Understanding the Communist Manifesto

[Kingfish]

Howdy, even the longest journey must begin with a single step and the quest to understand Marxism is no exception. To that extent I have started working my way through Q’s reading list and the study guide for the manifesto assembled by TheGodlessUtopian.

I’ve worked my way through the first chapter and will be adding the others to this thread as I complete them.

I would really appreciate any criticisms, corrections or just confirmations so I can make sure my learning on is the right track.

Thanks in advance

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Chapter One: Bourgeois and Proletarians

Q1: What is Class and why is it the driving force of human history?

A1: Class refers to a person’s position in society, with their specific place being determined by the nature of their contribution within the economy. History is conflict, hence class is the driving force of human history as the division between classes (which manifests itself in differing access to goods, services and power) is the primary source of conflict. This is because individuals will seek to advance to a higher class or even advance their class as a whole in order to readjust imbalances within this division to their favour.


Q2: What is the nature of the capitalist state?

A2: The capitalist state maintains the privileged position of the bourgeois both through directly oppressive means as well as through ‘soft’ means [is there a better way to describe this?] whereby it curbs the worst excesses of the system via partial reform (with an example being given of the 10 hours reform bill in the UK) . Additionally the inherent drive capitalism has for competitiveness and need for constant expansion of markets and resources (including labour) means that the capitalist state is also aggressively expansionist.

Q3: Why is the working class the revolutionary class? – Would I be correct in assuming it was meant to mean proletariat?

A3: Revolutions are conflicts that arise between the oppressed and the oppressors, so despite revolutions having historically been dominated minorities (in particular the bourgeois) by overthrowing the feudal aristocracy the bourgeois having become the oppressing class. Therefore they have lost their revolutionary potential. Other classes who have yet to be reduced to proletarians are either reactionary or conservative as they seek to either prevent the erosion of their privilege (or even restore it) or use what little they have left to advance to the bourgeois. Accordingly only the proletariat have revolutionary potential.

-Side question: given the peasant: proletariat ratio is this idea of minority revolutions important when discussing the October Revolution?



Q4: Why and how do Marx and Engels praise capitalism in this chapter?

A4: They praise it for its enormous and unparalleled productive capacity.
“The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together”
They also praise capitalism as it saw the destruction and de-mystification of the restrictive sentiments and fetishes of previous systems. Finally as its global growth and reduction of all other classes to proletariats is inherent part of it, it ensures its own destruction.


Q5: The word “commodification” was not invented until recently, but do you think that this chapter is talking about commodification?

A5: Yes, as commodification of labour is a key characteristic in the creation of the proletariat who cannot produce or sell anything other than their labour.

Q6: What does the Manifesto tell us about the how the proletariat changes as capitalism develops and in making the revolution?

A6: Initially there is competition between individual proletariat before advancing to competing at a craft or locality level. At this stage their efforts are not targeted towards the capitalist mode of production but at the bourgeoisie that directly threaten their current livelihood (ie other businesses and foreign producers hence the enemies of their enemies) . Historically this also saw emergence of reactionary luddites who would attempt to destroy the machinery/technology that would render them obsolete. However the development of capitalism necessitates the continued reduction of members of other classes to the proletariat and sees control of capital centralised further and further. This process exacerbates previous problems and makes their origin obvious. Accordingly economic conflict and union activity will become increasingly class oriented.

Q7: What are Marx and Engels saying about “globalisation” in this chapter?

A7: They discuss how it is an inherent feature of capitalism to expand globally in order to function, significantly however the vast gulf in efficiency between capitalism and previous modes of production ensures that the capitalist system will come to dominate that and all previous systems will be destroyed.

[Brutus]

Class is more how you relate to the modes of production, rather than your contribution to society.

[G4b3n]

-Side question: given the peasant: proletariat ratio is this idea of minority revolutions important when discussing the October Revolution?

According to the dialectical materialist outlook, natural quantitative change leads to qualitative change. All natural and social phenomena are in a constant state of change. The lower peasantry is constantly being absorbed into the proletariat (or the bourgeoisie in some instances). According to the mainstream Marxists of Tsarist Russia, the Mensheviks, Russia was not ready for a proletarian revolution in 1917 as Capitalism had not fully developed in the Semi-feudal nation. The minority of the proletariat was a huge point of theoretical debate then and it should be a major point of historical study. Though it is important to keep in mind that this quantitative measurement of the proletariat does not reflect the nature of the class, simply its point in development so the concept of past "minority revolutions" has little to do with the fact that the Russian proletariat seized power while it was still a minority.

