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PART XIV
THE NATURE OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY
Socialism is the first phase of communism.468
The culminating stage, communism, will emerge when several
conditions have been attained. Firstly, there is a superabundance of
production resulting primarily from a tremendous employment of automation
and cybernetics. 469
Housing, transportation, food, clothing, etc. are so widespread,
so prevalent, that they are as easy to obtain as the air outside.
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468 "...the only scientific distinction between socialism
and Communism is that the first term implies the first stage of the new
society arising out of capitalism, while the second implies the next and
higher stage."
469 (a) "A few generations of social development under...(socialism--Ed.)
and increased quantities of means of subsistence must bring mankind to a
stage where...anyone who pedantically insists on being given his equal and
just share of the products is laughed to scorn by being given twice as much."
(b) (Add) "In the last analysis, productivity of labour is the most important,
the principal thing for the victory of the new social system."
(c) (Add) "...as soon as the productive power of human labour has risen
to this height, every excuse disappears for the existence of a ruling class. After all, the ultimate basis on which class differences were defended was
always: there must be a class which need not plague itself with the production
of its daily subsistence, in order that it may have time to look after the
intellectual work of society. This talk, which up to now had its great
historical justification, has been cut off at the root once and for all...."
(d) (Add) "In the future society, in which class antagonism will have
ceased, in which there will no longer be any classes, use will no longer
be determined by the minimum time of production; but the time of production
devoted to different articles will be determined by the degree of their social
utility." (The production of items which required the least time and
effort will no longer be of greatest importance--Ed.).
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Secondly, money or currency has been discarded since there is no need to
pay for that which can be freely obtained.470
Thirdly, money need no longer be employed as a stimulus to labor because
people voluntarily work for the common good without any expectation of reward.
471
Technological advancements have saddled machinery with those
tasks which are monotonous, stultifying and degrading.
472
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470 (a) "If we conceive society as being not capitalistic
but communistic, there will be no money-capital at all...."
(b) (Add) "It is impossible to abolish money at one stroke in the first
period of transition from capitalism to communism (i.e., the socialist phase--Ed.)."
(c) (Add) "Money is congealed social wealth, congealed social labour. Money is a token which enables its owner to take tribute from all the working
people. Money is a survival of yesterday's exploitation. That
is what money is. Can it be abolished at one stroke? No. Even before the socialist revolution the socialists wrote that it is impossible
to abolish money at one stroke, and our experience corroborates this. There must be very considerable technical and, what is much more difficult
and much more important, organizational achievement before we can abolish
money; and until then we must put up with a situation in which everybody
who possesses money practically has the right to exploit. We could not
abolish money at one stroke. We say that for the time being money will
remain, and remain for a fairly long time in the transition period from the
old capitalist system to the new socialist (read: communist--Ed.) system."
471 (a) "Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense
of the term is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour
performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right
to certain products, not according to previously established and legally
fixed quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas; it is labour
performed without expectation of reward, without reward as a condition, labour
performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and
because of a conscious realization (that has become a habit) of the necessity
of working for the common good--labour as the requirement of a healthy organism."
(b) "...real communist labour, i.e., labour performed gratis. Communism
is the highest stage in the development of socialism, when people work because
they realize the necessity of working for the common good.'
(c) "And communism, if you take that word in its strictest meaning, is
voluntary unpaid work for the common good that does not depend on individual
differences, that wipes out all memories of everyday prejudices, wipes out
stagnation, tradition, differences between branches of work, differences in
the rates of pay for labour, etc."
(d) "...in Marx's opinion, the higher phase of communist society will
be a system under which the division of work into 'dirty' and 'clean' and
the distinction between mental and physical labor will be completely abolished,
labor be equal, and in society the genuine communist principle will prevail:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Here there is no room for wage labor."
