing and weapons. Then he felt that the domestication of land and flocks resulted in certain men producing more commodities than they required for themselves, and therefore they began exchanging these surplus items for other commodities which they lacked. He said these commodities used in exchange were naturally identified with the person who possessed them and thus the concept of private property was born.{30}
Engels then postulated that those who owned the land or other means of production would obviously reap the major profit from the economic resources of the community and ultimately this would place them in a position to hire other men to do their work. They would be able to dictate wages, hours and conditions of labor for their employees, thereby insuring their own freedom and social status while exploiting the toiling class. Therefore, said Engels, out of private property blossomed class antagonism with its entourage of camp followers: greed, pride, selfishness, imperialism and war. He said private property also had led to the necessity of creating the State.
Engels decided that when the non-property class had been exploited to the point where there was danger of revolt, the dominant class created an organ of power to maintain “law and order,” that is, a system of laws to protect the private property and advantages of the exploiting class. This new order, he said, is the State.
“The state, then, is… simply a product of society at a certain stage of evolution. It (the creation of any kind of government) is the confession that this society has become hopelessly divided against itself, has entangled itself in irreconcilable contradictions which it is powerless to banish.”{31}
Therefore the State is designed to postpone the day of judgment. Government is the “instrument of power”—the unnatural appendage to society—which is created for the express press purpose of protecting the privileged class and the private property it possesses from the just demands of the exploited class. Marx and Engels reasoned that if they somehow could eliminate private property, it would do away with class struggle, and then the state would no longer be necessary and it would gradually wither away.
Marx and Engels further believed that another great evil has grown out of private property—the exploitation of religion, They recognized, of course, that probably the roots of religion were established long before the institution of private property. However, they felt that since religion was not of divine origin it must have grown out of the frantic efforts of early man to explain the forces of nature and man’s psychic experiences such as dreams. When private property emerged as the foundation of society, they believed religion was seized upon as a device to put down the rebellion of the exploited class.
According to Marx it was the property class who wanted their workers to be taught humility, patience and long-suffering; to endure the wrongs heaped upon them with the hope that justice would be meted out “in the next life.” He said religion was made to serve as an opiate for the oppressed. The workers were told to “judge not” but to remain passive and dutiful toward their masters. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”{32}
This explains the presence of vigorous anti-religious campaigns in the Communist program: “One of the most important tasks of the Cultural Revolution affecting the wide masses is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion—the opium of the people.”{33} “There can be no doubt about the fact that the new state of the USSR is led by the Communist Party, with a program permeated by the spirit of militant atheism.”{34} “Have we suppressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated.”{35}
Up to this point Marx and Engels felt they had established that the evil of private property is responsible for the origin of class antagonisms, the creation of the State and the exploitation of religion. Now they attached a similar explanation to the origin and economic significance of morals. Engels and Marx denied that there could be any eternal basis for the moral standards of “right and wrong” set up in the Judaic-Christian code. Lenin summarized their ideas when he said: “In what sense do we deny ethics, morals? In the sense in which they are preached by the bourgeoisie, which deduces these morals from God’s commandments. Of course, we say that we do not believe in God. We know perfectly well that the clergy, the landlords, and the bourgeoisie all claimed to speak in the name of God, in order to protect their own interests as exploiters. We deny all morality taken from super-human or non-class concepts. We say that this is a deception, a swindle, a befogging of the minds of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landlords and capitalists.”{36}
The Marxists believe that “Thou Shalt Not Steal” and “Thou Shalt Not Covet” are examples of the dominant class trying to impose respect for property on the exploited masses who cannot help but covet the wealth and property of their masters. As Engels said: “Thou shalt not steal. Does this law thereby become an eternal moral law? By no means.”{37} They called such teachings “class” morality—a code designed to protect the property class.
