Page 225
PART XV
CONCLUSION
Of the many concepts that could be included in any comprehensive summation
of Marxian ideology, the following three are crucial.
Firstly, the world's capitalists are in a stupendous bind from which escape
is impossible. Like the man standing at the bottom of the snow-covered,
inclined plane, every time they push their problem away it returns more ominous
than ever. Sooner or later they will be crushed in a series of revolutions
485
from which socialism and ultimately communism will emerge.
486
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485 (a) (Add) "The bourgeoisie is still able freely to torment,
torture and kill. But it cannot halt the inevitable and--from the standpoint
of world history--not far distant triumph of the revolutionary proletariat."
(b) (Add) "The victory of the international proletarian revolution, despite
everything, is inevitable."
(c) (Add) "Whatever difficulties the revolution may have to encounter,
whatever possible temporary setbacks or waves of counter-revolution it may
have to contend with, the final victory of the proletariat is inevitable."
(d) (Add) "The proletariat is the child of capitalism--of world capitalism....
On a world scale, fifty years sooner or fifty years later--measured on a world
scale this is a minor point--the 'proletariat' of course 'will be' united,
and revolutionary Social-Democracy (Marxism--Ed.) will 'inevitably' be victorious
with it.... The victory of revolutionary Social-Democracy on a world
scale is absolutely inevitable...."
(e) (Add) "The revolution of the proletariat, the overthrow of the yoke
of capitalism, is on the march and shall come about in every country in the
world."
(f) (Add) "I firmly believe that in the long run the social revolution
will be victorious in all civilised countries. When it begins in America
it will far surpass the Russian revolution."
(g) (Add) "Nothing can stop the tide of the peoples' liberation from the
imperialist yoke and the liberation of working men and women from the yoke
of capital. This cause is being carried forward by tens and hundreds
of millions of working men and women in town and countryside. That
is why this cause of labour's freedom from the yoke of capital will triumph
all over the world."
(h) (Add) "No power on earth can avert the collapse of capitalism and the
victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie."
(i) (Add) "That capitalism is moving toward collapse--both in the sense
of individual political and economic crises and of the complete collapse
of the entire capitalist system--has been made very clear...."
(j) (Add) "Capitalism is crying; in its death throes it can still condemn
tens and hundreds of millions of people to unparalleled torment, but there
is no power that can prevent its collapse."
(k) (Add) "The collapse of capitalism is inevitable."
(l) (Add) "Mr. Strave says that Marx conceived the transition from capitalism
to the new social system as the sudden downfall, the collapse of capitalism.
(He thinks that 'certain passages' in Marx give grounds for this view; as
a matter of fact, it runs through all the works of Marx)."
(m) (Add) "Say what you may, the bourgeoisie will in the end be forced
by the will of the revolutionary people either to capitulate, or to perish."
(n) (Add) "None of them understands that the bourgeois form of production
is historical and transitory, just as the feudal form was."
(o) (Add) "The Communist Manifesto had as its object the proclamation of
the inevitably impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property."
(p) (Add) "Victory will be on the side of the exploited, for on their side
is life, numerical strength, the strength of the mass, the strength of the
inexhaustible sources of all that is selfless, dedicated and honest, all that
is surging forward and awakening to the building of the new, all the vast
reserves of energy and talent latent in the so-called 'common people,' the
workers and peasants. Victory will be theirs."
(q) (Add) "...we have never been so near to world proletarian revolution
as now."
486 (a) "...it is self-evident that the socialist system will
follow capitalism as inevitably as day follows night."
(b) "By this same objective analysis of the capitalist system, he (Marx--Ed.)
proved the necessity of its transformation into the socialist system."
(c) "...it is correct to draw one single conclusion from this contradiction--that
the development of the productive forces themselves must, with irresistible
force, lead to the replacement of capitalism by an economy of associated
producers."
