Page 76
PART 7
THE FAILURE OF UTOPIAN SOCIALISM
If the destiny of mankind has been controlled by a few and private ownership
of the means of production and distribution, more than any other material
factor (other material factors such as heredity, climate, geography play
a lesser role) has accounted for the absence of brotherhood, how, then, do
the masses extricate themselves from this predicament? How do they eradicate
the ills that have plagued them for so many centuries?
Prior to Marx many solutions were proposed but none proved viable.
In the early formative period of socialist theory many people believed that
one need only gather a group of like-minded individuals, retire to the countryside,
and construct a socialist community. Robert Owen, Fourier and Saint-Simon
are, of course, the most prominent protagonists of this approach--Utopian
Socialism.162
They believed that common ownership and brotherhood could be
manufactured artificially. Through changing the ideology of people and
creating a propertyless community in conformity with their ideological changes,
a society of universal brotherhood would emerge. Yet, their communities
failed. They collapsed not because a mythical human nature was not
taken into account but because an ideology which these men formulated was
superimposed on inadequate material conditions.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
162 (a) (Add) "...utopian (impossible, impracticable) socialism...."
(b) (Add) "Utopia is a Greek word, composed of ou, not, and topos
, a place. It means a place which does not exist, a fantasy, invention
or fairy-tale. In politics utopia is a wish that can never come true--neither
now nor afterwards, a wish that is not based on social forces (material
conditions and production--Ed.) and is not supported by the growth and development
of political, class forces."
Page 77
Unlike scientific materialists, who realize ideology develops according
to the dictates of material conditions and do not attempt to alter the former
without a prior rearrangement of the latter, the utopians developed the ideas
for their future society with very little consideration for the material arrangement.
163
Briefly stated, their beautiful plans for an ideal society
said yes while conditions said no.164
-------------------------------------------------------------------
163 "If the economic conditions change first and the consciousness
of men undergoes a corresponding change later, it is clear that we must seek
the grounds for a given ideal not in the minds of men, not in their imagination,
but in the development of their economic conditions. Only that ideal
is good and acceptable which is based on a study of economic conditions. All these ideals which ignore economic conditions and are not based upon their
development, are useless and unacceptable."
164 (a) "...utopian socialism did not investigate the laws
of social life; it soared higher and higher above life whereas what was needed
was firm contact with reality. The utopians set out to achieve socialism
as an immediate object at a time when the ground for it was totally unprepared
in real life."
(b) "To the crude conditions of capitalistic production and the crude class
conditions corresponded crude theories. The solution of the social
problems, which as yet lay hidden in undeveloped economic conditions, the
Utopians attempted to evolve out of the human brain. Society presented
nothing but wrongs; to remove these was the task of reason. It was
necessary, then, to discover a new and more perfect system of social order
and to impose this upon society from without by propaganda, and, wherever
it was possible, by the example of model experiments. These new social
systems were foredoomed as Utopian; the more completely they were worked
out in detail, the more they could not avoid drifting off into pure phantasies."
(c) "The utopians, we saw, were utopians because they could be nothing
else at a time when capitalist production was as yet so little developed.
They necessarily had to construct the elements of a new society out of their
own heads, because within the old society the elements of the new were not
as yet generally apparent."
(d) "It is impossible to hasten something for which historical conditions
are not yet mature."
(e) "Utopian socialism did not appeal to the objective course of historical
development, but to peoples' kindly feelings. To use an expression
much in vogue among German writers, it was a socialism of the emotions."
(f) (Add) "Whoever imagines that socialism can be achieved by one person
convincing another, and that one a third, is at best an infant, or else
a political hypocrite; and, of course, the majority of those who speak on
political platforms belong to the latter category."
Page 78
The early utopian societies collapsed, as did the primitive communes,
primarily because the general level of production and technology was quite
low. As long as the productive capability of any society or group of
people is not very large and, thus, an even division of the surplus of production
does not provide each individual with an amount of produce far in excess
of his needs, so far in fact that he have no fear about the security of his
future, individuals, especially those who are more productive or resourceful,
will drop out believing that their future will be more secure by laboring
alone or by exploiting the labor of others through the employment of private
property. This may appear to be some sort of human nature coming to
the fore. But any animal, indeed, any form of life would act in this
manner. Every form of life thinks first of its own survival when material
conditions dictate that any other form of behavior is potentially suicidal.
This is to be expected. People can not be asked to think of others
by donating their produce to a common fund when their own future is constantly
in doubt. To ask them to so act is to seek what few will willingly
provide. Conditions, not people, are blameworthy.
Changing the organization of society, abolishing private property and
dividing the produce equally can not create a superabundance of production
without which other utopian changes were destined for failure. Only
when a secure future is guaranteed to each member of society, only when every
person possesses far more of the necessities of life than he can possibly
consume or employ, can material conditions again, as in primitive communal
times, draw men together in brotherhood and harmony. A superabundance
for everyone does not automatically produce brotherhood since factors of
less importance (the correct education, etc.) must also be present.
But the possibility of rapidly fading egotism and growing social concern
is tremendously increased by its realization. Harmony prevailed in
the period of primitive communes because conditions existed which excluded
any viable alternative. Total production was so low that society could
only be organized on a classless communal basis which necessarily produced
brotherhood. The latter will only reappear when the requisite conditions
again emerge. Only when the future of each member of society is so
secure that concern for the welfare of others not only fails to jeopardize
his own security but actually contributes to, indeed, accounts for his own
survival and enhancement, will universal harmony be feasible if not unavoidable.
The utopian experiments were bound to fail for two additional reasons
as well. Firstly, even if their authors had recognized the need for
a superabundance of production, the low level of technological development
precluded the production of an abundance for all.165
The decisive factor--material conditions--prevented any possibility
of massive production even if the desire had been present. Secondly,
the ruling class in the area concerned would have crushed them physically
or financially if they had ever presented a serious challenge to the prevailing
system. Property owners will destroy any contrasting life-style that
has attained serious proportions within private ownership. The failure
of their creators to recognize the importance of force and opposing wealth
in any undertaking of this kind166
sealed their fate from the beginning. They never had a chance.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
165 (Add) "Only at a certain level of development of the productive
forces of society, an even very high level for our modern conditions, does
it become possible to raise production to such an extent that the abolition
of class distinctions can be a real progress, can be lasting without bringing
about stagnation or even decline...."
166 (a) (Add) "Why were the plans of the old co-operators,
from Robert Owens onwards, fantastic? Because they dreamt of peacefully
transforming present-day society into socialism without taking into account
fundamental questions like that of the class struggle,...of overthrowing the
rule of the exploiting class. That is why we are right in regarding
this 'co-operative' socialism as being entirely fantastic, something romantic,
in seeing something even banal in the dream of being able to transform the
class enemies into class collaborators and the class struggle into class peace...merely
by organizing the population in co-operative societies."
(b) (Add) "...there are many dreamers, some of them geniuses, who thought
that it was only necessary to convince the rulers and the governing classes
of the injustice of the contemporary social order, and it would then be
easy to establish peace and general well-being on earth. They dreamt
of socialism without a struggle."
(c) (Add) "Hence they (the utopians--Ed.) reject all political, and especially
all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means,
and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by
the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel."
(d) (Add) "In capitalist society there have been repeated examples of the
organization of labour communes by people who hoped peacefully and painlessly
to convince mankind of the advantages of socialism and to ensure its adoption.
