bolshevik1917
23rd October 2002, 12:15
The transition from capitalism to communism and the question of ‘will communism work’ by igor
As Marxists we are always asked a number of questions about our beliefs. This can range from “what would a communist society look like” or “how do we achieve socialism” to “do you know millions died under Stalin” and “what is wrong with the way we live now”. We are also often ‘told’ certain things by sceptical persons to ‘expose’ our theories as utopian and rather childish, ever heard the one “communism wouldn’t work”?
And so this brings me to attempt this pamphlet, in which I (with the aid of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky) will try to simplify the basic plan of transition from capitalism to communism. From where we are now, to where we can go, and to how far we can get.
There are different versions of how socialism can be achieved. Many sects spend their lives in the debating hall arguing over a few relatively unimportant differences between the great teachers of Marxism. They are however ‘put in their place’ by Marx himself when he said. "Since it is not for us to create a plan for the future that will hold for all time, all the more surely, what we contemporaries have to do is the uncompromising critical evaluation of all that exists, uncompromising in the sense that our criticism fears neither its own results nor the conflict with the powers that be."
Firstly we will not waste our time on the subject ‘why capitalism does not work’ (the chances are we have already established this) Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky produced a library of books on the subject, if you are in doubt then read one, read as many as you like. Even simpler, switch on your television, the chances are something bad has happened or is happening. And so we will move on to the more important questions that await us. Firstly I will quote Marx’s presentation of the question on the subject.
"Present-day society' is capitalist society, which exists in all civilised countries, being more or less free from medieval admixture, more or less modified by the particular historical development of each country, more or less developed. On the other hand, the 'present-day state' changes with a country's frontier. It is different in the Prusso-German Empire from what it is in Switzerland, and different in England from what it is in the United States. 'The present-day state' is, therefore, a fiction.
"Nevertheless, the different states of the different civilised countries, in spite of their motley diversity of form, all have this in common, that they are based on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed. The have, therefore, also certain essential characteristics in common. In this sense it is possible to speak of the 'present-day state', in contrast with the future, in which its present root, bourgeois society, will have died off.
"The question then arise: what transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousandfold combination of the word people with the word state."
And of course, to say we do not need a form of ‘transition’ between capitalism and communism is ridiculous, yet there are believe it or not a few tiny sects who do. They would argue that because there is now enough resources to go round, conditions exist to walk out of today’s dog eat dog capitalist society, into a completely democratic classless society without money, wages, countries, ‘as long as the working class in its entirety wants it’. Sounds great! But is this practical? The fact that most of them have stated that such a ‘revolution’ would take around one thousand years (minimum) is enough to tell us. No, we will not sit and wait, we will not lie back without struggle, we will not follow the steps of renegades like Kautsky who seemed so determined to remove all revolutionary spirit from the ideas and theories of Marxism.
As we know, the working class is generally not revolutionary now. But we are not short-sighted people, we are Marxists, and therefore have an understanding of dialectical materialism – the theory of change and process. The Greek philosopher Hericlita once pointed out that if you step into a stream, step out and then back in again, it is not the same stream as before and even as you stand is changing around you. This is in a way similar to society, it constantly moves around us and every thing we do, even the tiniest thing, can have all sorts of effects in the near or distant future. But of course dialectics is a whole subject of its own. The fact remains here that with the constant oppression of one class from another, every pay cut, every job loss, the constant struggle, the whole rat race of life under the whole capitalist system the working class cannot avoid becoming revolutionary at one stage or another.
Lenin’s view on the inevitability of a working class revolution, and the conditions that were needed for it are highlighted in his book ‘left wing communism, and infantile disorder’.
“For a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the "lower classes" do not want to live in the old way and the "upper classes" cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph. This truth can be expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters). It follows that, for a revolution to take place, it is essential, first, that a majority of the workers (or at least a majority of the class-conscious, thinking, and politically active workers) should fully realise that revolution is necessary, and that they should be prepared to die for it; second, that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics (symptomatic of any genuine revolution is a rapid, tenfold and even hundredfold increase in the size of the working and oppressed masses -- hitherto apathetic -- who are capable of waging the political struggle), weakens the government, and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to rapidly overthrow it.”
