Leftism and morality

[Narodnik]

In the start of the 19th century Socialist Sunday School movement existed in Britain, established by people who were members of SDF, SPGB and ILP, and they had their "Socialist commandments":

1. Love your schoolfellows, who will be your fellow workmen in life.
2. Love learning, which is the food of the mind; be as grateful to your teacher as to your parents.
3. Make every day holy by good and useful deeds and kindly actions.
4. Honour good men, be courteous to all men, bow down to none.
5. Do not hate or speak evil of anyone. Do not be revengeful but stand up for your right and resist oppression.
6. Do not be cowardly. Be a friend to the weak and love justice.
7. Remember that all good things of the earth are produced by labour. Whoever enjoys them without working for them is stealing the bread of the workers.
8. Observe and think in order to discover the truth. Do not believe what is contrary to reason and never deceive yourself or others
9. Do not think that he who loves his own country must hate and despise other nations, or wish for war, which is a remnant of barbarism.
10. Look forward to the day when all men and women will be free citizens of one fatherland and live together as brothers and sisters in peace and righteousness.


On the 22nd congress of the CPSU, a new programme was issued that had in it the "Moral codex of the builder of communism":

1. Devotion to the cause of Communism, love of the socialist Motherland and of the socialist countries.
2. Conscientious labor for the good of society: he who does not work, neither shall he eat.
3. Concern on the part of everyone for the preservation and growth of public property.
4. High sense of public duty; intolerance of actions harmful to the public interest.
5. Collectivism and comradely mutual assistance: one for all and all for one.
6. Humane relations and mutual respect between individuals: man is to man a friend, a comrade, and a brother.
7. Honesty and truthfulness, moral purity, unpretentiousness and modesty in social and private life.
8. Mutual respect in the family, concern for the upbringing of children.
9. Irreconcilability towards injustice, parasitism, dishonesty, careerism, and profiteering.
10. Friendship and brotherhood among all peoples of the USSR, intolerance of national and racial hatred.
11. Intolerance towards the enemies of communism, peace, and freedom of nations.
12. Fraternal solidarity with the working people of all countries, and with all peoples.


On the 7th congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the "Ten commandments of socialist morality" were announced:

1. Thou shalt always defend the international solidarity of the working class as well as the permanent bonds that unite all socialist countries.
2. Thou shalt love thy Fatherland and always be ready to defend worker and peasant power with all thy strength and capacity.
3. Thou shalt help to eliminate the exploitation of humans by one another.
4. Thou shalt perform good deeds for socialism, since socialism produces a better life for all working people.
5. Thou shalt act in the spirit of mutual support and comradely cooperation during the construction of socialism, respect the collective, and take its criticisms to heart.
6. Thou shalt protect and increase the property of the people.
7. Thou shalt always pursue ways to improve thy performance, be thrifty, and strengthen socialist work discipline.
8. Thou shalt rear thy children in the spirit of peace and socialism to become citizens who are well-educated, strong in character, and physically healthy.
9. Thou shalt live a clean and decent life and respect thy family.
10. Thou shalt exhibit solidarity with all those people who are fighting for national liberation and defending their independence.


Do you know of any other similar publications? And what do you think about these texts?

[Deity]

I don't think we need "commandments", but I do wish people could live like this.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Some of these "rules" are useful guidelines in the context of a proletarian revolutionary struggle, defense of the revolution, and the construction of a socialist society, but since both the KPSS and the SED had abandoned the proletarian standpoint by the time these documents were issued, trying to become "parties of the entire people", they are presented as some immutable supra-class morality - a notion that is entirely opposed to materialism. How were these supra-class moral rules discovered? Has some deity dictated them, or were they deduced from the most refined bourgeois caricature of the human mind?

Not to mention that "moral purity" and "strength of character" included opposition to unrestricted abortion, general misogyny, homophobia and so on.