Such a standpoint and such methods of activity evoke wholly legitimate ridicule
from revolutionary Marxists because, under the conditions of...(capitalism--Ed.)
to achieve any radical changes by means of isolated examples would in fact
be a completely vain dream, which in practice has led either to moribund
enterprises or to the conversion of these enterprises into associations of
petty capitalists."
Page 79
Section II
THE ONLY REAL FORCE FOR SOCIALISM IS THE PROLETARIAT
If a group of men can not artificially manufacture the ideal community,
if attempts to teach people that they should practice brotherly love can
not significantly overcome counteracting material factors, how, then, is
the future harmonious society to be created? More than anyone else
Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Vladimir Lenin put the answer to this question
on a solid scientific foundation.167
-------------------------------------------------------------------
167 (a) "It is not for nothing that Marx and Engels are considered
the founders of scientific socialism.... They taught that problems of
socialism (including problems of socialist tactics) must be presented scientifically."
(b) "Karl Marx, the man who was the first to give socialism, and thereby
the whole labour movement of our day, a scientific foundation...."
(c) (Add) "We must take as our point of departure the universally recognised
Marxist thesis that a programme must be built on a scientific foundation."
Page 80
They took socialism out of the realm of fantasy, dreams and desires
168
and put it into the arena of science and rational analysis.
169
-------------------------------------------------------------------
168 (a) "The sole point on which I am in complete agreement
with Monsieur Proudhon is in his dislike for sentimental socialistic day dreams."
(b) "There is no trace of Utopianism in Marx, in the sense of inventing
or imagining a 'new' society."
(c) "As it is not our task to create utopian systems for the arrangement
of the future society."
(d) "...the Marxists, who are hostile to all and every utopia...."
(e) "We were never utopians and never imagined that we would build communist
society with the immaculate hands of immaculate Communists, born and educated
in an immaculately communist society. That is a fairy-tale."
(f) "Gone is the time of naive, utopian, fantastic, mechanical and intellectual
socialism, when people imagined that it was sufficient to paint a beautiful
picture of socialist society to persuade the majority to adopt socialism.
Gone, too, is the time when it was possible to entertain oneself and others
with these children's fairy-tales."
169 (a) "...socialism is converted from a dream of a better
future for humanity into a science."
(b) "Proletarian (Marxian--Ed.) socialism is based not on sentiment, not
on abstract 'justice,' not on love for the proletariat, but on scientific
grounds...."
(c) "The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based
on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or
that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms,
actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical
movement going on under our very eyes."
(d) "...he (Marx--Ed.) formulated with the utmost precision those of his
views which constitute 'something new' in relation to the earlier socialists."
Page 81
Without emotionalism, histrionics, or fanfare they analyzed reality with
all the dispassionate objectivity of a chemistry professor working in his
laboratory.170
Their analysis of life is correct; their conclusions are profound,
yet rarely obscure. Praise, however, does not demonstrate the accuracy
of their analysis. So let us turn from Utopian Socialism to Scientific
Socialism (Marxism)171
and observe the progression of society.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
170 (a) "The whole theory of Marx is an application of the
theory of evolution...to modern capitalism.... There is no shadow of
an attempt on Marx's part to conjure up a Utopia, to make idle guesses about
that which cannot be known. Marx treats the question of Communism (and
its eventual creation--Ed.) in the same way as a naturalist would treat the
question of the evolution of, say, a new biological species, if he knew that
such and such was its origin, and such and such the direction in which it
changed."
(b) (Add) "Although Marx sympathized with the sufferings of the working
classes, it was not sentimental considerations but the study of history and
political economy that led him to communist views. He maintained that
any unbiased man, free from the influence of private interests and not blinded
by class prejudices, must necessarily come to the same conclusions."
(c) (Add) "We are not among those communists who believe that our goal
can be won by the exercise of love alone. No salt sad tears are wept
by us in the moonlight deploring the misery of mankind, our profound depression
being followed by an ecstasy of delight at the thought of a golden future....
This love-and-sob stuff is nothing more than a kind of mental self-enervation
which deprives those addicted to it of all capacity for energetic action."
171 "...Marxism, as the only scientific socialism...."
Page 82
Marx and Engels showed that the harmonious community of the future will
no be created by a small group of men sitting down before a blueprint and
altering history as they so desired,172
but will emanate from the inexorable tide of history and mass movements.
173
Its materialization can be accelerated or retarded but not
prevented. In a sense, history or material forces are controlling mankind,
both exploiters and exploited, more than man is directing them. History
is necessarily developing in such a manner as to lead to only one possibility.
Marx's conclusion in this regard is based upon observations obtained from
years of closely studying the inner workings of private property systems,
especially capitalism.174
-------------------------------------------------------------------
172 (a) (Add) What Marx said about Lassalle could be said about
the utopian socialists. "...instead of looking among the genuine elements
of the class movement...he wanted to prescribe the course to be followed by
this movement according to a certain doctrinaire recipe."
(b) (Add) "The old utopian socialists imagined that socialism could be
built by men of a new type, that first they would train good, pure, and splendidly
educated people, and these would build socialism. We always laughed
at this and said that this was playing with puppets, that it was socialism
as an instrument for young ladies, but not serious politics."
(c) (Add) "In fact, what distinguishes Marxism from the old, utopian socialism
is that the latter wanted to build the new society not from the mass human
material produced by bloodstained, sordid, rapacious, shopkeeping capitalism,
but from very virtuous men and women reared in special hothouses and cucumber
frames. Everyone now sees that this absurd idea really is absurd and
everyone has discarded it...."
173 (a) "...socialism is not the accidental discovery of some
individual genius, as the Utopians assumed, but the inevitable result of the
development of human society."
(b) "The theory of socialism is founded on the objective development of
economic forces and of class division."
(c) "The materialist conditions essential for the emancipation...are engendered
spontaneously in the process of the development of capitalist production."
(d) (Add) "They (the utopian socialists--Ed.) acknowledge no historic development,
and wish to place the nation in a state of Communism at once, overnight,
not by the unavoidable march of its political development...."
174 "He (Marx--Ed.) took one of the social-economic formations
(capitalism--Ed.)...and, on the basis of a vast mass of data (which he studied
for not less than twenty-five years) gave a most detailed analysis of the
laws governing the functioning of this formation and its development."
Page 83
He discovered that within the latter lie irresolvable contradictions which
must eventually spell collapse175
and the catalyst of destruction will be a particular class of people
whose well-being is no longer compatible with the continued existence of private
ownership.176
Understanding the nature of this class and the contradictions
within the system are crucial to a correct appraisal of capitalism and the
future of the masses. Failure to realize the importance of each is a
major shortcoming of utopian ideology.177
-------------------------------------------------------------------
175 (Add) "Nobody, thank God, believes in miracles nowadays. Miraculous prophecy is a fairy-tale. But scientific prophecy is a fact."
176 (a) "They showed that it is not the well-meaning efforts
of noble-minded individuals, but the class struggle of the organized proletariat
that will deliver humanity from the evils which now oppress it. In their
scientific works, Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism
is not the invention of dreamers...."
(b) (Add) "Karl Marx fought vigorously against the old utopian socialism
and advocated the scientific view, which shows that the class struggle fosters
the growth of (a particular--Ed.)...class, and the class must be helped to
mature."
177 (a) "But early socialism was utopian socialism. It
criticized capitalist society, it condemned and damned it, it dreamed of its
destruction, it indulged in fancies of a better order and endeavored to convince
the rich of the immorality of exploitation. But utopian socialism could
not point the real way out. It could not...discover the laws of the
latter's (capitalism's--ed.) development, nor point to the social force which
is capable of becoming the creator of a new society."
