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!
The Communist Theory Concerning Private Property
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.
The Communist Theory of the Origin of 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.
The Communist Theory of the Origin and Economic Significance of Religion
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}
The Communist Theory of the Origin and Economic Significance of Morals
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.
The Communist Plan of Action
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}
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat
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 a
s 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}
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