(d) "This struggle of the working class against the capitalist class is
a struggle against all classes who live by the labour of others and against
exploitation. It can only end in the passage of political power into
the hands of the working class, the transfer of all the land, instruments,
factories, machines, and mines to the whole of society for the organization
of socialist production, under which all that is produced by the workers
and all improvements in production must benefit the working people themselves."
(e) "...the time is not far off when the working people of all countries
will unite into a single world-wide state and join in a common effort to
build a new socialist edifice."
(f) "The time is fast approaching when an end will be put to capitalism,
when millions of united proletarians will establish a social system in which
there will be no poverty of the masses, nor exploitation of man by man."
(g) "...let the bourgeoisie rage and fume; only people who shut their eyes
so as not to see and stuff their ears so as not to hear can fail to notice
that all over the world the birth pangs of the old capitalist society, which
is pregnant with socialism, have begun."
(h) (Add) "...the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely
assured."
(i) (Add) "...in barely sixty years socialism has won itself a position
which makes its victory absolutely certain."
(j) (Add) "The victory of communism is inevitable. Communism will
triumph."
(k) (Add) "All nations will arrive at socialism--this is inevitable, but
all will do so in not exactly the same way, each will contribute something
of its own.... There is nothing more primitive from the viewpoint
of theory, or more ridiculous from that of practice, than to paint 'in the
name of historical materialism,' this aspect of the future in a monotonous
gray."
(l) (Add) "The revolution of the proletariat will mean the emancipation
of all the now oppressed and suffering mankind, because it will put an end
to all types of oppression and exploitation of man by man."
(m) (Add) "But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most
complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products,
that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the
few."
(n) (Add) "The bourgeois relations of production (capitalism--Ed.) are
the last antagonistic (exploitive--Ed.) form of the social process of production....
This social formation brings, therefore, the prehistory of human society
to a close."
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Secondly, society's evolution will never move forward unless man is the
motivator.487
Internal contradictions are the greatest of aides to the elimination
of exploitation but are insufficient by themselves.
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487 (a) "...the idea of historical necessity does not in the
least undermine the role of the individual in history: all history is made
up of the actions of individuals, who are undoubtedly active figures."
(b) "So it is not as people try here and there conveniently to imagine,
that the economic situation produces an automatic effect. No, men make
their history themselves...."
(c) "And in general, apparently, things will never advance an inch without
professional revolutionaries."
(d) "The philistine is satisfied with the undoubted, holy, and empty truth
that it is impossible to say in advance whether there will be a revolution
or not. A Marxist is not satisfied with that; he says: our propaganda
and the propaganda of all worker Social-Democrats is one of the factors
determining whether there will be a revolution or not."
(e) "Everything reactionary (read: capitalist--Ed.) is the same; if you
don't hit it, it won't fall. This is also like sweeping the floor;
as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.... The enemy will not perish of himself."
(f) "Men are the makers of history."
(g) "Marxism does not at all deny the role played by outstanding individuals
or that history is made by people."
Page 227
Without dedicated workers who willingly take necessary predetermined risks,
488
without progressive activists, the masses will nearly always remain
in a state of complaisant servitude, even as conditions worsen. Marxists
must not only correctly describe the capitalist mode of production to the
masses, who often do not understand the nature of their oppression,
489
but also stimulate the oppressed in the right direction.
490
------------------------------------------------------------------------
488 (Add) "World history would indeed be very easy to make
if the struggle were taken up only on condition of infallibly favorable chances."
489 "But the peasant does not know the cause of his distress,
hunger, and ruin, or how to rid himself of want. To know this we must
first find out what causes all want and poverty in both town and country."
490 (Add) "...practical socialism consists rather in a correct
knowledge of the capitalist mode of production from its various aspects. A working class which knows what's what in this regard will never be in doubt
in any case as to which social institutions should be the objects of its main
attacks, and in what manner these attacks should be executed."
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And thirdly, because the growth of private property was the original sin
491
in so far as man's relationship to man is concerned, socialism (the
absence of exploitation492
by private ownership of the means of production and distribution)
is the only adequate economic arrangement from which to attack humanity's
ills.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
491 (a) "This primitive accumulation (the historical process
of divorcing the producers from the means of production--Ed.) plays in Political
Economy about the same part as original sin in theology."