(b) "This (utopian socialist--ed.) outlook completely obscured from view
the real labour movement and the masses of the workers, the only natural
vehicle of the socialist ideal. The utopians could not understand this. They wanted to establish happiness on earth by legislation, by declarations,
without the assistance of the people (the workers). They paid no particular
attention to the labour movement and often even denied its importance. As a consequence, their theories remained mere theories which left out of
account the masses of the labourers...."
(c) "One thing is common to all three (Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen--ed.).
Not one of them appears as a representative of the interests of that proletariat
(the workers--ed.) which historical development had, in the meantime, produced."
(d) (Add) "The socialism of earlier days certainly criticized the existing
capitalistic mode of production and its consequences. But it could
not explain them, and, therefore, could not get the mastery of them.
It could only reject them as bad."
Page 84
The class should be discussed first as this will allow the contradictory
aspects of the system to be more easily described later. Several major
factors contribute to its crucial importance. Firstly, because its membership
is large, constantly growing and absorbing other classes, it offsets the
increasing strength of the property owners. Secondly, because its members
have no wealth-producing property, they have no interest in seeing that the
latter continues to survive in private hands. Material conditions are
not compelling them to work for the preservation of private ownership. Thirdly, because its members have become accustomed to discipline by the nature
of their material surroundings and daily activities, 178
they are a potentially powerful revolutionary force. Discipline
is an inseparable part of any successful revolutionary activity. And
lastly, because its membership is composed of the only individuals whose
interests must inevitably clash with the continued existence of private ownership,
it is the only class that can be relied upon to be a revolutionary force at
some time in the future. Although not always revolutionary or more militant
than other classes, it is the only group whom the inexorable tide of events
is driving toward a war with property owners. It is the only growing
class to whom history has said, "You must someday destroy the last private
property system--capitalism."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
178 (a) "...the proletariat is not afraid of organisation and
discipline! The proletariat is trained for organisation by its whole
life (its material conditions--ed.), far more radically than many an intellectual
prig."
(b) "Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organized like
soldiers."
Page 85
What then is this class? Is it the slaves for they are certainly
propertyless? No, because the number of slaves in the world is minuscule
and declining. Perhaps it is the serfs or peasants for most assuredly
they are quite numerous, propertyless, and widespread throughout the world
today. Again, no! There is no denying that the world's peasants
often display strong revolutionary tendencies as has been shown in China,
Vietnam, and the Soviet Union and should be supported, led, and activated
whenever possible, but the fact remains that they belong to a dying system
(feudalism) and their class has been fading throughout the world.
As capitalism has been replacing feudalism, because the former is more progressive,
the overall percentage of serfs and peasants has been decreasing. Perhaps
the disgruntled students of the world will perform the noble deed?
No, because they lack discipline, a common ideology179
and numbers. Moreover, material conditions are not so unpleasant
that their very existence is in doubt. The stultifying, boring, deceitful,
contradictory material world in which they live may be making them miserable
and alienated,180
but it is not telling them, indeed, compelling them, to act eventually
or risk extinction.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
179 "...the generally known and incontrovertible fact that
among the students there are, and are bound to be, groups differing greatly
in their political and social views,...the demand for an integral and definite
world outlook would therefore inevitably repel some of these groups and consequently,
hinder unity, produce dissension instead of concerted action, and hence weaken
the power of the common political onslaught, and so on and so forth, without
end. ...the first issue of Student (a student paper--ed.) distinguishes
four major groups among the present-day students: (1) the indifferent crowd--'persons
completely indifferent to the student movement'; (2) the 'academics'--those
who favour student movements of an exclusively academic type; (3) 'opponents
of student movements in general--nationalists, anti-Semites, etc.'; and (4)
the 'politically-minded'--those who believe in fighting for the overthrow
of tsarist despotism. This group, in turn, consists of two antithetical
elements--those belonging to the purely bourgeois political opposition with
a revolutionary tendency, and those who belong to the newly emerged (only
newly emerged?--N. Lenin) socialistically-minded revolutionary intellectual
proletariat."
180 (a) (Add) "The hangers-on and spongers on the bourgeoisie
described Socialism as a uniform, routine, monotonous and drab barrack system. The lackeys, the lickspittles of the exploiters...used Socialism as a bogey
to 'frighten' the people, who, precisely under capitalism, were doomed to
penal servitude, and the barracks, to arduous, monotonous toil,...."
(b) (Add) Of many students the following is true. "The man is happy
who does not notice how the years pass.... But profoundly sad is the
position of the man who feels how the minutes pass...."
Page 86
To be miserably alienated is one thing; to be so miserable as a result
of material conditions as to be willing to risk death by revolt is another.
Although students are generally the first group to show signs of discontent
and participate in various forms of social protest,181
a much larger group actually executes the revolution which follows.
Many students, like intellectuals in general, will desert the movement when
disciplined, persistent toil is needed or conditions become difficult.
To employ the vernacular, "They will cut out when the going gets rough."
Material conditions are not compelling them to be dependable and, thus, their
revolutionary rhetoric often far exceeds what they are willing to perform. Perhaps social scientists, professional people, bureaucrats or "white collar"
employees will launch the attack. Or perhaps the intelligentsia (professors,
writers, artists, etc.) will lead the onslaught. Again, the response
must be negative.182
-------------------------------------------------------------------
181 (a) "We must bend every effort to rouse, in addition to
the students, who are the vanguard of revolutionary democracy...."
(b) (Add) "Time was when only the student youth was considered as a stratum
calling for special security measures. The students were subjected
to the strictest surveillance, contact with them on the part of persons whose
political past is not irreproachable was regarded as a great offence, every
study circle, and society, even if it pursued purely philanthropic aims, was
suspected of anti-government aims, etc. In those times--not far in
the past--there was no other stratum, to say nothing of a social class, that
in the eyes of the government, represented 'an extremely favorable soil for
anti-government agitation.' But since (then has appeared an--Ed.)...immeasurably
more numerous, social class that calls for special security measures--the
factory workers."
182 (a) "...the intelligentsia (is--Ed.) negligible as a revolutionary
factor."
(b) "...the conception that the intelligentsia can become an independent
force does not hold water."
(c) "We shall never rely on the intellectuals,...."
Page 87
Many of these groups will contribute to the encounter, many will be members
of the attacking body, but alone or as a unit they lack the required numbers,
force, and dedication. The intelligentsia is especially noteworthy for
its lack of discipline.183
Perhaps the small store owners, the shop keepers, the small landowners,
the small investors or the self-employed (i.e., those groups belonging to
the petty bourgeoisie--small capitalists), are destined to eradicate private
property.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
183 (a) "No one will venture to deny that the intelligentsia,
as a special stratum of modern capitalist society, is characterized, by and
large, precisely by individualism and incapacity for discipline and organisation.... This, incidentally, is a feature which unfavorably distinguishes this social
stratum from the proletariat; it is one of the reasons for the flabbiness
and instability of the intellectual...; and this trait of the intelligentsia
is intimately bound up with its customary mode of life, its mode of earning
a livelihood (its material conditions--Ed.), which in a great many respects
approximates to the petty-bourgeois mode of existence (working in isolation
or in very small groups etc.)."
(b) "The intelligentsia is always more individualistic than the proletariat,
owing to its very conditions of life and work, which do not directly involve
a large-scale combination of efforts, do not directly educate it through
organised collective labour. The intellectual elements therefore find
it harder to adapt themselves to the discipline of Party life, and those
of them who are not equal to it naturally raise the standard of revolt against
the necessary organisational limitations, and elevate their instinctive anarchism
to a principle of struggle, misnaming it a desire for 'autonomy,' a demand
for 'tolerance,' etc."
