Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 23:50:49 -0800 From: Juan Fajardo <fajardos-AT-ix.netcom.com> Subject: M-G: Re: Walters' "Communism vs. Socialism" In Marxism-General-Digest of Friday, January 9 1998(Volume 01 : Number 581), Sheila Walters wrote: >[...] I'm still perplexed that there's only one organization > I could find (the Progressive Labor Party) believes in "fighting > directly for communism"! Why are all the other revolutionary > movements promoting socialism? ...I know that many > socialists believe that moving directly to communism would be > too drastic, and I can understand that some peope would feel > that way. However, we're talking about people and organizations > that believe that the world is otherwise capable of adapting to > enormous fundamental changes that a successful revolution would > implement - why do such people and organizations see real > communism as too revolutionary? Wouldn't the difficulties of > instituting Marxist socialism be every bit as daunting as creating > a communist government? [Sheila Walters" <swalters-AT-odu.edu>, "Communism vs. Socialism", Wed, 7 Jan 1998 15:43:26 EST] Ms. Walters, you bring up a very important question and one that has caused much confusion over the years. In part this confusion has stemmed from changes in usage of terminology. Marx and Engels originally spoke of communism suplanting capitalism, but recognized that there would need to be a transitional stage in which vestiges of the old society would remain while the new society was being created. This was because, as was pointed out by another list member, the structure of a given society are based on the material conditions in which that society exists. Thus while we might be able to do away with capitalists as a class by expropriating their productive property and establishing state monopolies over trade and production, we could not immediately do away with the capitalist way of organizing labor and distribution. For example, labor would still have to be paid for, goods would still need to be sold, etc until we could have sufficient productive capacity to give to people all that they needed free and a population concientious enough only to take what they needed. Moreover, classes would still exist, and with them the need for a state (Read Engels's *The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State* which you can find in the Marx/Engles Internet Archive, at <http://csf.Colorado.EDU/psn/marx/>). Marx and Engles referred to this initial transitional stage as the "lowest stage of Communism" and to the classless, stateless society that would emerge from it as the "highest stage of Communism." Over time revolutionists in order to clarify matters began to refer to them by the labels "socialism" and "communism." But in time the Old Socialists of the Second International began to propose that revolution was undesirable and unnecessary, that socialism could be implanted peacefully through elections and that capitalism could be reformed away. They began to try to test this theory after WW I, unsuccessfully it turns out (as they were told it would be at the ouset) in Scandinavia, it was later tested again with disastruous results in Chile in 1973. These parties called themselves Socialist and refered to their system of capitalism with heavy social welfare programs as "socialism." Their detractors, those consistent Marxists who ended up grouping around the Bolsheviks, in order to differentiate themselves from these degenerated parties and to point out that "reformed" capitalism was not their goal but eventual communism, began to call themselves Communist and to speak of struggling for communism. This did not mean that they had decided that no transitional state would be necessary, reality of course would not allow such an illusion for long even if they had had it. More recently, communists have come into the realization that socialism (Marx's "lowest stage of communism") is itself something that cannot be created overnight by an act of will but is itself the product of a vast social transformation, which can only be realized when capitalism has been overthrown on a world scale. The struggle under socialism will be the creation of a communist society, but until capitalism is done away with as a system everywhere, the struggle cannot move to that level but must of necessity be a struggle between the nascent socialist society and the dying capitalist one. It will be, in fact is, a period of violent and internecine conflict which requires that the energies and resources of socities in which capitalism has been ovethrown be dedicated to surviving the capitalist counterattack - witness the devastation engendered by the Russian Civil War, the Korean War, the invasion of Vietnam, the 30+ year campaign against Cuba, etc. Does this mean that the struggle for socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, is to be put off? Not at all, but it does require the realization that such a dictatorship and the revolutionary politics which must guide it are themselves a product of a social process. *Socialism doesn't change societies, societies create socialism by changing.* Until socialism is created however, we now realize more clearly, there exists yet another transitional form, a form in which revolutionists after overthrowing *capitalists* in government, must educate people and explain to them the need to overthrow *capitalism* in other areas of society and mobilize them to work toward making the changes that will move society forward along this road. We call these transitional regimes "workers' states," and in countries in which state power passes into the hands of alliances of the toiling classes we refer to them as "workers and peasants states", or "workers and farmers' governments" (to use the term favored by the Socialist Workers Party of the USA) or "New Democratic States" (the Chinese Communist Party's term). Thus the transformation of sosciety from capitalism to communism will proceed thusly: 1) Capitalism is overthrown and workers' and farmers' governments are put in place which will educate and mobilize the people for the conscious transformation of society, render assistance to other revolutions and other workers and farmers governments, begin to change society away from capitalist norms etc. 2) Once capitalism has been overthrown everywhere, we focus on the transition to socialism in which the economy is transformed along socialist lines on a world scale, and the conditions are created by which classes disappear and with them so does the state, and society as a whole can realize the goal of "taking from each according to his abilities, giving to each according to his needs." 3) Once this is achieved we will have transitioned to communism. So, why not move to communism right away? The answer is that one cannot. It may sound good as a slogan, but it is unrealizable as a program. Do Marxists consider such a move too drastic, too revolutionary? Well...yes. More than that, we know that drastic moves in that direction as disatruously costly and destructive, as we found out when Stalin ordered the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, when China attempted the "Great Leap Forward" in the 1950s, or when the Khmer Rouge forced everyone on to vast collective farms and worksites in order to fulfill their own twisted vision of a mixed "communist" (BIG TIME quotation marks on that one!) and agrarian utopia. As for your question regarding the implantation of a "communist government", I assume that you mean by this a the implantation of communism and not merely the implantation of a government by communists, which are two very different thins. Assuming that it is the former which you meant, I feel I must disagree with Rolf Martens' criticism of you on that point ("Your mentioning a "communist government" shows that you don't know what Marxists mean by "communism", for instance.") On the one hand it is unfairly harsh toward someone who is admittedly still becoming familiar with Marxism, but it is at root incorrect. In this instance Mr. Martens seems to be equating "government" with "state." Under communism the state will have disappeared of course, but not so government. There must be some way of organizing the collective life of a society to resolve common problems, organize production and distribution, etc. However, we cannot yet know what specifically such a government will look like as we have no experience of government that is not class government, but we may surmise that it will not include any of the hallmarks of state systems such as permanent executive bodies, "special detachments of armed men" (i.e. police, army, etc), and of course it will not issue currency nor stamps, levy taxes, nor collect fines, etc. We may also assume (I hope we can!) that it will be a system of government in which rules are followed and decisions are stuck with not due to fear of reprisal as now, but though respect for others. I hope that in some way I have helped to answer your questions. Keep asking them, please. I too am new to the list, and it is nice to know I'm not the only one. - Juan --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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