But in rejecting the Judaic-Christian code of morals, Engels tried to represent that Communism was merely moving up to a higher level where human conduct will be motivated exclusively by the needs of society: “We say that our morality is wholly subordinated to the interest of the class-struggle of the proletariat.” But in spite of this attempt to delicately obscure the true significance of Communist moral thought, Engels could not prevent himself from occasionally unveiling the truth of what was in his mind: “We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma what-ever….”{38}
In other words, Communism undertakes to replace Judaic-Christian morals with a complete absence of morals. That this was exactly what later Communists deduced from the teachings of their leaders is demonstrated in the words of a modern American Marxist: “With him (the Communist) the end justifies the means. Whether his tactics be ‘legal’ or ‘moral’ or not, does not concern him, so long as they are effective. He knows that the laws as well as the current code of morals are made by his mortal enemies…. Consequently, he ignores them insofar as he is able, and it, suits his purposes. He proposes to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of ‘legality,’ ‘fairness,’ ‘right,’ etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have….”{39}
So now Marx and Engels had completed their original purposes in making an intensive study of history. They felt they had successfully explained the origin of the various institutions in society by showing that all of these were the product of Economic Determinism, and they felt they had traced to its source the cause of strife, inequity and injustice among men—private property. Only one task now remained for the master architects—to apply this knowledge to a “plan of action” which would permanently solve the economic, political and social ills of all mankind.
As Marx and Engels analyzed modern civilization they concluded that capitalistic society is rapidly reaching that point where a revolution is inevitable. This is the way they reasoned: After the overthrow of feudalism the capitalistic society came into being. At first it consisted primarily of individuals who owned their own land or their own workshops. Each man did his own work and reaped the economic benefits to which he was entitled. Then the industrial revolution came along and the private workshop was supplanted by the factory. Products no longer came from the private workshop but from the factory where the united effort of many individuals produced the commodity. Engels said manufacturing thereby became social production rather than private production. It was therefore wrong for private individuals to continue owning the factory because the factory had become a social institution. He argued that no private individual should get the profits from something which many people were required to produce.
“But,” critics asked, “do not the workers share in the profits of the factory through their wages?”
Marx and Engels did not believe that wages were adequate compensation for labor performed unless the workers received all the proceeds from the sale of the commodity. Since the hands of the workers produced the commodity they believed the workers should receive all the commodity was worth. They believed that the management and operation of a factory were only “clerical in nature” and that in the near future the working class should rise up and seize the factories or means of production and operate them as their own.
“But does not the investment of the capitalist entitle him to some profit? Without his willingness to risk considerable wealth would there be any factory?”
Marx and Engels answered this by saying that all wealth is created by the worker. Capital creates nothing. Marx and Engels believed that the reason certain men have been able to accumulate wealth is because they have taken away the fruits of the worker in the form of interest, rent or profits. They said this was “surplus value” which had been milked from the labor of men in the past and should be confiscated from the capitalists by the workers of the present.
Marx and Engels now dared to predict the ultimate trend of development in modern capitalistic civilization. They said that just as private workshops had been taken over by the factory, so the small factory would be taken over by the big combine. They said the monopoly of capital would continue until it was concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer men while the number of exploited workers would grow proportionately. And while a few were becoming richer and richer the exploited class would get poorer and poorer. They predicted that the members of the so-called middle class who own small shops and businesses would be squeezed out of economic existence because they could not compete with the mammoth business combines. They also predicted that the government would be the instrument of power which the great banks and industrial owners would use to protect their ill-gotten wealth and to suppress the revolt of the exploited masses.
In other words, all levels of society were being forced into the opposing camps of two antagonistic classes—the exploiting class of capitalistic property owners and the bitterly exploited class of the propertyless workers.
They further predicted that the revolutionary explosion between these two classes would be sparked by the inevitable advancement of technological improvements in capitalistic industry. The rapid invention of more and more efficient machines was bound to throw more and more workers out of employment and leave their families to starve or perhaps survive on a bare subsistence level. In due time there would be sufficient hatred, resentment and class antagonism to motivate the workers in forming militant battalions to overthrow their oppressors by violence so that the means of production and all private property could be seized by the workers and operated for their own advantage.
