I don't understand this quote

[Rugged Collectivist]

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

How can you "[abolish] the present state of things" without establishing a predetermined state of affairs? How can you have a "real movement" without a goal?

I don't disagree with the last sentence.

[The Intransigent Faction]

In short he was comparing utopian socialism to scientific socialism and favouring the latter. It's not about building a utopia, but about a very practical building of a different kind of society (practicality which he explains in the last sentence---practical because necessary).

[piet11111]

What i take from this is that the communist movement needs to be practical and working from what is there to achieve their goals

"We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."

compared to the utopian socialists/reformists

"not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself"

So he is saying not to sit on your butt waiting for social democracy that promises socialism "sometime in the future" when conditions are ripe.

[Rugged Collectivist]

In short he was comparing utopian socialism to scientific socialism and favouring the latter. It's not about building a utopia, but about a very practical building of a different kind of society (practicality which he explains in the last sentence---practical because necessary).

but isn't the "practical building of a different kind of society" still establishing a state of affairs? You still have a goal that you're working towards and you have to have at least a rough idea of what this society is going to look like


What i take from this is that the communist movement needs to be practical and working from what is there to achieve their goals

"We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."

compared to the utopian socialists/reformists

"not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself"

So he is saying not to sit on your butt waiting for social democracy that promises socialism "sometime in the future" when conditions are ripe.

How does being practical negate the idea that you're trying to achieve a state of affairs? How can you abolish "the present state of things" without creating a new "state of things", and why would this new state of things not be considered a state of affairs? Is he saying that the goal of the communist movement is to smash capitalism with no regard for the state of things after that? Am I just reading it too literally?

I don't see how the part about social democracy follows from the quote.

[RedWorker]

I suggest to not try to over-examine quotes, and to not put so much importance on one quote, but to rather focus on the overall.

[piet11111]

"Communism is for us not a situation which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present situation."

Perhaps using 2 different ways to mean the same thing was not so handy for Marx.

[Hermes]

Going off of what Brad said re: the comparison between Utopian and Scientific Socialism, I think Marx is saying that communism isn't something that we've planned out, we don't know exactly what the state of affairs after the abolition of capitalism will look like, unlike the communes, etc, that others put into place as an 'ideal way of living'.

So, when he says that communism is not 'an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself', he's attacking the notion that, alright, capitalism is abolished, it's time to 'build communism'. That is, after capitalism is abolished, we won't be molding reality into this ideal society, I guess.

Communism will result from the abolition of capitalism.

But I'm probably wrong, iunno. Or bad at explaining what I think, or both.

[Five Year Plan]

I think a lot of the responses have danced around the meaning of the quote, while still making good observations about it. What you really need to remember is that in the 1840s, Marx was still writing in a context where visions of transforming society were dominated, at least in Marx's immediate circle, by petty-bourgeois intellectuals who thought that the goal was to draw up specific and seemingly arbitrary plans about how society was to be organized. These were the Utopian Socialists already mentioned by other posters in this thread. Another prominent group who thought they were uber-radical were the Young Hegelians (employing their "self-criticism"), who arrived at basically the same conclusion: the "masses" were to be countered by philosophy of the kind that was borne and bred in the German academy of the 19th century.

That quote of Marx's you highlight, more than anything else, is him saying: You fuckers better step back and realize that socialism will be established by the working class in their movement against capitalism, not by some ridiculous cock-eyed theory cooked up in some pretty looking academic building. It seems obvious to us now on this forum, but at the time, it didn't earn Marx many friends, at least not among the people he typically associated with.

The real movement were the workers he had associated with and met and solidarized with, who really were struggling against capitalism, not just writing about it abstractly from a campus overlooking a well-manicured lawn.

[Kill all the fetuses!]

I think it's a rather simple quote, which has already been explained quite well by previous posters, so I will be simply summarizing, maybe adding bits:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself."

As others have noted, this is merely an attack on Utopian Socialists who had an idea in their heads about how perfect society should look like and then went on to implement that idea in reality. You can think here of Robert Owen buying a city in the U.S. and inviting people to live according to his rules and ideas.

"We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence."