And so we have established that the workers revolution is inevitable at one stage or another, to quote Marx “Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society”. When covering the oppression of one class (the ruling class) on another (the working class) Marx states that “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. It’s fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”
The revolution of the working class is of course essential to the whole concept of communism, it is however only the first stages of our ultimate goal, and by no means has anything yet been achieved. It is true to say that after a revolution things can swing either way, to socialism or to barbarism. And as the working class in its revolutionary form bursts out from the womb of capitalism it must enter an organised period of transition in which many old rules remain intact, this however is essential if the revolutionary and victorious workers are to avoid any form of barbarism.
Lenin and Marx often pointed out the need for this period, which in many cases is called ‘socialism’
"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." Said Marx
He was backed up many years later by Lenin, who continued "The first fact that has been established most accurately by the whole theory of development, by science as a whole -- a fact that was ignored by the utopians, and is ignored by the present-day opportunists, who are afraid of the socialist revolution -- is that, historically, there must undoubtedly be a special stage, or a special phase, of transition from capitalism to communism. "
This revolutionary period of socialism is by no means a final and complete communist society, but the beginning of a fairer society in which the working class begin to purge and cleanse the dirt and repair the damage that was administered under years of capitalist oppression. Lenin spoke on this period in his book ‘the state and revolution’ in which he states "Democracy means equality. The great significance of the proletariat's struggle for equality and of equality as a slogan will be clear if we correctly interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labor and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing father, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". By what stages, by means of what practical measures humanity will proceed to this supreme aim we do not and cannot know. But it is important to realise how infinitely mendacious is the ordinary bourgeois conception of socialism as something lifeless, rigid, fixed once and for all, whereas in reality only socialism will be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly mass forward movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the population, in all spheres of public and private life. "
The first stage of communist society
"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes." Pointed out Marx as he spoke about this ‘first stage’ of communist society. This new society of course can not yet provide us with such rules as ‘each according to his ability, each according to his needs’ because there is still a number of people in society who would sabotage and abuse it. For how can we trust the former fat cat businessmen, the religious fanatics, the petty bourgeoisie, and the people who have spent their lives scrounging from society, contributing no work. How can we now ask them to work for the good of society, to contribute however much they can and to take as much as they need freely without authority. Lenin here uses a quote by Marx to explain why trying to ‘apply’ full-scale communism shortly after a revolution is impossible. “People are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:
"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."
The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production -- the factories, machines, land, etc. -- and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about "equality" and "justice" in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the "injustice" of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).”
Therefore the workers must now set themselves up as a state, and maintain authority to prevent a counter-revolution rearing its ugly head. As Lenin pointed out "It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the "first", or lower, phase of communist society.
The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it. "
Lenin then continues "And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent -- and to that extent alone -- "bourgeois law" disappears. However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realised; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realised. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.
This is a "defect", says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.
Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.
The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.
But the state has not yet completely withered away, since thee still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary. "
Marx virtually sums up Lenin’s words when he adds "But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."
So unlike the anarchists, the petty bourgeoisie ultra-lefts and other such sectarian minorities we do not just abolish all laws and regulations worldwide, to do such a thing at this stage would be madness. Under the ‘dictatorship of the working class’ potential sabotagers of the revolution can be exposed and dealt with. As society as a whole is now improving, production and living conditions are going up, working hours and poverty are going down. Such an improvement would be noticeable as to the point where we would see the dinosaurs of human culture like religion begin to wither away, for without oppression and desperation, what need is there to seek answers in an illusion.
‘But the state and law is still very much intact, therefore how can we now have a complete democratic communist society?’ Asks the anarchist, who believes the state should simply be destroyed and never replaced in a revolution. As the state is a machine which is set up to oppress by one class to oppress another, we have no desire to make the state a permanent feature in our final communist society. Here the ‘withering away’ of the state is covered by Lenin. "The expression "the state withers away" is very well-chosen, for it indicates both the gradual and the spontaneous nature of the process. Only habit can, and undoubtedly will, have such an effect; for we see around us on millions of occassions how readily people become accustomed to observing the necessary rules of social intercourse when there is no exploitation, when there is nothing that arouses indignation, evokes protest and revolt, and creates the need for suppression.
And so in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord.”