(c) "He (the intellectual--Ed.) finds it extremely difficult to submit
to Party discipline and does so by compulsion, not of his own free will.
He recognises the need of discipline only for the mass, not for the chosen
few. And, of course, he counts himself among the few...."
(d) (Add) "On the other hand, organisational work is impossible without
a firm rebuff to the disorganising tendencies displayed in our country, as
everywhere else, by the weak-willed intellectual elements in the Party, who
change their slogans like gloves...."
(e) (Add) "The intellectuals often tend to be subjective and individualistic,
impractical in their thinking and irresolute in action...."
(f) (Add) "...the issue is decided by the struggle of classes, and the
majority of the intellectuals gravitate toward the bourgeoisie. Not
with the assistance of the intellectuals will the proletariat achieve victory,
but in spite of their opposition (at least in the majority of cases) removing
those of them who are incorrigibly bourgeois, reforming, re-educating and
subordinating the waverers...."
Page 88
No, because they are property owners and, thus, have a direct material
reason for supporting private ownership. Why should they surrender
their means of production for the betterment of others or fight for an overthrow
which would produce the same result. Moreover, their status is moving
toward extinction as their members continue to lose out in competition with
the more affluent capitalists--the big bourgeoisie. Who, then, will
perform the deed? What group is destined by the natural forces of history
to overthrow the capitalist system. The answer: The Proletariat.
184
-------------------------------------------------------------------
184 (a) "And who will destroy the capitalist system, who will
establish international solidarity on earth?--The proletariat.... The
proletariat, and only the proletariat, will win freedom and peace for you."
(b) "Only the proletariat created by modern large-scale industry...is in
a position to accomplish the great social transformation which will put
an end to all class exploitation and all class rule."
(c) "And to expropriate these pillars of our fatherland (the big bourgeoisie--Ed.),
a popular revolutionary movement against the bourgeois (capitalist--Ed.)
regime is required, a movement of which only the working-class proletariat,
which has no ties with this regime, is capable."
(d) "...their (the proletarian workers--Ed.) mission is to destroy all
previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property."
(e) "...the proletariat alone is capable of defeating the bourgeoisie,
of overthrowing it, being the sole class which capitalism has united and
'schooled'...."
(f) "History is the judge--its executioner, the proletarian."
(g) (Add) "...that truly revolutionary and advanced class which has nothing
to lose from the collapse of the existing political and social order, the
class which is the final and inevitable product of that order, the class
which alone is the unquestionable and uncompromising enemy of that order."
(h) (Add) "...the proletariat is the only class which is revolutionary
to the end, and all other classes, including the working peasantry, can be
revolutionary only in so far as they come over to the point of view of the
proletariat. That is so fundamental, such a world-renowned thesis of
the Communist Manifesto, that there cannot be any honest misunderstandings
here, and as for dishonest ones, there is no keeping up with false interpretations
in any case."
(i) (Add) "What is the first and main 'pillar' of Marxist theory?
It is that the only thoroughly revolutionary class in modern society, and
therefore, the advanced class in every revolution, is the proletariat."
Source 20
, Vol. 10, page 241 and Vol. 31, page 348
(j) (Add) "Beginning with the Communist Manifesto, all modern socialism
rests on the indisputable truth that the proletariat alone is the really
revolutionary class in capitalist society. The other classes may and
do become revolutionary only in part and only under certain conditions."
(k) (Add) "Only the working class, and the people generally, who in the
struggle have nothing to lose but their chains, they, only they, constitute
a genuine revolutionary force."
(l) (Add) "...the proletariat, the only truly revolutionary class in modern
society."
(m) (Add) "...our bond with the only thoroughly revolutionary class, the
proletariat...."
(n) (Add) "...only in the working class can democracy find a champion who
makes no reservations, is not irresolute, and does not look back."
(o) (Add) "...the proletariat is the only consistently democratic class."
(p) (Add) "As the only consistently revolutionary class of contemporary
society, it must be the leader in the struggle of the whole people (peasants,
etc.--Ed.) for a fully democratic revolution, in the struggle of all the
working and exploited people against the oppressors and exploiters."
(q) (Add) "Our work is primarily and mainly directed to the factory, urban
workers.... Social-democracy (the Marxists--Ed.)...must concentrate its
activities on the industrial proletariat, who are most susceptible to Social-Democratic
ideas.... The creation of a durable revolutionary organisation among
the factory urban workers is therefore the first and most urgent task confronting
Social-Democracy, one from which it would be highly unwise to let ourselves
be diverted at the present time."
(r) (Add) "The idea of the hegemony of the proletariat constitutes one
of the fundamental tenets of Marxism...."
Page 89
Throughout world history landowners, businessmen, industrialists, financiers,
and all other property owners have been competing in the private property
systems of slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. Each has been seeking
the wealth of the other. War and violence have always been quite secondary,
however, to the economic competition of the market place. Far more property
has been changing hands by the latter method than the former. As in
any prolonged contest, the weaker contestants have been losing out and facing
the choice of either laboring for another property owner or somehow becoming
property owners again. In the early stage of capitalist history many
of the defeated sought to repossess property by migrating from Old World areas
to Australia, the United States and other virgin regions where they could
obtain private ownership of land and other resources. Yet, competition
became as fierce in the New World as the Old and again many lost out. Eventually running from defeat was no longer possible because nearly all of
the world's land and other material resources were the property of another. Once the latter situation materialized, those who continued to lose out in
the vast worldwide economic competition of property owners were forced to
sell out, hire out, and work for another, in other words, to become proletarians. Although the proletarian class has existed in nearly every society in history,
only since the advent of heightened struggle under capitalism has it been
rapidly growing and absorbing other classes.
Since the law of the jungle (survival of the fittest) dominates all private
property systems, the production of every item (autos, homes, steel, oil,
sugar, copper, etc.) has been gravitating toward control by only two or three
companies owned by the rich. When fifty or sixty businesses initially
produce a particular product or many farmers produce a certain crop (corn,
cotton, oats, barley, etc.), the defeat of all but two or three is unavoidable. Those individuals who have been losing have been joining the proletariat and
those who have been winning have been obtaining the wealth of those who lost.
The seemingly endless migration of small farmers to the cities for employment
has exemplified this process.185
Unable to compete, they have been yielding to large corporations
(agribusiness) and big farmers.186
Centralization of more and more wealth into fewer hands has
been an inexorable movement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
185 (a) "...one cannot conceive of capitalism without an increase
in the commercial and industrial population at the expense of the agricultural
population, and everybody knows that this phenomenon is revealed in the most
clear-cut fashion in all capitalist countries."
(b) "We have stated above that the growth of the industrial population
at the expense of the agricultural is a requisite phenomenon of every capitalist
society."
186 (a) "The development of the capitalist form of production
has cut the life-strings of small production in agriculture; small production
is irretrievably going to rack and ruin."
(b) "Capitalism raises the level of agricultural technique and advances
it, but it cannot do so except by ruining, depressing, and crushing the mass
of small producers."
(c) "The technical and commercial superiority of large-scale production
over small-scale production not only in industry, but also in agriculture,
is proved by irrefutable facts."
(d) (Add) "Marx's theory of the development of the capitalist mode of production
applies to agriculture just as it does to industry."
(e) (Add) "In the agriculture of the U.S.A. the displacement of small-scale
by large-scale production is not merely under way, but is proceeding with
greater uniformity than in industry."