(e) "The 'communist' begins when subbotniks (i.e., unpaid labour with
no quota set by any authority or any state) make their appearance; they
constitute the labour of individuals on an extensive scale for the public
good. ...it is work done to meet the needs of the country as a whole,
and it is organized on a broad scale and is unpaid. It would, therefore,
be more correct if the word 'communist' were applied not only to the name
of the Party but also to those economic manifestations in our reality that
are actually communist in character."
(f) (Add) "Society can only make the transition to the higher phase of
communism, wrote Marx, 'After labour has become not only a means of life but
life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the
all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative
wealth flow more abundantly...and society can inscribe on its banners: From
each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'!"
(g) (Add) "All that Marxism says is that until classes have been finally
abolished and until labour has been transformed from a means of subsistence
into the prime want of man, into voluntary labour for society, people will
be paid for their labour according to the work performed. 'From each
according to his ability, to each according to his work.' Such is the
Marxist formula of socialism, i.e., the formula of the first stage of communism,
the first stage of communist society. Only at the higher stage of communism,
only in its higher phase will each one, working according to his ability,
be recompensed for his work according to his needs. 'From each according
to his ability, to each according to his needs."
(h) (Add) "...when people have become accustomed to observe the fundamental
rules of social life, and their labour is so productive, that they voluntarily
work according to their ability.... There will then be no need for
any exact calculation by society of the quantity of products to be distributed
to each of its members; each will take freely 'according to his needs.' From the bourgeois point of view,it is easy to declare such a social order
'a pure utopia,' and to sneer at the Socialists for promising each the right
to receive from society, without any control of the labour of the individual
citizen...thereby displaying...their self-seeking defence of capitalism."
(i) (Add) "Communism begins when the rank-and-file workers begin to display
a self-sacrificing concern that is undaunted by arduous toil for increasing
productivity of labour, for...society as a whole....'
(j) (Add) "We shall work to eradicate the accursed rule: 'every man for
himself and god for us all,' to eradicate the habit of regarding work only
as a duty, and of regarding as legitimate only such work as is paid for at
certain rates. We shall work to inculcate in people's minds, to convert
into a habit, to introduce in the daily life of the masses, the rule: 'all
for each and each for all;' the rule: 'from each according to his ability,
to each according to his needs'...."
(k) (Add) "First show that you are capable of working without remuneration
in the interests of society, in the interest of all the toilers...and then
hold out your hand for the honourable title 'commune'."
(l) (Add) A primary goal of Marxists is to change labor from the depressing
activity which it is under capitalism into an enjoyable adventure. The following account by Engels, which is as accurate today as 100 years ago,
highlights that which should be improved. "Another source of demoralization
among the workers is their being condemned to work. As voluntary,
productive activity is the highest enjoyment known to us, so is compulsory
toil the most cruel, degrading punishment. Nothing is more terrible
than being constrained to do some one thing every day from morning until
night against one's will. And the more a man the worker feels himself,
the more hateful must his work be to him, because he feels the constraint,
the aimlessness of it for himself. Why does he work? For love
of work? From a natural impulse? Not at all! He works for
money, for a thing which has nothing whatsoever to do with the work itself;
and he works so long, moreover, and in such unbroken monotony, that this
alone must make his work a torture in the first weeks if he has the least
human feeling left."
472 (Add) "But the perfecting of machinery is making human
labour superfluous."
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Fourthly, through control of material conditions the masses have moved
much further down the road from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.
473
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473 (a) "The possibility of securing for every member of society,
by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient
materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing
to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties--this
possibility is now for the first time here.... Anarchy in social production
is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for
individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a
certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom,
and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones.
The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have
hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who
for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature. Man's
own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed
by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free election.
The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass
under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself,
more and more consciously, make his own history.... It is the assent
of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom."
(b) (Add) "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and
class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development
of each is the condition for the free development of all."
(c) (Add) "Only in community (with others has each) individual the means
of cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore,
is personal freedom possible. In the previous substitutes for the community,
in the State, etc., personal freedom has existed only for the individuals
who developed within the relationships of the ruling class, and only insofar
as they were individuals of this class."