It seems you have quite an adequate understanding of the Manifesto. Though it is important to note that class is determined by one's relationship to the means of production.

[subcp]

Class refers to a person’s position in society, with their specific place being determined by the nature of their contribution within the economy. History is conflict, hence class is the driving force of human history as the division between classes (which manifests itself in differing access to goods, services and power) is the primary source of conflict. This is because individuals will seek to advance to a higher class or even advance their class as a whole in order to readjust imbalances within this division to their favour.

Classes are social groups; their power and the struggle between them is a social struggle. It isn't meant to delineate every individual; but a means to analyze social phenomenon. The bourgeoisie was a revolutionary class because it contained the embryo of a new organization of society- so too is the proletariat revolutionary because it prefigures a new organization of society- the division of labor and socialization of labor prefigure communist production; the class struggle by the working-class for higher wages, shorter working hours, etc. demands of capitalism what it cannot provide; just like the bourgeoisie could not gain the economic freedom to expand the productive forces under the feudal organization of society except through revolutionary transformation of social relationships.

Revolutions are conflicts that arise between the oppressed and the oppressors, so despite revolutions having historically been dominated minorities (in particular the bourgeois) by overthrowing the feudal aristocracy the bourgeois having become the oppressing class. Therefore they have lost their revolutionary potential. Other classes who have yet to be reduced to proletarians are either reactionary or conservative as they seek to either prevent the erosion of their privilege (or even restore it) or use what little they have left to advance to the bourgeois. Accordingly only the proletariat have revolutionary potential.

Part I of the Critique of the Gotha Programme makes the distinction between the proletariat and other non-exploiting classes (and specifically whether they are all reactionary or conservative):

4. "The emancipation of labor must be the work of the working class, relative to which all other classes are only one reactionary mass."


The first strophe is taken from the introductory words of the Rules of the International, but "improved". There it is said: "The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the workers themselves"; here, on the contrary, the "working class" has to emancipate -- what? "Labor." Let him understand who can.

In compensation, the antistrophe, on the other hand, is a Lassallean quotation of the first water: "relative to which" (the working class) "all other classes are only one reactionary mass."

In the Communist Manifesto it is said:

"Of all the classes that stand face-to-face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product."

The bourgeoisie is here conceived as a revolutionary class -- as the bearer of large-scale industry -- relative to the feudal lords and the lower middle class, who desire to maintain all social positions that are the creation of obsolete modes of production. thus, they do not form together with the bourgeoisie "only one reactionary mass".

On the other hand, the proletariat is revolutionary relative to the bourgeoisie because, having itself grown up on the basis of large-scale industry, it strives to strip off from production the capitalist character that the bourgeoisie seeks to perpetuate. But the Manifesto adds that the "lower middle class" is becoming revolutionary "in view of [its] impending transfer to the proletariat".

From this point of view, therefore, it is again nonsense to say that it, together with the bourgeoisie, and with the feudal lords into the bargain, "form only one reactionary mass" relative to the working class.

Has one proclaimed to the artisan, small manufacturers, etc., and peasants during the last elections: Relative to us, you, together with the bourgeoisie and feudal lords, form one reactionary mass?

Lassalle knew the Communist Manifesto by heart, as his faithful followers know the gospels written by him. If, therefore, he has falsified it so grossly, this has occurred only to put a good color on his alliance with absolutist and feudal opponents against the bourgeoisie.
In the above paragraph, moreover, his oracular saying is dragged in by main force without any connection with the botched quotation from the Rules of the International. Thus, it is simply an impertinence, and indeed not at all displeasing to Herr Bismarck, one of those cheap pieces of insolence in which the Marat of Berlin deals

[RedMaterialist]

[B]
Chapter One: Bourgeois and Proletarians

Q1: What is Class and why is it the driving force of human history?

Here is my contribution: Class is the division of society into the oppressed and oppressors, the dominated and dominators, between those who produce the means of living and those who own that production. Examples are slave and master, serf and landlord, worker and capitalist.

Class is not the driving force of history; class struggle is the driving force of the written history of society. Class struggle did not exist in pre-history, in tribal, clan societies, such as the native Americans.