Again, without a certain degree of law and order which is enforced by the armed working class we could not make working for the good of society a habit .It would then in turn, remain a chore, in which case without any pressure no one would contribute ‘according to his ability’ whilst at the same time take much more than ‘his needs’. Lenin again covers the subject here. "In its first phase, or first stage, communism cannot as yet be fully mature economically and entirely free from traditions or vestiges of capitalism. Hence the interesting phenomenon that communism in its first phase retains "the narrow horizon of bourgeois law". Of course, bourgeois law in regard to the distribution of consumer goods inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing the observance of the rules of law.
It follows that under communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois law, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie!
This may sound like a paradox or simply a dialectical conundrum of which Marxism is often accused by people who have not taken the slightest trouble to study its extraordinarily profound content.
But in fact, remnants of the old, surviving in the new, confront us in life at every step, both in nature and in society. And Marx did not arbitrarily insert a scrap of "bourgeois" law into communism, but indicated what is economically and politically inevitable in a society emerging out of the womb of capitalism. "
‘So what about the wages system’ pipes up the ultra-Marxist, taking a break from debating with other tiny sects ‘if the wages system and money still exists then the workers are not seeing the full fruits of their labor and are still being exploited no matter how good their earnings!’
Yes, Mr ultra-Marxist, friend of the bourgeoisie who is so keen to condemn any form of revolution because his robotic and unpractical application of theory to real life is non-existent. This question of money and wages is answered perfectly by Trotsky.
"In a communist society, the state and money will disappear. Their
gradual dying away ought consequently to begin under socialism. We shall be able to speak of the actual triumph of socialism
only at that historical moment when the state turns into a semi-state, and money begins to lose its magic power. This will mean
that socialism, having freed itself from capitalist fetishes, is beginning to create a more lucid, free and worthy relation among
men. Such characteristically anarchist demands as the "abolition" of money, "abolition" of wages, or "liquidation" of the state and
family, possess interest merely as models of mechanical thinking. Money cannot be arbitrarily "abolished", nor the state and the
old family "liquidated". They have to exhaust their historic mission, evaporate, and fall away. The deathblow to money fetishism
will be struck only upon that stage when the steady growth of social wealth has made us bipeds forget our miserly attitude
toward every excess minute of labor, and our humiliating fear about the size of our ration. Having lost its ability to bring
happiness or trample men in the dust, money will turn into mere bookkeeping receipts for the convenience of statisticians and for planning purposes. In the still more distant future, probably these receipts will not be needed. But we can leave this question
entirely to posterity, who will be more intelligent than we are.". Comrade Trotsky is absolutely correct here, you see we do not ‘abolish the wages system’ or ‘abolish money’ but prepare the road for future generations to make this decision whenever humanity is prepared (e.g. when it has been purged of all its capitalist scars). Like the state, money, wages and capital will ideally ‘wither away’, and to waste our time speaking on such topics would be abandoning what is in front of us now.
Summing up our transitional period between capitalism and communism Lenin adds "Accounting and control -- that is mainly what is needed for the "smooth working", for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens becomes employees and workers of a single countrywide state "syndicate". All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay. the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations -- which any literate person can perform -- of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts. When the more important functions of the state are reduced to such accounting and control by the workers themselves, it will cease to be a "political state" and "public functions will lose their political character and become mere administrative functions"
The final stage of communist society
Lenin then proceeds to link up the transitional period with the final stage of communism, in which this fresh new society, purged of all classes, of all enemies of society advances into its goal. "When the majority of the people begin independently and everywhere to keep such accounts and exercise such control over the capitalists (now converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry who preserve their capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general, and popular; and there will be no getting away from it, there will be "nowhere to go".
The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay.
But this "factory" discipline, which the proletariat, after defeating the capitalists, after overthrowing the exploiters, will extend to the whole of society, is by no means our ideal, or our ultimate goal. It is only a necessary step for thoroughly cleansing society of all the infamies and abominations of capitalist exploitation, and for further progress. "
"For when all have learned to administer and actually to independently administer social production, independently keep accounts and exercise control over the parasites, the sons of the wealthy, the swindlers and other "guardians of capitalist traditions", the escape from this popular accounting and control will inevitably become so incredibly difficult, such a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are practical men and not sentimental intellectuals, and they scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), that the necessity of observing the simple, fundamental rules of the community will very soon become a habit.
Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society to its higher phase, and with it to the complete withering away of the state.”
And so there we have it, communism can work, it will work. These are of course not concrete rules for communism but basic guidelines which will prove to be a vital tool amongst the working class who are coming out of a revolution thinking ‘what do we do now’. But through the education of the working class now, before revolution has even been considered by the average worker, we can be prepared for the tasks ahead. By working in the mass organisations and trade unions, the natural channels that the workers turn to in times of struggle, we are ready and waiting for the workers revolt.
Today we are building a force within the masses, today we fight alongside workers for better wages and better conditions. We do not put forward petty reforms in parliament but instead support people in times of genuine struggle. We fight for essential reforms alongside workers not because we ourselves are reformists, but because turning your back on your fellow workers brings an end to any chance you have of them listening to you, nevermind joining you in the struggle for communism. The golden rule however is to constantly point out to the worker struggling for a better wage, better conditions, shorter hours etc that although we support them and will fight all the way with them, capitalism offers no permanent solution, and that at some point the working class must organise to abolish it once and for all. Otherwise this seemingly endless struggle would go on forever, small pay rises would be granted, things would improve here and there for the time being, but nothing would really change.
We nearing the year 2003 in a world of fantastic technology and endless possibilities, there is a massive over production of almost every resource we need to survive on earth, yet we still have poverty and famine, people are still dying of curable disease. There are mountains of food lying surplus in stockpiles ready to by dyed to make them unusable. This is only a tiny example of how insane, how ridiculous this dinosaur society has become. Its time for change comrades, the writing on this paper alone has highlighted the possibilities of what we, the working class, can achieve. What better way to finish than to give the last words to the father of communism himself, Karl Marx “Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries unite!”
As Marxists we are always asked a number of questions about our beliefs. This can range from “what would a communist society look like” or “how do we achieve socialism” to “do you know millions died under Stalin” and “what is wrong with the way we live now”. We are also often ‘told’ certain things by sceptical persons to ‘expose’ our theories as utopian and rather childish, ever heard the one “communism wouldn’t work”?
And so this brings me to attempt this pamphlet, in which I (with the aid of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky) will try to simplify the basic plan of transition from capitalism to communism. From where we are now, to where we can go, and to how far we can get.
There are different versions of how socialism can be achieved. Many sects spend their lives in the debating hall arguing over a few relatively unimportant differences between the great teachers of Marxism. They are however ‘put in their place’ by Marx himself when he said. "Since it is not for us to create a plan for the future that will hold for all time, all the more surely, what we contemporaries have to do is the uncompromising critical evaluation of all that exists, uncompromising in the sense that our criticism fears neither its own results nor the conflict with the powers that be."
Firstly we will not waste our time on the subject ‘why capitalism does not work’ (the chances are we have already established this) Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky produced a library of books on the subject, if you are in doubt then read one, read as many as you like. Even simpler, switch on your television, the chances are something bad has happened or is happening. And so we will move on to the more important questions that await us. Firstly I will quote Marx’s presentation of the question on the subject.
"Present-day society' is capitalist society, which exists in all civilised countries, being more or less free from medieval admixture, more or less modified by the particular historical development of each country, more or less developed. On the other hand, the 'present-day state' changes with a country's frontier. It is different in the Prusso-German Empire from what it is in Switzerland, and different in England from what it is in the United States. 'The present-day state' is, therefore, a fiction.
"Nevertheless, the different states of the different civilised countries, in spite of their motley diversity of form, all have this in common, that they are based on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed. The have, therefore, also certain essential characteristics in common. In this sense it is possible to speak of the 'present-day state', in contrast with the future, in which its present root, bourgeois society, will have died off.
"The question then arise: what transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousandfold combination of the word people with the word state."
And of course, to say we do not need a form of ‘transition’ between capitalism and communism is ridiculous, yet there are believe it or not a few tiny sects who do. They would argue that because there is now enough resources to go round, conditions exist to walk out of today’s dog eat dog capitalist society, into a completely democratic classless society without money, wages, countries, ‘as long as the working class in its entirety wants it’. Sounds great! But is this practical? The fact that most of them have stated that such a ‘revolution’ would take around one thousand years (minimum) is enough to tell us. No, we will not sit and wait, we will not lie back without struggle, we will not follow the steps of renegades like Kautsky who seemed so determined to remove all revolutionary spirit from the ideas and theories of Marxism.