It is at this point that Communists and Socialists take different forks of the road. The Socialists have maintained from the beginning that centralized control of all land and industry can be achieved by peaceful legislation. Marx denounced this as a pipe dream. He held out for revolution. Nevertheless, he was quick to see some advantage in pushing forward any legislation which concentrated greater economic power in the central government. But he did not look upon such minor “victories of the Socialists” as anything more than a psychological softening up for the revolution which was to come.
Marx was particularly emphatic that this revolution must be completely ruthless to be successful. It must not be a “reform” because reforms always end up by “substituting one group of exploiters for another” and therefore the reformers feel “no need to destroy the old state machine; whereas the proletarian revolution removes all groups of exploiters from power and places in power the leader of the toilers and exploited… therefore it cannot avoid destroying the old state machine and replacing it by a new one.”{40}
Marx further justified the use of violence to bring about the new society because he felt that if moral principles were followed the revolution would be abortive. He pointed to the failure of the Socialist Revolution in France during 1871: “Two errors robbed the brilliant victory of its fruit. The proletariat stopped half-way: instead of proceeding with the ‘expropriation of the expropriators,’ it was carried away with dreams of establishing supreme justice in the country…. The second error was unnecessary magnanimity of the proletariat: instead of annihilating its enemies, it endeavored to exercise moral influence on them.”{41}
Marx attempted to soften the blow of his doctrine of violence by stating that he would be perfectly satisfied if the capitalistic state could be transformed into a Communist society by peaceful means; however, he pointed out that this would be possible only if the capitalists voluntarily surrendered their property and power to the representatives of the workers without a fight. He logically concludes that since this is rather unlikely it must be assumed that revolutionary violence is unavoidable.
Marx and Engels were also convinced that the revolution must be international in scope. They knew that all countries would not be ready for the revolution at the same time, but all Marxist writers have emphasized the “impossibility of the complete and final victory of socialism in a single country without the victory of the revolution in other countries.”{42}
Since they now believed a revolution was inevitable, the next question Marx and Engels asked was this: Should they wait for it to come in the normal course of events or should they take steps to promote the revolution and speed up the evolution of society toward Communism? Marx and Engels decided that it had become their manifest duty to see that the revolution was vigorously promoted. Why prolong the suffering? The old society was doomed. In the light of the principles discovered by Marx and Engels perhaps the race could be saved a dozen generations of exploitation and injustice simply by compressing this entire phase of social evolution into a single generation of violent readjustment.
They felt it could be done in three steps: First, by wiping out the old order. “There is but one way of simplifying, shortening, concentrating the death agony of the old society as well as the bloody labor of the new world’s birth—Revolutionary Terror.”{43} Second, the representatives of the working class must then set up a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Joseph Stalin described the things which must be accomplished during this period of the dictatorship:
1. Completely suppress the old capitalist class.
2. Create a mighty army of “defense” to be used “for the consolidation of the ties with the proletarians of other lands, and for the development and the victory of the revolution in all countries.”
