|
k ) Communism as a Present Social Movement  Communism is not only a social system, a mode of production, which will exist in the future, after "the revolution." This revolution is in fact an encounter between two worlds : 1 ) on the one hand, all those who are rejected, excluded from all real enjoyment, whose very existence is sometimes threatened, who are nevertheless united by the necessity of coming into contact with one another, to act, to live, to survive; 2 ) on the other hand, a socialised economy on a world-wide scale, unified on a technical level, but divided into units forced to oppose each other to obey the logic of value which unifies them and which will destroy anything to survive as such. The world of commodities and value, which is the present framework of productive forces, is activated by a life of its own; it has constituted itself into an autonomous force, and the world of real needs submits to its laws. The communist revolution is the destruction of this submission. Communism is the struggle against this submission and has opposed it since the early days of capitalism, and even before, [31] with no chance of success. Mankind first attributed to its ideas, its conceptions of the world, an origin external to itself, and thought the nature of man was to be found, not in his social relations, but in his link with an element outside of the real world ( god ), of which man was only the product. Likewise mankind, in its effort to appropriate and adapt to the surrounding world, first had to create a material world, a network of productive forces, an economy, a world of objects which crushes and dominates it, before it could appropriate this world, adapting and transforming it according to its needs. The communist revolution is the continuation as well as the overpassing of present social movements. Discussions of communism usually start from an erroneous standpoint : they deal with the question of what people will do after the revolution. They never connect communism with what is going on at the moment when the discussion is going on. There is a complete rupture : first one makes the revolution, then communism. In fact communism is the continuation of real needs which are now already at work, but which cannot lead anywhere, which cannot be satisfied, because the present situation forbids it. Today there are numerous communist gestures and attitudes which express not only a refusal of the present world, but most of all an effort to build a new one. In so far as these do not succeed, one sees only their limits, only the tendency and not its possible continuation ( the function of "extremist" groups is precisely to present these limits as the aims of the movement, and to strengthen them ). In the refusal of assembly-line work, in the struggles of squatters, [32] the communist perspective is present as an effort to create "something else," not on the basis of a mere rejection of the modern world ( hippy ), but through the use and transformation of what is produced and wasted. In such conflicts people spontaneously try to appropriate goods without obeying the logic of exchange; therefore they treat these goods as use values. Their relations to these things, and the relations they establish among themselves to perform such acts, are subversive. People even change themselves in such events. The "something else" that these actions reach for is present in the actions only potentially, whatever those who organise them may think and want, and whatever the extremists who take part in them and theorise about them may do and say. Such movements will be forced to become conscious of their acts, to understand what they are doing, in order to do it better. Those who already feel the need for communism, and discuss it, cannot interfere in these struggles to bring the communist gospel, to propose to these limited actions that they direct themselves towards "real" communist activity. What is needed is not slogans, but an explanation of the background and mechanism of these struggles. One must only show what they will be forced to do. This cannot be done without participation in such movements whenever this is possible, though not by wasting one's time. This does not mean that theoretical activity must be neglected. Everything has not been said, and this text, like many others, is merely an approach to the problem. Yet there is a certain way of studying theory which leads to no contact at all with the real social movement. From a negative point of view, any critique which helps destroy the mystifying apology of capital made by the State, the left, the official Communist Parties or the extreme left, is also a communist act, whether it is a speech, a text, or an act. Theoretical activity is practical. There are no theoretical concessions to be made. But the only way to promote the communist perspective and to allow it to play its practical role, is to take part in the agitation and unification which social movements are already trying to achieve. Notes [31] Engels, The Peasant War In Germany. [32] The magazine Inside Story is interesting in this context ( 3 Belmont Rd., London, S.W.4 ). |