Page 90
The entire history of all private property systems has been leading to
a stupendous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few owners of the world's
monopolies, oligopolies, cartels, and trusts187
(the big bourgeoisie) and the proletarianization, if not pauperization,
of the masses.188
The degree of proletarianization and financial concentration
is greater now than at any other time in the history of private ownership. The enactment and enforcement of anti-trust laws to stem the tide has been
virtually useless because political leaders are the handpicked agents of the
richest property owners.189
-------------------------------------------------------------------
187 (a) "...Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis
of capitalism proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration
of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to
monopoly. Today monopoly has become a fact."
(b) "The place of free competition has been taken by huge monopolies.
An insignificant number of capitalists have in some cases been able to concentrate
in their hands entire branches of industry; these have passed into the hands
of combines, cartels, syndicates, and trusts, not infrequently of an international
nature. Thus entire branches of industry, not only in single countries
but all over the world have been taken over by monopolies, not only in the
field of finance, property rights, and partly in production. This has
formed the basis for the unprecedented domination exercised by an insignificant
number of very big banks, financial tycoons, financial magnates who have in
fact transformed even the freest republics into financial monarchies."
(c) (Add) "Everyone knows that modern monopoly is engendered by competition
itself."
188 (a) "...an ever increasing proletarianization of the great
mass of the people...."
(b) "...property is more and more becoming concentrated into the hands
of a few individuals and, consequently, the proletariat has likewise developed
and increased in numbers. A few privileged individuals own all the
property there is to own, whilst the broad masses of the people possess nothing
but their hands and their children."
189 (a) A Russian minister said, "The protection of the economically
weak from the economically strong is the first natural task of state interference." To this Lenin replied, "(This--Ed.)...is nonsense because the strength of
the 'economically strong' lies, among other things, in his possession of political
power.
Without it he could not maintain his economic rule... They (the
deceived followers of Gladstone and Bismarck--Ed.) regard as an instrument
of reform an organ which has its basis in this present-day society and protects
the interests of its ruling classes--the state. They positively believe
the state to be omnipotent and above all classes and expect that it will not
only 'assist' the working people, but create a real and proper system."
(b) "...the small producers constitute a transitory class that is...incapable
of understanding that the large-scale capitalism it dislikes is not fortuitous,
but is a direct product of the entire contemporary economic...system arising
out of the struggle of mutually opposite social forces. Only inability
to understand this can lead to such absolute stupidity as that of appealing
to the 'state' as though the political system is not rooted in the economic,
does not express it, does not serve it."
(c) (Add) "...the idea of checking the development of capitalism is a utopia,
most absurd, reactionary and harmful to the working people...."
(d) (Add) "...no power on earth can arrest the development of capitalism."
Page 91
As peasants190
throughout the world have been losing out in economic competition
with the larger landowners,191
they have been selling their lands, hiring out to others and joining
the proletariat.192
As feudalism has been succumbing to capitalism, landless peasants
have also been assuming the status of wage workers.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
190 (Add) "By small peasant we mean here the owner...of a patch
of land.... This small peasant, just like the small handicraftsman,
is therefore a toiler who differs from the modern proletarian in that he still
possesses his instruments of labour...."
191 "And the natural economy of the small peasant under the
conditions prevailing in modern capitalist countries is doomed to stagnation,
to a slow painful death; it certainly cannot prosper."
192 (a) "...in brief, our small peasant, like every other survival
of a past mode of production (feudalism--Ed.), is hopelessly doomed. He is a future proletarian."
(b) "From these data it is evident that the process going on among our
agricultural and community peasants is not one of impoverishment and ruin
in general, but a process of division into a bourgeoisie and a proletariat.
(A few peasants succeed in becoming bourgeoisie but the overwhelming majority
are destined to join the proletariat--Ed.). A vast mass of peasants...are
losing economic independence."
(c) (Add) "The proletariat is not (yet--Ed.) the majority of the population
in many countries."
Page 92
In many areas, such as the United States, the proletariat has been receiving
most of its recruits from the class lying between the propertyless proletarians
and the wealthy property owners--the petty bourgeoisie. Unlike during
the early stage of capitalism when the number of small property owners was
rapidly growing, small businessmen, small shop keepers, small farmers,
193
the self-employed and others with a moderate amount of private property,
who often employ proletarians as well as labor themselves, have been increasingly
losing out in economic competition with the owners of large farms and corporations.
With all the economic competition somebody must eventually surrender and
weaker competitors have nearly always been the victims.
194
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
193 (a) (Add) "The small proprietor who is a farmer belongs
to the same class (the petty bourgeoisie--Ed.) as the manufacturer, or the
small proprietor who is an artisan, and as the small proprietor who is a shopkeeper;
there is no class distinction between them, they are distinguished only by
their occupations."
(b) (Add) "...'family' farming is precisely petty-bourgeois, capitalist
farming."
194 (a) "As a result of technical programs...small scale production
is being ousted by large-scale production."
(b) "We all accept the law of large-scale production ousting small-scale
production...."
(c) "In this general scramble for money the small man, the small artisan,
or the small peasant, fares worse then all; he is always outcompeted by
the big merchant or the rich peasant."
(d) "...every merchant and every proprietor plays a game of chance, saying
as it were: 'I shall either be ruined or make a profit and ruin others.'
Every year hundreds of capitalists go bankrupt and millions of peasants,
handicraftsmen and artisans are ruined."
(e) "The lower strata of the middle-class--the small tradespeople, shopkeepers,
and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants--all these
sink gradually into the proletariat.... Thus the proletariat is recruited
from all classes of the population."
(f) "One capitalist always kills many."
(g) (Add) "It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence
transferred from Nature to society with intensified violence."
Page 93
The tendency toward economic concentration and centralization has been
unmistakable.195
The high rate of business failures, bankruptcies, and mergers
in the United States and other capitalist countries over the years has been
leading to fewer and fewer corporations and their owners controlling ever
more of the total production and wealth-producing property. And as the
smaller or weaker businesses have been folding, especially during economic
crises (recessions and depressions), or undergoing absorption by others through
mergers and acquisitions, their owners have been relinquishing their petty
bourgeois status and entering the employment of another person, that is, joining
the exploited proletariat.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
195 (a) "The enormous growth of industry and the remarkably
rapid process of concentration of production in ever-larger enterprises are
one of the most characteristic features of capitalism."
(b) "The bigger factories choke the small ones and concentrate production
more and more."
(c) "One or even many instances of small-scale industry prevailing over
large-scale industry is not sufficient to refute Marx's correct proposition
that the general development of capitalism is attended by the concentration
and centralization of production.... The law of economic concentration,
of the victory of large-scale production over small, is recognised in our
own and the Erfurt programmes."
(d) "Under the capitalist system, every undertaking is entirely dependent
on the market. In view of this dependence, the larger the undertaking,
the more cheaply it can sell its product. A big capitalist buys raw
materials more cheaply and expends them more economically; he uses better
machinery etc. Small proprietors, on the other hand, are ruined and
go under. Production becomes more and more concentrated in the hands
of a few millionaires...."
(e) (Add) "There is no doubt that the trend of development (in the capitalist
world--Ed.) is toward a single world trust absorbing all enterprises without
exception and all states without exception. But this development proceeds
in such circumstances, at such a pace, through such contradictions, conflicts
and upheavals--not only economic but political, national, etc.--that inevitably
imperialism will burst and capitalism will be transformed into its opposite
(socialism--Ed.) long before one world trust materialises...."