(b) "...the economical subjection of the man of labour to the monopoliser
of the means of labour, that is the sources of life, lies at the bottom
of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation,
and political dependence."
(c) (Add) "...in the final analysis, private property divides people and
transforms them into beasts, whereas labour unites them."
492 "Socialism, as we know, is the name given to the protest
and struggle against the exploitation of the working people, a struggle for
the complete abolition of this exploitation...."
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There was no other; there is no other; there will always be no other.
493
------------------------------------------------------------------------
493 (a) "...there is no real redemption for the working class
until it becomes owner of all means of work (land, raw materials, machinery,
etc.--Ed.) and thereby also the owner of THE WHOLE OF THE PRODUCE OF ITS OWN
LABOUR."
(b) "...the only way to put an end to the poverty of the people is to change
the existing order from top to bottom, throughout the country, and to establish
a socialist order: in other words, to take the land from the big landowners,
the factories from the factory-owners, the money capital from the bankers,
to abolish their private property and turn it over to the whole working
people throughout the country. When that is done the labour of the
workers will be made use of not by the rich who live on the labour of others,
but by the workers themselves and by those elected by them. The fruits
of common labour and the benefits that arise from all improvements and machinery
will then go to all the toilers, to all the workers. Wealth will then
grow at a still faster rate because, working for themselves, the workers will
work better than they worked for the capitalists, ...the workers' standard
of living will be higher, all their conditions of life will be completely
changed."
(c) "Hence there is only one way of putting an end to the exploitation
of labour by capital, and that is to abolish private ownership of the means
of production and to transfer all the factories, workshops, mines and all
the large landed estates to society as a whole and to carry on industry on
socialist lines under the management of the workers themselves. The
goods produced by common labour will then be used for the benefit of the
workers and all wealth produced over and above that which is required for
their maintenance will be used to satisfy the requirements of the workers
themselves for the fullest development of all their capabilities and the
equal enjoyment of all the benefits of science and art. ...this is
the inevitable outcome of the struggle between the working class and the
capitalists. For this it is necessary that political power, that is
to say the power to govern the state, shall pass from the hands of the government
which is under the influence of the capitalists and landlords, or from the
hands of the government which consists of the elected representatives of
the capitalists, into the hands of the working class."
(d) "Where lies the way out of the hell of present-day life, in which the
wolfish law of exploitation, oppression and violence holds sway? The
way out lies in the idea of a life which is based on harmony, a full life
enjoyed by the whole of society, by all mankind; the way out is in the idea
of socialism...."
(e) "...only socialism can deliver all the poor from bondage of every kind,
for as long as the rich have power they will always oppress the poor in
one way or another."
(f) "...we (the Communists led by Marx and Engels--Ed.) are convinced and
know that this emancipation can be secured in no other way than by a complete
transformation of existing property relations. In a word, the liberation
of the oppressed can only be achieved in a society based upon common ownership."
(g) "The genuine liberation of the working class is impossible until the
workers become the joint proprietors of all means of labour--of the land
and soil, raw materials, machines, etc., and thus the proprietors of the
entire product of their own labour."
(h) "The industrial workers can free themselves only by transforming the
capital of the bourgeois, that is, the raw materials, machines and tools,
and the means of subsistence requisite for production, into the property
of society, that is, into their own property, used by them in common."
(i) "For us the issue cannot be the alteration of private property but
its annihilation, not the smoothing over of class antagonisms but the abolition
of classes, not the improvement of existing society but the foundation of
a new one."
(j) "The proletarian frees himself by abolishing competition, private property
and all class differences."
(k) "...the only way the proletarian can liberate himself is by abolishing
private property altogether."
(l) "We have shown that at the present time individuals must abolish private
property...."
(m) "Nothing can be achieved by isolated strikes, the parliamentary struggle,
or the vote, because 'private property is sacred,' and the capitalists have
accumulated such debts that the whole world is in bondage to a handful of
men.... There is no other way out to abolish the exploiters' 'private
property'."