As we know, the working class is generally not revolutionary now. But we are not short-sighted people, we are Marxists, and therefore have an understanding of dialectical materialism – the theory of change and process. The Greek philosopher Hericlita once pointed out that if you step into a stream, step out and then back in again, it is not the same stream as before and even as you stand is changing around you. This is in a way similar to society, it constantly moves around us and every thing we do, even the tiniest thing, can have all sorts of effects in the near or distant future. But of course dialectics is a whole subject of its own. The fact remains here that with the constant oppression of one class from another, every pay cut, every job loss, the constant struggle, the whole rat race of life under the whole capitalist system the working class cannot avoid becoming revolutionary at one stage or another.
Lenin’s view on the inevitability of a working class revolution, and the conditions that were needed for it are highlighted in his book ‘left wing communism, and infantile disorder’.
“For a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the "lower classes" do not want to live in the old way and the "upper classes" cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph. This truth can be expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters). It follows that, for a revolution to take place, it is essential, first, that a majority of the workers (or at least a majority of the class-conscious, thinking, and politically active workers) should fully realise that revolution is necessary, and that they should be prepared to die for it; second, that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics (symptomatic of any genuine revolution is a rapid, tenfold and even hundredfold increase in the size of the working and oppressed masses -- hitherto apathetic -- who are capable of waging the political struggle), weakens the government, and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to rapidly overthrow it.”
And so we have established that the workers revolution is inevitable at one stage or another, to quote Marx “Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society”. When covering the oppression of one class (the ruling class) on another (the working class) Marx states that “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. It’s fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”
The revolution of the working class is of course essential to the whole concept of communism, it is however only the first stages of our ultimate goal, and by no means has anything yet been achieved. It is true to say that after a revolution things can swing either way, to socialism or to barbarism. And as the working class in its revolutionary form bursts out from the womb of capitalism it must enter an organised period of transition in which many old rules remain intact, this however is essential if the revolutionary and victorious workers are to avoid any form of barbarism.
Lenin and Marx often pointed out the need for this period, which in many cases is called ‘socialism’
"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." Said Marx
He was backed up many years later by Lenin, who continued "The first fact that has been established most accurately by the whole theory of development, by science as a whole -- a fact that was ignored by the utopians, and is ignored by the present-day opportunists, who are afraid of the socialist revolution -- is that, historically, there must undoubtedly be a special stage, or a special phase, of transition from capitalism to communism. "
This revolutionary period of socialism is by no means a final and complete communist society, but the beginning of a fairer society in which the working class begin to purge and cleanse the dirt and repair the damage that was administered under years of capitalist oppression. Lenin spoke on this period in his book ‘the state and revolution’ in which he states "Democracy means equality. The great significance of the proletariat's struggle for equality and of equality as a slogan will be clear if we correctly interpret it as meaning the abolition of classes. But democracy means only formal equality. And as soon as equality is achieved for all members of society in relation to ownership of the means of production, that is, equality of labor and wages, humanity will inevitably be confronted with the question of advancing father, from formal equality to actual equality, i.e., to the operation of the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". By what stages, by means of what practical measures humanity will proceed to this supreme aim we do not and cannot know. But it is important to realise how infinitely mendacious is the ordinary bourgeois conception of socialism as something lifeless, rigid, fixed once and for all, whereas in reality only socialism will be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly mass forward movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the population, in all spheres of public and private life. "
The first stage of communist society
"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes." Pointed out Marx as he spoke about this ‘first stage’ of communist society. This new society of course can not yet provide us with such rules as ‘each according to his ability, each according to his needs’ because there is still a number of people in society who would sabotage and abuse it. For how can we trust the former fat cat businessmen, the religious fanatics, the petty bourgeoisie, and the people who have spent their lives scrounging from society, contributing no work. How can we now ask them to work for the good of society, to contribute however much they can and to take as much as they need freely without authority. Lenin here uses a quote by Marx to explain why trying to ‘apply’ full-scale communism shortly after a revolution is impossible. “People are not alike: one is strong, another is weak; one is married, another is not; one has more children, another has less, and so on. And the conclusion Marx draws is:
"... With an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal."