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Fifthly, man has attained a classless condition474
and thus no longer needs a state apparatus.475
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474 (a) "...we know perfectly well from all the works of Marx
and Engels that they drew a very clear distinction between the period in
which classes still exist and that in which they no longer do. Marx
and Engels used to ridicule the idea that classes could disappear before
communism, and said that communism alone meant their abolition."
(b) "We shall have socialism (read: communism--Ed.) when there are no
classes, when all the means of production belong to the working people.
We still have classes, it will take many, many years to abolish them, and
only a quack will promise to do it overnight."
(c) (Add) "The abolition of classes, therefore, is not a kindly wish,
not mere fantasy, but the result of society's economic development."
(d) (Add) "It was not simply class privileges that were to be abolished,
but class distinctions themselves."
(e) (Add) "We say that our aim, being the aim of world socialism, is the
abolition of classes and that classes are groups of people, one of which
lives by the labour of another, one of which appropriates the labour of another."
(f) (Add) "By introducing social in place of private ownership of the
means of production and exchange, by introducing planned organization of
social production to ensure the well-being and many-sided development of
all the members of society, the proletarian social revolution will do away
with the division of society into classes and thereby emancipate the whole
of oppressed humanity, for it will put an end to all forms of exploitation
of one section of society by another."
(g) (Add) "...in order to abolish classes completely, it is not enough
to overthrow the exploiters, the landlords and capitalists, not enough to
abolish their rights of ownership; it is necessary also to abolish all private
ownership of the means of production; it is necessary to abolish the distinction
between town and country, as well as the distinction between manual workers
and brain workers. This requires a very long period of time. In order
to achieve this an enormous step forward must be taken in developing the productive
forces...it is necessary to overcome the enormous force of habit and conservatism
which are connected with these survivals."
475 (a) "Where there are no classes, where there are neither
rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no need either for
political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich."
(b) "Abolition of the state is visualized by Communists solely as the
necessary result of the abolition of classes, after which the need for the
organized power of one class to suppress another disappears of itself."
(c) "...only Communism renders the state absolutely unnecessary, for there
is no one to be suppressed--'no one' in the sense of a class, in the sense
of a systematic struggle with a definite section of the population."
(d) "Once class domination disappears there will no longer be a state
in the present political sense of the word."
(e) "The condition for the emancipation of the working class is the abolition
of every class.... The working class, in the course of its development,
will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude
classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly
so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of
antagonism (class struggle--Ed.) in civil society."
(f) "...(communism is--Ed.) a stage in the development of production at
which the existence of...classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity,
but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as
inevitably as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state
will inevitably fall. The society that will organize production on
the basis of a free and equal association of the producers (communism--Ed.)
will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the
Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe."
(g) "When at last it (the state--Ed.) becomes the real representative
of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as
there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as
class rule (is--Ed.) removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a
special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. ...the government
of persons is replaced by the administration of things...."
(h) "The state is withering away in so far as there are no longer any
capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed....
For the complete extinction of the state, complete Communism is necessary."
(i) "And, once the majority of the people itself suppresses its oppressors,
a 'special force' for suppression is no longer necessary. In this sense
the state begins to wither away. Instead of the special institutions
of a privileged minority...the majority can itself directly fulfill all these
functions; and the more the discharge of the functions of state power devolves
upon the people generally, the less need is there for the existence of this
power."
(j) "...with the introduction of the socialist (read: communist--Ed.)
order of society the state will dissolve of itself and disappear."
(k) (Add) "Only now can we appreciate the full correctness of Engels'
remarks in which he mercilessly ridiculed all the absurdity of combining
the words 'freedom' and 'state,' while the state exists there is no freedom
(for many--Ed.). When there is freedom, there will be no state."