(n) "As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist it
is folly to hope for an isolated settlement of the housing question or any
other social question affecting the lot of the workers. The solution
lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the appropriation
of all the means of subsistence and instruments of labour by the working
class itself."
(o) "Marx scientifically proved that exploitation, poverty, and crises
are the inevitable concomitants of capitalism and that they can only be abolished
by abolishing the capitalist mode of production."
(p) "Only the organization of the workers to defend their interests, only
the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, can put an end to the
high cost of living."
(q) "To abolish the 'bad side' the evils of capitalism, it is necessary
to abolish capitalism itself."
(r) "...certain economic evils are part of capitalism as such, whatever
the political superstructure, and it is impossible to eliminate them economically
without eliminating capitalism itself."
(s) "...no amount of liberty will rid them (the workers--Ed.) of poverty,
unemployment, and oppression until the power of capital is overthrown."
(t) Marx once quoted an English author, Bray, who wrote in Labour's Wrongs
and Labour's Remedy that, "...every social and governmental wrong, owes
its rise to the existing social system--to the institution of property as
it at present exists--and that, therefore, if we would end our wrongs and
our miseries at once and for ever, the present arrangements of society must
be totally subverted...."
(u) "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the
single sentence: Abolition of private property."
(v) (Add) "The exploiters and the exploited cannot be equal. This
truth...forms the essential content of Socialism. Another truth: there
can be no real, actual equality, until all possibility of the exploitation
of one class by another has been totally destroyed."
(w) (Add) "To the old world, the world of national oppression, national
bickering, and national isolation the workers counterpose a new world, a
world of the unity of the working people of all nations, a world in which
there is no place for any privileges or for the slightest degree of oppression
of man by man."
(x) (Add) "We are fighting for socialism, i.e., for the complete emancipation
of the toilers from all oppression, economic as well as political.
Our Party admits into its ranks only those who recognize this great aim and
who never for a moment forget the necessity of preparing the forces for its
attainment."
(y) (Add) "The proletariat must always pursue its own independent path
never weakening its connections with the Social-Democratic Party, always
bearing in mind its great, ultimate objective, which is to rid mankind of
all exploitation."
(z) (Add) "...a united army of millions of socialist fighters who will
overthrow capitalism and create a new society in which the people will not
be doomed to poverty, in which there will be no exploitation of man by man."
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Since the basic interests of all laborers are ultimately linked to its
creation while the world's capitalists are understandably, unalterably,
and inextricably united in opposition, one can readily comprehend why Marx
said, "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains."
494
------------------------------------------------------------------------
494 (a) "Since the situation of the workers of all countries
is the same, their interests the same and their enemies the same, they must
also fight together and confront the fraternity of the bourgeoisie of all
nations with a fraternity of the workers of all nations."
(b) "The unity of the workers of all countries is a necessity arising out
of the fact that the capitalist class, which rules over the workers, does
not limit its rule to one country. Commercial ties between the different
countries are becoming closer and more extensive; capital constantly passes
from one country to another.... Capitalist domination is international.
That is why the workers' struggle in all countries for their emancipation
is only successful if the workers fight jointly against international capital."
(c) "...facts that demonstrate incontrovertibly that society consists but
of two hostile classes--the oppressors and the oppressed--and that nothing
short of a solitary union of the sons of toil throughout the world will
redeem them from their present thraldom."
(d) "Down with hostility between workers of different nationalities or
different creeds! It can only profit plunderers and tyrants who live
by the ignorance and disunion of the proletariat. ...All workers are
brothers, and their solid union is the only guarantee of the well-being and
happiness of the whole of working and oppressed mankind."
(e) "Class-conscious workers stand for full unity among the workers of
all nations in every educational, trade union, political, etc., workers'
organization."
(f) "Unlike the bourgeois democrats, we call for the brotherhood of workers
of all nationalities, and not the brotherhood of nations, for we do not
trust the bourgeoisie of any country, we regard them as our enemies."