The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality; differences, and unjust differences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production -- the factories, machines, land, etc. -- and make them private property. In smashing Lassalle's petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about "equality" and "justice" in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the "injustice" of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods "according to the amount of labor performed" (and not according to needs).”
Therefore the workers must now set themselves up as a state, and maintain authority to prevent a counter-revolution rearing its ugly head. As Lenin pointed out "It is this communist society, which has just emerged into the light of day out of the womb of capitalism and which is in every respect stamped with the birthmarks of the old society, that Marx terms the "first", or lower, phase of communist society.
The means of production are no longer the private property of individuals. The means of production belong to the whole of society. Every member of society, performing a certain part of the socially-necessary work, receives a certificate from society to the effect that he has done a certain amount of work. And with this certificate he receives from the public store of consumer goods a corresponding quantity of products. After a deduction is made of the amount of labor which goes to the public fund, every worker, therefore, receives from society as much as he has given to it. "
Lenin then continues "And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent -- and to that extent alone -- "bourgeois law" disappears. However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realised; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realised. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.
This is a "defect", says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.
Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.
The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.
But the state has not yet completely withered away, since thee still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary. "
Marx virtually sums up Lenin’s words when he adds "But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."
So unlike the anarchists, the petty bourgeoisie ultra-lefts and other such sectarian minorities we do not just abolish all laws and regulations worldwide, to do such a thing at this stage would be madness. Under the ‘dictatorship of the working class’ potential sabotagers of the revolution can be exposed and dealt with. As society as a whole is now improving, production and living conditions are going up, working hours and poverty are going down. Such an improvement would be noticeable as to the point where we would see the dinosaurs of human culture like religion begin to wither away, for without oppression and desperation, what need is there to seek answers in an illusion.
‘But the state and law is still very much intact, therefore how can we now have a complete democratic communist society?’ Asks the anarchist, who believes the state should simply be destroyed and never replaced in a revolution. As the state is a machine which is set up to oppress by one class to oppress another, we have no desire to make the state a permanent feature in our final communist society. Here the ‘withering away’ of the state is covered by Lenin. "The expression "the state withers away" is very well-chosen, for it indicates both the gradual and the spontaneous nature of the process. Only habit can, and undoubtedly will, have such an effect; for we see around us on millions of occassions how readily people become accustomed to observing the necessary rules of social intercourse when there is no exploitation, when there is nothing that arouses indignation, evokes protest and revolt, and creates the need for suppression.
And so in capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord.”
Again, without a certain degree of law and order which is enforced by the armed working class we could not make working for the good of society a habit .It would then in turn, remain a chore, in which case without any pressure no one would contribute ‘according to his ability’ whilst at the same time take much more than ‘his needs’. Lenin again covers the subject here. "In its first phase, or first stage, communism cannot as yet be fully mature economically and entirely free from traditions or vestiges of capitalism. Hence the interesting phenomenon that communism in its first phase retains "the narrow horizon of bourgeois law". Of course, bourgeois law in regard to the distribution of consumer goods inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing the observance of the rules of law.
It follows that under communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois law, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie!
This may sound like a paradox or simply a dialectical conundrum of which Marxism is often accused by people who have not taken the slightest trouble to study its extraordinarily profound content.
But in fact, remnants of the old, surviving in the new, confront us in life at every step, both in nature and in society. And Marx did not arbitrarily insert a scrap of "bourgeois" law into communism, but indicated what is economically and politically inevitable in a society emerging out of the womb of capitalism. "
‘So what about the wages system’ pipes up the ultra-Marxist, taking a break from debating with other tiny sects ‘if the wages system and money still exists then the workers are not seeing the full fruits of their labor and are still being exploited no matter how good their earnings!’
Yes, Mr ultra-Marxist, friend of the bourgeoisie who is so keen to condemn any form of revolution because his robotic and unpractical application of theory to real life is non-existent. This question of money and wages is answered perfectly by Trotsky.