[ind_com]

Prob'ly doesn't sound like a list of commandments but here goes:

CHAPTER-4: RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF PARTY MEMBERS


The Duties of the Party Members :

Article – 15: He/she shall study and apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism lively. In the concrete condition of India, he/she must be creative, firm and capable in practice. He/she should try to develop his/her consciousness from the rich experiences of party’s ideological, political and organizational line as well as style and method of work.

Article – 16: He/she shall defend and try to develop ideological and political basis of the party and shall consistently wage ideological and political struggle against various types of non proletarian trends, revisionist policies, trends and style of work; ‘left’ and right opportunism, economism, spontaneity, parliamentarianism, legalism, reformism, liberalism, sectarianism, empiricism, subjectivism, dogmatism and anarchist concepts and trends.

Article – 17: He/she must study party organs, documents and magazines regularly and must take initiative in popularizing party’s literature and collecting party fund.

Article – 18: Party members must take part actively and regularly in the day-to-day work of those party units and organizations to which they are attached. They must following party line, programme, policies, principles, directives and decisions.

Article – 19: Every member must be ready to participate and play a vanguard role in class struggle in the form of armed agrarian revolutionary war i.e. Protracted People’s War and other forms of revolutionary mass struggles. They must be prepared to take part in war and give leadership in Protracted People’s War for seizure of political power.

Article – 20: He/she must subordinate his/her personal interests to the interests of the party and the people. Party members must fight for the interests of the great masses of the people, must integrate with broad masses, learn from them, rely upon them and strengthen the party relations with the broad masses. He/she must be true servant of the people, sacrifice everything for them and must go to the people for taking the solution of their problems i.e. keep to the principle of “from the masses to the masses”. He/she must be concerned about the problems of the people, try for their solutions, intimate all those things to the party in time and explain the party line and policies to them. If he/she is coming from other than proletariat class, should declass himself/herself with the proletarian ideology by taking part in the task of agrarian revolution and adopting the life style of proletariat.

Article – 21: He/She must not practice on own will, and should relentlessly fight with a proletarian class outlook against discrimination based on gender, caste, nationality, religion, race, region and tribe, and ruling class policies of divide and rule.

Article – 22: With the aim of helping each other, he/she must develop the method of collective functioning by comradely criticism and self-criticism. He/she must have attitude to work even with those who raise criticism and hold different views and be able at unite with the great majority, including those who have opposed them but are sincerely correcting their mistakes.

Article – 23: He/She must accept firmly in theory and practice -party unity, party committee functioning and party discipline.
He/She must safeguard the secrecy of the party. He/She must defend the party and hold its cause against the onslaught of the enemy. He/she must safeguard the unity of the party against factionalism. He/She must develop professional attitude towards his/her revolutionary work and must develop his/her level of skills, knowledge and proletarian out look.

Article – 24: The Rights of the Party Members:

a) The right to elect and to be elected to party committees at the concerned levels.

b) The right to get Party Magazines, documents, circulars, etc., and the right to freely discuss in the party meetings and party organs about the political and organizational line, policies and decisions of the party and about problems arising in implementing them.

c) In case of any disagreement with the decision of the committee/unit, a member of the concerned committee/unit, must remain loyal to carry out the decision, may retain his/her dissenting opinion and demand resettlement of the issue in any subsequent meeting or may even send his/her opinion to higher committees, including the central committee, for consideration through his/her respective party unit, when the respective committee fails to solve the problem within six months, he/she has the right to send his/her opinion directly and the right to get reply also. It is, however, the discretion of the committee to decide whether to reopen the matter or not.

d) Any member has the right to send criticism against any other party member not in his/her unit to the next higher committee. Any party member has the right to send criticism and suggestions on the decisions taken by any party committee up to Central Committee through the next higher committee.

e) The duties and rights of the candidate members and party members are identical but for one difference. The candidate members have no right to elect or to be elected or to vote.

f) In case of punishment to any unit or party member, detailed explanation and discussion regarding the specific case must be conducted in his/her presence and information regarding decision must be sent to the higher committee in writing.

(2004 Party Constitution, CPI(Maoist) )