(g) "...if the proletariat is to achieve victory, all the workers, irrespective
of nationality, must be united."
(h) "But the development of international exchange and of production for
the world market has established (created) such close ties among all nations
of the civilized (?) world, that the great aim of the proletariat's emancipation
struggle can be achieved only through the joint efforts of proletarians
in all countries. That is why the present-day working-class movement
has to become, and has long since become, an international movement...."
(i) "Only the solidarity of all the workers, supported by the mass of the
working people, can overthrow the yoke of capital, which is weighing so
heavily on the workers of all countries."
(j) "Capital is an international force, To vanquish it, an international
workers' alliance, an international workers' brotherhood, is needed.
We are opposed to national enmity and discord, to national exclusiveness.
We are internationalists."
(k) "We see the only guarantee of success for the emancipation movement
of the working class to be in a world alliance of revolutionary internationalists."
(l) "The fundamental principle of the Association is, that the produce
of labour ought to be the property of the producer; that the 'brotherhood
of labour' should be the basis of society; and that the working men of all
countries should...make common cause with each other in their struggle with
capital. Labour is of no country! Working men have the same evils
to contend with everywhere."
(m) "'The working men have no country'--this means that (a) his economic
position...is not national but international, (b) his class enemy is international,
(c) the conditions of his emancipation also, (d) the international unity
of the workers is more important than the national."
(n) "The working men have no country.... Emancipation is impossible
without the joint efforts of the proletarians."
(o) "The words in the Communist Manifesto that 'the workingmen have no
country' are today truer than ever before. Only the proletariat's international
struggle against the bourgeoisie can preserve what it has won, and open to
the oppressed masses the road to a better future."
(p) "The proletariat cannot pursue its struggle for socialism and defend
its everyday economic interests without the closest and fullest alliance
of the workers of all nations in all working-class organizations without
exception... It follows, therefore, that workers who place political
unity with 'their own' bourgeoisie above complete unity with the proletariat
of all nations, are acting against their own interests, against the interests
of socialism, and against the interests of democracy."
(q) "Lenin repeatedly said that the victory of the world revolution was
impossible without a revolutionary alliance, a revolutionary bloc, between
the proletariat of the advanced countries and the oppressed peoples of the
enslaved colonies."
(r) "...the road to victory of the revolution in the west lies through
the revolutionary alliance with the liberation movement of the colonies and
dependent countries against imperialism."
(s) "Now, as always, we (Marxists--Ed.) stand and shall continue to stand
for the closest association and merging of the class-conscious workers of
the advanced countries with the workers, peasants and slaves of all the oppressed
countries. We have always advised and shall continue to advise all the
oppressed classes in all the oppressed countries, the colonies included, not
to separate from us, but to form the closest possible ties and merge with
us."
(t) "The foreign policy of the proletariat is alliance with the revolutionaries
of the advanced countries and with all the oppressed nations against all
and any imperialists."
(u) "Any party wishing to join the Third International must ruthlessly
expose the colonial machinations of the imperialists of its 'own' country,
must support--in deed, not merely in word--every colonial liberation movement,
demand the expulsion of its compatriot imperialists from the colonies, inculcate
in the hearts of the workers of its own country an attitude of true brotherhood
with the working population of the colonies and the oppressed nations, and
conduct systematic agitation among the armed forces against all oppression
of the colonial peoples."
(v) "In the era of imperialism, there can be no other salvation for most
of the world's nations than through revolutionary action undertaken by the
proletariat of the Great Powers, spreading beyond the boundaries, and overthrowing
the international bourgeoisie. Until the bourgeoisie is overthrown,
there will remain nations known as 'Great Powers,' i.e., the oppression will
remain of nine-tenths of the nations of the whole world."
(w) "...we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism--that
the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed
for the victory of socialism."
(x) "In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement
against the existing social and political order of things. In all these
movements they bring to the front, as the leading questions in each, the
property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time....