"In a communist society, the state and money will disappear. Their
gradual dying away ought consequently to begin under socialism. We shall be able to speak of the actual triumph of socialism
only at that historical moment when the state turns into a semi-state, and money begins to lose its magic power. This will mean
that socialism, having freed itself from capitalist fetishes, is beginning to create a more lucid, free and worthy relation among
men. Such characteristically anarchist demands as the "abolition" of money, "abolition" of wages, or "liquidation" of the state and
family, possess interest merely as models of mechanical thinking. Money cannot be arbitrarily "abolished", nor the state and the
old family "liquidated". They have to exhaust their historic mission, evaporate, and fall away. The deathblow to money fetishism
will be struck only upon that stage when the steady growth of social wealth has made us bipeds forget our miserly attitude
toward every excess minute of labor, and our humiliating fear about the size of our ration. Having lost its ability to bring
happiness or trample men in the dust, money will turn into mere bookkeeping receipts for the convenience of statisticians and for planning purposes. In the still more distant future, probably these receipts will not be needed. But we can leave this question
entirely to posterity, who will be more intelligent than we are.". Comrade Trotsky is absolutely correct here, you see we do not ‘abolish the wages system’ or ‘abolish money’ but prepare the road for future generations to make this decision whenever humanity is prepared (e.g. when it has been purged of all its capitalist scars). Like the state, money, wages and capital will ideally ‘wither away’, and to waste our time speaking on such topics would be abandoning what is in front of us now.
Summing up our transitional period between capitalism and communism Lenin adds "Accounting and control -- that is mainly what is needed for the "smooth working", for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens becomes employees and workers of a single countrywide state "syndicate". All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay. the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations -- which any literate person can perform -- of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts. When the more important functions of the state are reduced to such accounting and control by the workers themselves, it will cease to be a "political state" and "public functions will lose their political character and become mere administrative functions"
The final stage of communist society
Lenin then proceeds to link up the transitional period with the final stage of communism, in which this fresh new society, purged of all classes, of all enemies of society advances into its goal. "When the majority of the people begin independently and everywhere to keep such accounts and exercise such control over the capitalists (now converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry who preserve their capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general, and popular; and there will be no getting away from it, there will be "nowhere to go".
The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay.
But this "factory" discipline, which the proletariat, after defeating the capitalists, after overthrowing the exploiters, will extend to the whole of society, is by no means our ideal, or our ultimate goal. It is only a necessary step for thoroughly cleansing society of all the infamies and abominations of capitalist exploitation, and for further progress. "
"For when all have learned to administer and actually to independently administer social production, independently keep accounts and exercise control over the parasites, the sons of the wealthy, the swindlers and other "guardians of capitalist traditions", the escape from this popular accounting and control will inevitably become so incredibly difficult, such a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are practical men and not sentimental intellectuals, and they scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), that the necessity of observing the simple, fundamental rules of the community will very soon become a habit.
Then the door will be thrown wide open for the transition from the first phase of communist society to its higher phase, and with it to the complete withering away of the state.”
And so there we have it, communism can work, it will work. These are of course not concrete rules for communism but basic guidelines which will prove to be a vital tool amongst the working class who are coming out of a revolution thinking ‘what do we do now’. But through the education of the working class now, before revolution has even been considered by the average worker, we can be prepared for the tasks ahead. By working in the mass organisations and trade unions, the natural channels that the workers turn to in times of struggle, we are ready and waiting for the workers revolt.
Today we are building a force within the masses, today we fight alongside workers for better wages and better conditions. We do not put forward petty reforms in parliament but instead support people in times of genuine struggle. We fight for essential reforms alongside workers not because we ourselves are reformists, but because turning your back on your fellow workers brings an end to any chance you have of them listening to you, nevermind joining you in the struggle for communism. The golden rule however is to constantly point out to the worker struggling for a better wage, better conditions, shorter hours etc that although we support them and will fight all the way with them, capitalism offers no permanent solution, and that at some point the working class must organise to abolish it once and for all. Otherwise this seemingly endless struggle would go on forever, small pay rises would be granted, things would improve here and there for the time being, but nothing would really change.
We nearing the year 2003 in a world of fantastic technology and endless possibilities, there is a massive over production of almost every resource we need to survive on earth, yet we still have poverty and famine, people are still dying of curable disease. There are mountains of food lying surplus in stockpiles ready to by dyed to make them unusable. This is only a tiny example of how insane, how ridiculous this dinosaur society has become. Its time for change comrades, the writing on this paper alone has highlighted the possibilities of what we, the working class, can achieve. What better way to finish than to give the last words to the father of communism himself, Karl Marx “Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries unite!”