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Sixthly, the state has been replaced by a loose administrative agency,
comparable to that which existed in primitive communal society, which exercises
no coercive powers and serves no particular group.476
Seventhly, all citizens are capable of devising correct strategy
and recognizing those acts or ideas which are regressive and decadent and
lead to the reinstitution of capitalism. The day has arrived, as Lenin
stated, when everyone can assume a leadership role.477
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476 (a) "...the government of persons is replaced by the administration
of things...."
(b) (Add) "...it is self-evident that for the purpose of administering
public affairs there will have to be in socialist (read: communist--Ed.) society,
in addition to local offices which will collect all sorts of information,
a central statistical bureau, which will collect information about the needs
of the whole of society, and then distribute the various kinds of work among
the people accordingly." (But this will not be a state apparatus--Ed.)
(c) (Add) Coercive power is not the main aspect of the state. "...there
is a coercive power in every human community (even communist society--Ed.);
and there was one in the tribal system and in the family, but there was no
state. 'An essential feature of the state,' says Engels, 'is a public
power distinct from the mass of the people.' ...Thus the distinguishing
feature of the state is the existence of a separate class of people in whose
hands power is concentrated. Obviously, nobody could use the term
'state' in reference to a community in which the 'organization of order'
is administered in turn by all its members."
477 (Add) "From the moment when all members of society, or
even the overwhelming majority, have learned how to govern the state themselves,
have taken this business into their own hands...from this moment the need
for any government begins to disappear."
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The son has matured and equalled the father in competence and comprehension. And lastly, the Party is no longer needed because the masses are not only
capable of separating that which is regressive and decadent from that which
is progressive and healthy but act accordingly. A Marxist party is
the only political group effectively seeking the creation of a society in
which its presence is no longer necessary.478
Once goods are freely obtainable, money has been totally abolished, private
property has all but vanished, labor for self as well as others arises from
internal need and desire rather than necessity, degrading work has been
virtually eliminated, all production has been centralized,
479
immense freedom has blossomed for everyone as never before through
greater control of material conditions, classes and the class struggle,
as well as the differences between town and country and mental and physical
labor, have vanished, each member of society can correctly lead as well as
follow, and the vast array of ideologies indicative of private property systems
have sufficiently subsided, mankind will have entered the communist phase
480
and begin to progress at a much faster pace.
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478 (Add) "To establish and build the Communist Party is in
fact to prepare the conditions for the elimination of the Communist Party...."
479 "Communism requires and presupposes the greatest possible
centralisation of large-scale production...."
480 (a) Stalin's description of socialist society is actually
a good analysis of communism. He stated, "Future society will be socialist
(read communist--Ed.). This means, primarily, that there will be no
classes in that society. There will be neither capitalists nor proletarians
and, consequently, there will be no exploitation. In that society
there will be only workers engaged in collective labor. ...with the
abolition of exploitation, commodity production and buying and selling will
also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers
of labour power, for employers and employed--there will be only free workers.
...complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means
of production. There will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists;
there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals,
all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways etc."
(b) (Add) "In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving
subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and with it also
the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished, after labour
has become not only a livelihood but life's prime want, after the productive
forces have also increased with the all round development of the individual,
and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly--only then
can...society inscribe on its banner: From each according to his ability,
to each according to his needs."
(c) (Add) "From capitalism mankind can pass directly only to Socialism,
i.e., to the social ownership of the means of production and the distribution
of products according to the amount of work performed by each individual. ...Socialism must inevitably pass gradually into Communism...."
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Man will have returned full-circle to primitive communal society but on
a much higher plane.481
Man will have passed from the socialist state of the dictatorship
of the proletariat into communism and attained the society of stupendous
freedom so ardently desired by all. The state will have been replaced
by an administrative apparatus entirely dependent upon the good will and
voluntary compliance of each individual. Brotherhood will have become
supreme and coercive agencies (police, courts, prisons, armies, etc.) will
have become as archaic as slavery.482
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481 (Add) "Five main types of relations of production are
known to history: primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and socialist."
(The latter has two phases. The early socialist and the later communist
phase which resembles primitive communal society--Ed.).