Page 94
A few members of the petty bourgeois have been successfully climbing the
economic ladder to the class of big property owners--the big bourgeoisie--but
the vast majority are destined for failure and will eventually drop into
the proletariat.196
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
196 (a) "Even though the petty bourgeois may still possess
a little property, nevertheless he soon falls into the ranks of the proletariat,
a victim of the fierce competition of large-scale capital.
(b) "Such is generally the situation in all capitalist countries.
The number of small establishments is decreasing; the petty bourgeoisie,
the small proprietors are ruined and go under; they join the ranks...of the
proletariat."
(c) "The working class lives side by side with the petty bourgeoisie, which,
as it becomes ruined, provides increasing numbers of new recruits to the
ranks of the proletariat."
(d) "Thus, the industrial censuses of the...rapidly developing countries
are the best proof of the correctness of Marx's theory. Capitalism
rules everywhere. Everywhere it is squeezing out small production.
Everywhere the masses of peasants and small artisans and handicraftsmen are
being ruined. Big capital forces down and crushes the small master
in a thousand ways that are still poorly reflected in statistics. There
is no salvation for the small master. His only way of escape is to
join the struggle of the proletariat."
(e) "The growth of productive capital, which forces the industrial capitalists
to work with constantly increasing means, ruins the small industrialists
and throws them into the proletariat."
(f) "The ascendancy of capitalist production relations extends its area
more and more with the steady improvement of technology, which, by enhancing
the economic importance of the large enterprises, tends to eliminate the
small independent producers, converting some of them into proletarians and
narrowing the rule of others in the social and economic sphere, and in some
places making them more or less completely, more or less obviously, more
or less painfully dependent on capital."
Source 20
, Vol. 24, page 467 and Vol. 29, pages 100-101
(g) "Small-scale production is being ousted to an ever greater degree by
large-scale production. The independent small producers...are being
turned...into proletarians...."
(h) "...small scale production is being ousted to an ever greater degree
by large-scale production. The most important part of the means of
production (of the land and factories, tools and machinery, railways and
other means of communication) is becoming concentrated in the hands of a
relatively insignificant number of capitalists...as their private property.
The independent small producers (peasants, artisans, and handicraftsmen)
are being ruined in growing numbers, losing their means of production and
thus turning into proletarians.... Increasing numbers of working people
are compelled to sell their labour-power."
(i) "As long as capitalism rules the roost, there is no alternative for
the small owner other than becoming a capitalist (and that is possible at
best in the case of one small owner out of a hundred), or becoming a ruined
man, a semi-proletarian, and ultimately a proletarian."
(j) "A growing majority of the population are unable to maintain their
existence otherwise than by selling their labour-power. In consequence
of this they find themselves in the condition of wage-workers (proletarians)
dependent on a relatively small class of capitalists...who hold the most
important part of the means of production and circulation.... The most
important part of the means of production is becoming concentrated in the
hands of an insignificant minority of capitalists...as their private property. Ever greater numbers of working men losing their means of production (the
petty bourgeoisie--Ed.) are forced to resort to the sale of their labour-power. In this way they find themselves in the dependent condition of wage-workers
(proletarians) who by their labour create the income of the property-owners."
(k) "The most important part of the means of production and the circulation
of commodities is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a relatively
small class of persons, whereas an ever growing majority of the population
are unable to maintain their existence otherwise than by selling their labour
power. In consequence of this, they find themselves in the dependent
condition of wage-workers (proletarians), who by their labour create the income
of the owners of the means of production and circulation...."
(l) "...in every capitalist society...an insignificant minority of small
producers wax rich, 'get on in the world,' turn into (big--Ed.) bourgeois,
while the overwhelming majority are either utterly ruined and become wage-workers
or paupers or eternally eke out an almost proletarian (or a proletarian--Ed.)
existence."
(m) (Add) "...what does the 'crash' of enterprises mean in capitalist society?
It means that the smaller capitalists, capitalists of the 'second magnitude,'
are eliminated by the big millionaires (or billionaires--Ed.)."
(n) (Add) "Crises and periods of industrial stagnation, in their turn,
still further ruin the small producers, still further increase the dependence
of wage-labour on capital...."
(o) (Add) "The conversion of the small producer into a wage-worker presumes
that he has lost the means of production--land, tools, workshop, etc.--i.e.,
that he is 'impoverished,' 'ruined'."
(p) (Add) "The enrichment of a few individuals and the impoverishment of
the masses--such are the inevitable consequences of the law of competition.
In the end the ruined producers lose economic independence and go to work
as wage-workers in the enlarged enterprise of their fortunate rival."
Source 21
, page 33
Page 95
The overall trend throughout the latter stage of capitalism has been a
constant diminution in the number of petty bourgeoisie, an incessant growth
of the proletariat197
and a steady reduction in the number of wealthy property owners relative
to the total population.198
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
197 (a) "But with the development of industry the proletariat
not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its
strength grows, and it feels that strength more."
(b) "The number of people who live by wage-labour grows rapidly.... At
the present time, work for hire, work for the capitalist, has already become
the most widespread form of labour."
(c) "As you see, the point is not which class today constitutes the majority,
or which class is poorer, but which class is gaining strength and which
is decaying. And as the proletariat is the only class which is steadily
growing...."
(d) (Add) "It remains an indisputable fact that the working class movement
spreads and develops precisely where and to the extent that large-scale
capitalist machine industry develops...."
198 (a) "Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses,
however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps,
into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat."
(b) "The enemies are dividing gradually into two great camps--the bourgeoisie
on the one hand, the workers on the other. This war of each against
all, of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, need cause us no surprise,
for it is only the logical sequel of the principle involved in free competition."
(c) "...the fundamental tendency of capitalism--the splitting of the people
into a bourgeoisie and a proletariat...."
(d) "...the process of the ousting of small-scale production by large-scale
production and that of the division of society into property-owners and
proletarians are one and the same process."
(e) "In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e. capital is developed, in the
same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class developed--a
class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work.... These
laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every
other article of commerce...."
(f) "The centralisation of capital strides forward without interruption,
the division of society into great capitalists and non-possessing workers
is sharper every day...."
(g) "...present-day bourgeois society, no less than its predecessors, was
exposed as a grandiose institution for the exploitation of the huge majority
of the people by a small, ever-diminishing minority."
(h) (Add) "The tendency of the Capitalist system toward the ultimate splitting-up
of society into two classes, a few millionaires on the one hand, and a great
mass of mere wage-workers on the other, this tendency...works nowhere with
greater force than in America."
(i) (Add) "It may be said that the whole of Marx's Capital is devoted to
explaining the truth that the basic forces of capitalist society are, and
can only be, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat...."
(j) (Add) "The bourgeoisie can never constitute a large section of the
people."
Page 96
Unfortunately, "working class" is sometimes employed as a synonym for
the proletariat. The latter includes far more people than those laboring
in the factories or acting as wage laborers on farms. Most professional
(lawyers, doctors, researchers, professors,199
etc.), white collar, clerical, administrative, salaried and bureaucratic
groups, which are given the highly deceptive title of "middle class," are
clearly proletarians,200
even though their yearly wages, salaries, commissions, and bonuses
may be several thousand dollars above those of factory workers. Those
who consider themselves to be "middle class" are proletarians because they
own no significant wealth-producing property--the means of production--and
are exploited by those who do. They work for other individuals; other
individuals do not work for them. If they should ever become wealthy
enough to live entirely on their income from dividends, interest, capital
gains, etc., in other words, live entirely on income received through part
ownership of the means of production, their exodus from the proletarian class
would be assured. But for the overwhelming majority of Americans this
will never be possible and is becoming less feasible with every passing day.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
199 "In all spheres of people's labour, capitalism increases
the number of office and professional workers with particular rapidity and
makes a growing demand for intellectuals. ...capitalism increasingly
deprives the intellectual of his independent position, converts him into a
hired worker and threatens to lower his living standard."