3. Consolidate the unity of the masses in support of the Dictatorship.
4. Establish universal socialism by eliminating private property and preparing all mankind for the ultimate adoption of full Communism.{44}
Third, the final step is the transition from socialism to full Communism. Socialism is characterized by state owner ship of land and all means of production. Marx and Engels believed that after awhile when class consciousness has disappeared and there is no further resistance to be overcome, the state will gradually wither away and then property will automatically belong to all mankind “in common.” Later Lenin explained how the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would pave the way for this final phase. He said the dictatorship would be “an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another…. But, striving for Socialism, we are convinced that it will develop further into Communism, and, side by side with this, there will vanish all need for force, for the subjection of one man to another, of one section of society to another, since people will grow accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social existence without force and without subjection.”{45}
Even in the latter stages of Socialism, Lenin visualized a world without courts, lawyers, judges, rulers, elected representatives or even policemen. All these would be swept down into the limbo of forgotten and useless appendages which characterized the old order of decadent capitalism. Lenin said the spontaneous homogeneity of the socialized masses would make all the machinery of the old order superfluous. He felt that the new society would even change human nature until resistance to the communal society would become “a rare exception and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are men of practical life, not sentimental intellectuals, and they will scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), and very soon the necessity of observing the simple, fundamental rules of everyday social life in common will have become a habit. The door will then be open for the transition from the first phase of communism to the higher phase (full Communism).”{46}
All Marxists fervently hope that the new society will produce the changes in human nature which are necessary before full Communism can become a reality. Individuals must forget that there was ever a time when income could be secured from the mere ownership of property or from productive labor. In other words, wages will be abolished. They must forget that some people once received very large incomes while others received small ones. They must lose any hope of a graduated pay-scale for differences in productivity or service. They must forget all about differences in skill, training, and mental or physical abilities. They must come around to the notion that, if man does the best he can in the best type of work for which he is fitted, he is just as good and just as deserving of income as any other man regardless of differences in productivity and output.
This is the Communist promise that, “Each will produce according to his ability and each will receive according to his need.” He must give up his old profit-motive incentive and become socially minded so that he will work as hard as he can for the benefit of society as a whole and at the same time be content to receive, as a reward for his work, an amount of income based on his needs in consumption.
Marx and Engels presumed that under such a system the output of production would be so tremendous that they could dispense with markets, money and prices. Commodities would be stockpiled at various central places, and all individuals who worked would be entitled to help themselves on the basis of their needs. Marx and Engels felt there would be no particular incentive to take more than was needed at any one time because, due to the superabundance of commodities, the worker could replenish his desires at will. Services were likewise to be dispensed at convenient places and individuals could call for these services as they felt they were needed.
Under these pleasant circumstances, the Marxist writers explain, the government machinery of the State will no longer be necessary:
“Only Communism renders the state absolutely unnecessary, for there is no one to be suppressed—‘no one’ in the sense of a class, in the sense of a systematic struggle with a definite section of the population. We are not Utopians (believing that society can function on a sublime level of perfection), and we do not in the least deny the possibility and inevitability of excesses on the part of individual persons, nor the need to suppress such excesses. But, in the first place, no special machinery, no special apparatus of repression is needed for this: this will be done by the armed people itself, as simply and as readily as any crowd of civilized people, even in modern society, parts a pair of combatants or does not allow a woman to be outraged. And, secondly, we know that the fundamental social cause of excesses… is the exploitation of the masses, their want and their poverty. With the removal of this chief cause, excesses will inevitably begin to ‘wither away.’ We do not know how quickly and in what succession, but we know that they will wither away. With their withering away, the state will also wither away.”{47}
It is significant that Communist theory treats the proletariat as though it were a unique branch of the human race. The proletariat is assumed to be a special breed which would almost automatically blossom into pleasant, efficient social-economic living if it could just be liberated from oppressive government. The government is presumed to be nothing more than the tool of an oppressive class of capitalists and consequently, if the capitalist class were destroyed, the need for any kind of government would be obliterated. The Communist leaders have always felt confident that when the proletariat takes over it will not want to oppress anyone and therefore the need for government will be nonexistent.
It is also worthy of note that Lenin wanted the proletariat to be an “armed people.” This prospect did not frighten Lenin at all. He had unmitigated confidence that the members of the proletariat would never abuse their power as the capitalists had done. Furthermore, Lenin assumed that the proletariat had the instinctive capacity to recognize justice on sight. Not only would they use their weapons to put down any nonsocial acts in the community by spontaneous “mass action,” but Lenin believed they would genuinely and heroically suppress any selfish, nonsocial tendencies in themselves. They would have acquired the “habit” of living in a communal social order and would have grown “accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social existence without force and without subjection.”
Lenin then says that with the machinery of government gone and with the Communist pattern of a classless, stateless society established throughout the world, finally “it becomes possible to speak of freedom!”{48}