482 (a) "...freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold
horrors, savagery, absurdities and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people
will gradually become accustomed to the observance of the elementary rules
of social life that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands
of years in all school books; they will become accustomed to observing them
without force, without compulsion, without subordination, without the special
apparatus for compulsion which is called the state.... Only habit
can, and undoubtedly will, have such an effect; for we see around us millions
of times how readily people get accustomed to observe the necessary rules
of life in common, if there is no exploitation, if there is nothing that
causes indignation, that calls forth protest and revolt and has to be suppressed."
(In other words, the material conditions are right--Ed.).
(b) "...there will vanish all need for force, for the subjection of one
man to another and of one part of the population to another, since people
will grow accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social existence
without force and without subjection. ...Engels speaks of a new generation,
'reared under new and free social conditions,' which 'will be able to throw
on the scrap heap all this state rubbish'--every kind of state, including
even the democratic-republican state."
(c) "Property crimes will be no more where each receives what he needs
to satisfy his natural and spiritual requirements and where social barriers
and differences fall away. Criminal courts will dissolve and civil justice,
which deals almost entirely with property relations or at least with relations
impelled by the state of social war, will also become redundant; conflicts
will be rare exceptions and will be easily settled by arbitrators, whereas
they are now the natural consequence of wholesale hostility.... It
would never occur to anyone in communist society to maintain a standing army."
(d) "Then man will not only become master of his person but also of his
labour, for privileges will have disappeared, and parasites will be no more.
The working people will then be the only ones to be held in esteem, peace
and happiness will come to reign on earth, and the unity of the human race
will be established finally."
(e) (Add) "Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself
to be this solution."
(f) (Add) "In the old days they used to say, 'Each for himself, and God
for all.' And how much misery resulted from it. We say, 'Each
for all, and we'll somehow manage without God."
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Certainly no country in the world today claims to have entered latter phase,
not even China, Cuba, Vietnam, or North Korea. 483
Anyone applying the word "communist" to any existing state
reveals either poor knowledge of Marxian socialism or intentional deception.
484
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483 (a) (Add) "In their present level of economic development
all socialist countries are still far, far, removed from the higher stage
of communism in which 'from each according to his ability, to each according
to his needs' is put into practice."
(b) (Add) "The future society we are striving for, the society in which
all must work (read: will voluntarily labor without recompense--Ed.), the
society in which there will be no class distinctions, will take a long time
to build."
(c) (Add) "In reality, when a learned professor (talks--Ed.) of the unreasonable
Utopias, of the demagogic promises of the Bolsheviks (Communists--Ed.), of
the impossibility of 'introducing' Socialism, it is the higher stage or phase
of Communism which they have in mind, and which no one has ever promised,
or even thought of 'introducing' for the reason that, generally speaking,
it cannot be 'introduced."
484 (Add) "If we were to ask ourselves in what way communism
differs from socialism, we should have to say that socialism is the society
that grows directly out of capitalism, it is the first form of the new society.
Communism is a higher form of society, and can only develop when socialism
has become firmly established. Socialism implies work without the
aid of the capitalists, socialised labour with strict accounting, control
and supervision by the organized vanguard, the advanced section of the working
people; the measure of labour and remuneration for it must be fixed. It
is necessary to fix them because capitalist society has left behind such
survivals and such habits as the fragmentation of labour, no confidence
in social economy, and the old habits of the petty proprietor....
All this is contrary to real communist economy. We give the name of
communism to the system under which people form the habit of performing
their social duties without any special apparatus for coercion, and when
unpaid work for the public good becomes a general phenomenon. It stands
to reason that the concept of 'communism' is a far too distant one for those
who are taking the first steps toward complete victory over capitalism.
...if the name 'Communist Party' were interpreted to mean that the communist
system is being introduced immediately, that would be a great distortion
and would do practical harm since it would be nothing more than empty boasting.
...if they imagine that we can go straight from large-scale capitalism to
communism they are not revolutionaries but reformists and utopians."
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