200 "It (the big bourgeoisie--Ed.) has converted the physician,
the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage-labourers."
Page 97
The phrase "middle class" is also imaginary because it implies that those
who are included occupy a position half-way between the top and the bottom
financially, which is preposterous. Any American earning under $100,000
per year is far closer to the ghetto dweller, homeless beggar, or Vietnamese
peasant in yearly income, total wealth, and security than he is to the American
financial czars. To those previously-mentioned billionaires, of which
there are many, who receive at least $20,000,000 a year, anyone earning less
than $100,000 per year is verging on poverty. Since only a small minority
of Americans receive over $100,000 per year and an even smaller number earn
enough to be included in the ruling class, the middle class is myth.
Karl Marx used the phrase "middle class" to describe the rising property
owners, the bourgeoisie, of the emerging capitalist system as they ousted
the landowners, the aristocracy,201
who dominated the pre-industrial European society of feudalism.
202
As the bourgeoisie grew it was a class between the more powerful
landowners and the weaker proletariat; it was a middle class.
203
Only when used in this context, which is quite different from
its employment today, is the phrase used correctly. Today's use of the
term marks a clear intention to divide the proletariat by teaching the somewhat
better off proletarians that their interests lie with supporting the property
owning bourgeoisie, in other words, the system, as opposed to the propertyless.
As used today, the phrase "middle class" is deceptive, fictitious, divisive,
and nonsensical.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
201 (Add) "...I have used the word Mittleklasse all along in
the sense of the English word middle-class.... Like the French word
bourgeoisie it means the possessing class, specifically that possessing class
which is differentiated from the so-called aristocracy (landowners--Ed.)."
202 (Add) "The development of the middle-class, the bourgeoisie,
became incompatible with the maintenance of the feudal system; the feudal
system, therefore had to fall."
203 (Add) "...aristocracy and the bourgeoisie (middle class).... And since 1830...the proletariat has been recognized...as a third competitor
for power."
Page 98
Section III
PETTY-BOURGEOIS VACILLATION
The most indecisive persons in the class struggle are the petty bourgeois
capitalist and the petty bourgeois intellectual. The latter is an
intellectual who thinks like the petty bourgeois. The petty bourgeois
tends to constantly vacillate between the proletariat and the wealthy property
owners (the big bourgeoisie) because he isn't sure where his interests lie.
On the one hand, he works for a living and resembles a proletarian, while,
on the other hand, he owns private property and has a definite stake in seeing
that private ownership of the means of production continues.
204
Vacillation exemplifies his behavior205
until material conditions (he either succeeds or fails in economic
competition) solve his dilemma.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
204 (Add) "Thus these small employers are neither genuine proletarians,
since they live in part upon the work of their apprentices, nor genuine bourgeois,
since their principal means of support is their own work."
205 (a) "...between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat stand
the petty bourgeoisie. By virtue of their economic class status, the
latter inevitably vacillate between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat."
(b) "It is a truth long known to every Marxist that in every capitalist
society the only decisive forces are the proletariat and the bourgeoisie,
while all social elements occupying a position between these classes and
coming within the economic category of the petty bourgeoisie inevitably vacillate
between these decisive forces."
(c) "The petty bourgeois inevitably, in all countries and in every combination
of political circumstances, vacillates between revolution and counter-revolution."
(d) "The petty-bourgeois is in such an economic position, the conditions
of his life are such that he cannot help deceiving himself, he involuntarily
and inevitably gravitates one minute toward the bourgeoisie, the next toward
the proletariat. It is economically impossible for him to pursue an
independent 'line.' His past draws him toward the bourgeoisie, his future
toward the proletariat. His better judgment gravitates toward the latter,
his prejudice (to use a familiar expression of Marx's) toward the former."
(e) "Actually, as everybody sees and knows, there are no small producers
who do not stand between these two opposite classes (the bourgeoisie and
the proletariat--Ed.) and this middle position necessarily determines the
specific character of the petty bourgeoisie, its dual character, its two-facedness...."
(f) "The petty bourgeoisie is two-faced by its very nature, and while it
gravitates, on the one hand, toward the proletariat and democracy, on the
other, it gravitates toward reactionary classes, tries to hold up the march
of history...."
(g) "It will ever be the lot of the petty bourgeoisie--as a mass--to float
undecidedly between the two great classes, one part to be crushed by the
centralisation of capital, the other by the victory of the proletariat.
On the decisive day, they will as usual be tottering, wavering and...."
(h) "...a number of petty-bourgeois elements who, by no means under all
conditions, nor in all countries, are, may be, or even must be inimical to
socialism.... Petty bourgeois elements vacillate between the old society
and the new and cannot serve as the mainspring of either. At the same
time they are not devoted to the old society in the same degree as the landowners
and the bourgeoisie."
(i) "These parties of the petty bourgeoisie never know where to go--to
the capitalists or to the workers. They are made up of people who live
in the hope that one day they will grow rich."
(j) "...he (Proudhon--Ed.) is merely the petty bourgeois, continually tossed
back and forth between capital and labour, political economy and communism."
(k) "...it is absolutely impossible in capitalist society, in which the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie form two hostile camps, for intermediary
sections not to exist between them. The existence of these waverers
is historically inevitable, and, unfortunately, these elements, who do not
know themselves on whose side they will fight tomorrow, will exist for quite
some time."
(l) "For both logic and history teach us that the petty-bourgeois class
outlook may be more or less narrow, and more or less progressive, precisely
because of the dual status of the petty bourgeois."
(m) "In an advanced society the petty bourgeois is necessarily from his
very position a socialist on the one side and an economist on the other;
that is to say, he is dazed by the magnificence of the big bourgeoisie and
has sympathy for the sufferings of the people."
Page 99
As long as he believes he will ascend to the ruling class and not fall
into the proletariat206
the petty bourgeois supports the system.207
But once he is defeated and forced into the proletariat his
interests no longer lie with the perpetuation of private ownership and the
possibility that he will advocate or participate in its overthrow increase
tremendously.208
------------------------------------------------------------------------
206 (a) (Add) "As to the petty bourgeois, artisans, and shopkeepers,
they will always remain the same. They hope to climb, to swindle their
way into the big bourgeoisie; they are afraid of being plunged down into the
proletariat."
(b) (Add) "It (the petty bourgeoisie--Ed.) aspires to the status of the
bourgeoisie, but the least misfortune flings its members into the ranks of
the proletariat.... The petty bourgeois is eternally torn between the
hope of rising into the well-to-do class and the fear of descending among
the proletarians...."
207 (Add) "...capitalism taught every petty proprietor to look
after his own interests, to think of how to get rich, and become one of the
moneybags as quickly as possible...."
208 (a) "Technical progress is making constant headway, large-scale
production is developing in an ever-increasing extent, small-scale production
is being ousted more and more or is declining...and the small producer, who
is being ruined under the yoke of capitalism, becomes truly revolutionary
only to the extent that he realises the hopelessness of his position and places
himself at the standpoint of the proletariat."
(b) "It is common knowledge that the petty bourgeoisie does not always
and in general guard the existing order, but on the contrary often takes
revolutionary action even against the (big--Ed.) bourgeoisie (specifically,
when it joins the proletariat)...."