The crucial point here, which I am not sure if was mentioned in this thread thus far, is that communism, that is Marxian communism, scientific communism, has grounds in material reality. Communism exists not because Marx, Engels or someone else has worked it out in their heads, not because there is some grand idea in someone's heads how communism might look like. Communism is not a blueprint for some utopian society, but it's a real movement, grounded in material reality and it's real and grounded in material reality, because of the existence of proletariat.

In other words, communism as a real movement exists only in so far as there exists a proletariat, which has real and objective economic interest in abolishing capitalism. Scientific communism is merely a theoretical expression of what already exists in material reality independent of anyone's ideas, i.e. it's an expression of a class struggle between the proletariat and capitalists.

[Tim Cornelis]

Communism is not an abstract philosophy drawn up by the minds of great thinkers and society having to adjust itself to, or adopt these ideals through the power of ideas and persuasion. Communism is not consciously designed policies that need to be enacted, and it is not voluntaristic in that it can be willed in (or out) of existence as for instance Stalinists implicitly argue. Communism emerges, automatically and organically, from the social dynamics of capitalist society itself, not philosophical abstractions. How?


transformation of industry, at first be means of simple cooperation and manufacture. Concentration of the means of production, hitherto scattered, into great workshops. As a consequence, their transformation from individual to social means of production — a transformation which does not, on the whole, affect the form of exchange. The old forms of appropriation remain in force. The capitalist appears. In his capacity as owner of the means of production, he also appropriates the products and turns them into commodities. Production has become a social act. Exchange and appropriation continue to be individual acts, the acts of individuals. The social product is appropriated by the individual capitalist. Fundamental contradiction, whence arise all the contradictions in which our present-day society moves, and which modern industry brings to light.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

There is a fundamental primary contradiction of socialised production and capitalist or individual appropriation in capitalism through which all sorts of secondary contradictions emerge, such as " an antagonism between the organization of production in the individual workshop and the anarchy of production in society generally" and "The contradiction between socialized production and capitalistic appropriation manifested itself as the antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie." Capitalism prepares society for communism through its own development which accelerates these contradictions. These are "the premises now in existence". Communism emerges as the solution to these contradictions:


III. Proletarian Revolution Solution of the contradictions. The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible. The development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. In proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at the same time the lord over Nature, his own master — free.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm

Communism is not an ideal it is a movement originating from capitalism's internal contradictions.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

A part of the quote which has not been directly addressed is the idea that the basic principles of communism already exist. There is a class in existence (the proletariat) with minimal personal property and, to a large extent, no private property (private property here construed as Capital). The proletariat is called upon to work collectively in the factory floor, as opposed to previous classes who worked individually. It is only inevitable that individuals within the proletariat will seek to collectivize the ownership of factories which are already worked collectively, which is the seed of the mass movement to overturn the previous mode of production.

This then ties in to what others were saying regarding utopian socialism - there is no need for an Owen to build socialist communes as the factory floors themselves are collectivized in terms of their operations, or for idealists to posit abstract models of how people "should" interact. All that is needed is for the proletariat to resolve the contradiction between this and the private ownership of these factories.

[RedMaterialist]

Communism is not an ideal society created in the imagination, but an objective, real action to destroy the capitalist state.

[G4b3n]

This pertains to the material conception of history. For Marxists, regardless of the abstract, bourgeois society is composed of an existing class structure which will resolve its own internal contradictions. The oppressed will struggle against the oppressors regardless of ideology and what we wish to build. We can see this to be true of past societies. The bourgeoisie did not have a "goal" when they persisted in combating the old feudal regimes, they were simply acting upon their class interests according to their position in society. So for Marx, these things are going to happen, it is not a matter of predetermining a course, but understanding the progression of society in accordance with how it changes, which is essentially the core of dialectics in general.

[Rugged Collectivist]

So I was reading it too literally.

[ckaihatsu]

How can you "[abolish] the present state of things" without establishing a predetermined state of affairs? How can you have a "real movement" without a goal?

I don't disagree with the last sentence.





Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.


One could *also* interpret this as something to be taken *recurringly*, where 'reality' is continuously being revolutionized, but with current reality as the necessary starting point. It would be like checking back with it daily and updating facts according to developments in the empirical world, to reflect changes in the overall class struggle.