They (the Communists--Ed.) openly declare that their ends can be attained
only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let
the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians
have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE."
(y) (Add) "Down with the 'inner unity' of the workers and capitalists in
all countries...."
(z) (Add) "Similarly, the 'defend your country' watchword, put forward
by the bourgeoisie and supported by the opportunists, is nothing but a bait
to which the bourgeoisie hopes the proletariat will rise and be induced to
give their life and blood for its interests. ...the proletarians of
all countries have no enemy other than their class enemy--the class of capitalists."
(aa) (Add) "...there is no other way of combating national hatred than
by organizing and uniting the oppressed class for a struggle against the
oppressor class in each separate country...."
(bb) (Add) "The guns should be directed, not against our brothers, the
wage slaves of other countries, but against the reactionary and bourgeois
governments and parties of all countries...."
(cc) (Add) "The Central Council of the International Association of Working
Men recommend to their fellow working men in arms not to waste their strength
in slaying each other, but to economize it for the defence of their rights
against their only enemies, the enslavers of the working class. Their
opinion is that no man need obey any power he has had no voice in electing,
or any law he has had no voice in making. Therefore, every soldier,
who has not made the cause he is fighting for his own by being convinced
that it is just, is relieved from his obligation to fight for it."
(dd) (Add) "Struggle in all the party's propaganda and agitation--above
all in practical activity--against all military establishments, and repudiation
of all military duties to the bourgeois class state."
(ee) (Add) "To the present-day bourgeoisie's attempts to divide and disunite
them by means of hypocritical appeals for the 'defence of the fatherland'
the class conscious workers will reply with ever new and persevering efforts
to unite the workers of various nations in the struggle to overthrow the
rule of the bourgeoisie of all nations."
(ff) (Add) "The policy of the RCP (Russian Marxists--Ed.) on the national
question, unlike the bourgeois-democratic declaration of the equality of
nations, which cannot be implemented under imperialism, is that of steadily
drawing together and merging the proletarians and the working masses of all
nations in their revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeois."
(gg) (Add) "And what the bourgeoisie of all countries, and all manner of
petty bourgeois parties...try most of all to accomplish is to disunite the
workers of different nationalities to evoke distrust, and to disrupt a close
international alliance and international brotherhood of the workers."
(hh) (Add) "Bourgeois fatherlands will exist until they are destroyed by
the international revolution of the proletariat.... In reality, only
the destruction of the bourgeois fatherlands can give the workers of all
countries a 'bond with the land,' freedom of their own language, bread, and
the benefits of civilization."
(ii) (Add) "Capitalism is an international force, and it can therefore
be completely destroyed only through victory in all countries, not in one
land alone."
(jj) (Add) "The international workers of the world stand for the overthrow
of all capitalist governments, for the rejection of all agreements and understandings
with any capitalists, for universal peace concluded by the revolutionary workers
of all countries, a peace capable of giving real freedom to 'every' nation."
(kk) (Add) "...they must have clearly realized that Bolshevism aims at
world revolution. We have never made a secret of the fact that our
revolution (the Russian revolution of 1917--Ed.) is only the beginning, that
its victorious end will come only when we have lit up the whole world with
these same fires of revolution."
(ll) (Add) Nevertheless, Lenin recognized the fact that some proletarians
would desert. "There never has been in history, nor can there be in
a class society, a civil war of the exploited masses against the exploiting
minority in which some of the exploited have not gone over to the side of
the exploiters and fought with them against their own brothers."
(mm) (Add) And again. "There never has been, and never can be, a class
struggle in which part of the advanced class does not remain on the side
of the reactionary forces. That applies to civil war too. Part
of the backward workers are bound to help the bourgeoisie--for a longer or
a shorter period."
(nn) (Add) "...generally speaking, socialists favour the abolition of frontiers
between nations, their getting closer together and integration, and the
formation of larger states."
(oo) (Add) "...economic expediency and internationalist and democratic
instinct and consciousness demand the earliest association of all nations
and their merging in a socialist society."
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