(c) (Add) "If by chance they (primarily the petty bourgeoisie--Ed.) are
revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into
the proletariat, they thus defend not their present, but their future interests,
they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat."
(d) (Add) "The small proprietor stands at the parting of the ways in the
great worldwide struggle between labour and capital. He has either
to try to 'get on in the world' in bourgeois fashion and become a master
of himself, or to try to help the proletariat overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie."
Page 100
Section IV
BEING CLASS-CONSCIOUS IS CRUCIAL
In any modern capitalist society there are three major struggling classes--the
bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, and the proletariat. The first
group owns a great deal of private property and has a definite interest in
seeing that the system continues. The second group is composed of people
who own some private property and hope to own more, but nearly always lose
out in competing with the more affluent. And the third group is made
up of people who own no significant private property whatever.
209
One should always be aware of their existence, their struggles,
their interests, and the group to which he belongs. Unfortunately, because
of a stupendous amount of miseducation,210
many of the exploited do not even realize they are in a class struggle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
209 (Add) "Marx and Engels sharply challenged those who tended
to forget class distinctions and spoke about producers, the people, or working
people in general. Anyone who has read Marx and Engels will recall that
in all their works they ridicule those who talk about producers, the people,
working people in general. There are no working people or workers in
general; there are either small proprietors who own the means of production,
and whose mentality and habits are capitalistic--and they cannot be anything
else--or wage-workers with an altogether different cast of mind, wage-workers
in large-scale industry, who stand in antagonistic contradiction to the capitalists
and are ranged in struggle against them."
210 (a) "The workers are surrounded on all sides by such a
sea of lies in the bourgeois newspapers that they must fight for the truth
at all costs, they must learn to recognise falsehoods and reject them."
(b) "The oppressed classes are always being deceived by the oppressors,
but the meaning of this deception differs at different moments in history."
(c) (Add) "It is, of course, an advantage to the employers if the workers
give no thought to their conditions and have no understanding of their rights."
Page 101
Those unaware resemble a man who is being cheated and deceived while simultaneously
being assured by immense propaganda that his existence is secure, his valuables
are safe, and the rewards of his labor are just. Those who fail to recognize
the class struggle and to realize where their interests lie will invariably
be taken advantage of by those who know better. 211
The ruling class has no illusions about the overriding dominance
of class conflict throughout all facets of life.212
It's extremely class conscious.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
211 (a) (Add) "...owing to my position I can be a proletarian
and not a bourgeois, but at the same time I can be unconscious of my position
and, as a consequence, submit to bourgeois ideology. This is exactly
how the matter stands in this case with the working class."
(b) (Add) "It is said that history is fond of irony, or playing tricks
with people, and mystifying them. In history this constantly happens to individuals,
groups and trends that do not realise what they really stand for, i.e., fail
to understand which class they really...gravitate toward."
(c) (Add) "...he (Marx--Ed.) took as the point of departure of his exposition
precisely the plain and sober calculation of interests."
(d) (Add) "When it is not immediately apparent which political or social
group, forces or alignments advocate certain proposals, measures, etc.,
one should always ask: 'Who stands to gain.' It is not important who
directly advocates a particular policy, since under the present noble system
of capitalism any money-bag can always 'hire,' buy or enlist any number of
lawyers, writers and even parliamentary deputies, professors, parsons and
the like to defend any views. We live in an age of commerce, when the
bourgeoisie have no scruples about trading in honour or conscience.
There are also simpletons who out of stupidity or by force of habit defend
views prevalent in certain bourgeois circles. Yes, indeed! In
politics it is not so important who directly advocates particular views.
What is important is who stands to gain from these views, proposals, measures."
(e) (Add) "...what is to be 'feared' is not bourgeoisdom, but the producer's
(the proletariat's--Ed.) lack of consciousness of this bourgeoisdom, his
inability to defend his interests against it."
212 (a) "...the capitalists are more class-conscious than the
other classes...."
(b) "This struggle proves once again that on the whole the class instincts
and class consciousness of the ruling classes are still more highly developed
than the consciousness of the oppressed classes...."
(c) "Our reactionaries, however, are distinguished by their extremely pronounced
class-consciousness. They know perfectly well what they want, where
they are going, and on what forces they can count. They do not betray
a shadow of half-heartedness or irresolution.... They are clearly
seen to be connected with a very definite class, which is accustomed to command,
which correctly judges the conditions necessary for preserving its rule in
a capitalist environment, and brazenly defends its interests...."
Page 101
As long as an individual believes that society is nothing more than an
amorphous mass of individuals, some of whom are just higher up the social
scale than others, as long as he is unaware of the class struggle and class
interests--lacks a CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS, he will forever be led astray.
BEING CLASS CONSCIOUS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL PRE-REQUISITES FOR A CORRECT
APPRAISAL OF MAN'S CONDITION.213
------------------------------------------------------------------------
213 (a) "There is nothing more important to class-conscious
workers than to have an understanding of the significance of their movement
and a thorough knowledge of it. The only source of strength of the working-class
movement--and an invincible one at that--is the class-consciousness of the
workers and the broad scope of their struggle...."
(b) "Anyone who has learned anything from history or from Marxism will
have to admit that a political analysis must focus on the class issue: what
class represents the revolution and what class the counter-revolution."
(c) As Lenin once told his listeners, "...you only have to detach yourself
for a moment from the present hubbub of empty phrases, promises and petty
doings which fuddles your thinking, and take a look at the main thing, at
what determines everything in public life--the class struggle."
(d) (Add) Realizing the importance of awareness, Lenin gave the following
advice to the Russian proletariat. "Workers! You see how mortally
terrified are our ministers at the working people acquiring knowledge!
Show everybody, then, that no power will succeed in depriving the workers
of class-consciousness (an awareness that a small group of people through
ownership of the means of production and distribution have arranged all
aspects of society for their benefit--Ed.)! Without knowledge the workers
are defenceless, with knowledge they are a force!"
(e) (Add) "To overlook the class struggle is indeed to reveal a gross misunderstanding
of Marxism.... Can anyone with the least knowledge of Marx deny that
the doctrine of the class struggle is the pivot of his whole system of views?"
(f) (Add) "The principle of class struggle is the very foundation of all
Social-Democratic (Marxist--Ed.) teaching and of all Social Democratic policy."
(g) (Add) "...we are guided exclusively by class considerations."
(h) (Add) "The question of the class struggle is one of the fundamental
questions of Marxism."
(i) (Add) "...failure to understand the class struggle makes Mr. Nik---on
a utopian, for anybody who ignores the class struggle in capitalist society
eo ipso ignores all the real content of the social and political life of
the society and, in seeking to fulfill his desiratum, is inevitably doomed
to hover in the sphere of pious wishes."
(j) (Add) "The doctrine of the class struggle is something against which
one can conceivably make an effort to argue in terms of (would-be) science.
But one has only to approach the matter from a practical standpoint, to look
closely at everyday realities, and behold! the most violent opponent of this
doctrine can prove to be as gifted an advocate of the class struggle as the
Saxon judge, Herr Ginsberg."
(k) (Add) "It behooves the bourgeoisie to shun all talk about the class
struggle, to avoid analysing it, studying it, and making it a basis for determining
policies. It behooves the bourgeoisie to dismiss these 'disagreeable'
and 'tactless' subjects--as they say in parlous--.... It behooves the
proletarian party not to forget the class struggle."
(l) (Add) "...the bourgeoisie maintains itself in power not only by force
but also by virtue of the lack of class-consciousness and organization,
the routinism and downtrodden state of the masses."
TO GO TO PART 8 (
CLICK HERE
)