Tallahassee, FL – International Women's Day is an ideal occasion to recognize and honor the accomplishments of women across the globe. Let us use this opportunity to recognize the importance of Alexandra Kollontai, an ardent supporter of gender equality and a pioneering fighter for the rights of women.

Kollontai was a Russian Marxist theorist who, in 1913, authored an article entitled “Women's Day” in Pravda prior to the first International Women's Day celebration in Russia. Her article was and is a revolutionary contribution to the struggle for women's rights and her impactful words continue to reverberate in contemporary gender conversations.

Who was Alexandra Kollontai?

Alexandra Kollontai was a multilingual prodigy from a Ukrainian-Russian-Finnish family who was an influential voice in the socialist movement. She had to flee in exile during the February Revolution of 1917 and returned to Russia when called by Lenin in 1918. She held the position of People's Commissar of Social Welfare until 1924 and negotiated the Finno-Soviet Peace Treaty of 1940. Her legacy is significant in guiding conversations on international women's solidarity and providing tools to assess current gender-based problems.

In her article “Women's Day,” Alexandra Kollontai argued the importance of Women's Day to the Russian people, highlighting the immense strength of the women's movement and its positive effect on the cost of living, maternity insurance, child labor and the implementation of laws protecting women’s labor.

Kollontai observed that in England, there were 292,000 women members in the trade unions, and in Germany, there were 200,000 and 150,000 in the trade unions and the workers' party, respectively. Austria also boasted 47,000 women members in the trade unions and almost 20,000 in the party. She additionally pointed out that the women of the working class were self-organizing in countries such as Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Switzerland, with the women's socialist movement boasting almost one million members.

Kollontai thus insisted that communists must acknowledge the influence and power of women's rights in the proletarian movement. Women's rights and equality in the working class were essential for true proletarian liberation, and she advocated for the protection of reproductive rights and the empowerment of women in the working class.

Kollontai observed that the men workers had previously been of the opinion that they could succeed without the assistance of women, displaying a disregard for the women demographic. As a result of the high unemployment rates of fathers and husbands, women were compelled to join the labor force, often receiving discriminatory treatment and lacking rights. She viewed this state of affairs as damaging to the cause of the working class, as women with no legal rights are incapable of standing up for their own needs and fighting for them alongside men. Therefore, it was of paramount importance that the woman worker is included in the movement so as to raise awareness of their rights.

As the organizations of the workers came to realize that the woman worker was among the most neglected members of the class, they began to campaign for special protections, insurance and political rights for women. With the establishment of committees, secretariats and bureaus devoted to improving the welfare of working women, as well as the organization of days, leaflets, meetings and conferences for the working-class woman, the need for recognition of women's rights in the proletarian movement and their equality in the working class were pushed to the forefront of discussion.

Alexandra Kollontai's consistent writings highlighted the need for uniting the working class, which includes women, against the shared enemy of capital. She noted that the working-class women had their own distinct requirements and that it was the party's mission to fight for them, thereby prompting the implementation of Women's Day, the objective of which is to promote the advancement of women's rights and the enhancement of their place in the working class.

The observance of Women's Day should fill women of the working class with a euphoric sense of fulfilling the general working-class cause and striving for their own freedom. Through espousing and participating in Women's Day marches, we acknowledge that women's rights and equality within the working class are critical to true proletarian liberation and the strengthening of women in the working class. As such, it is a purpose that needs to be supported and commemorated by all.

The incredible efforts of Alexandra Kollontai to ensure women's rights and equality in the working class during her time in the Soviet Union continue to have an influence today. Her tenacious attitude in the struggle for women's rights provides a reminder to all that although we have made considerable progress over the last century, much more is still needed to be done to ensure that all people have the freedom to make decisions concerning their own bodies.

The right-wing and corporate-backed campaigns against reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights and civil rights present a threat to all the hard-won advancements of the women's movement and other progressive movements. To be able to triumph over this injustice, we need to turn our resentment into an organized collective campaign. This is the only way we can develop a movement powerful enough to bring down their regime and break the fetters of oppression. We should be inspired by Alexandra Kollontai, who persistently strived for women's rights and equality in the working class. Her example reminds us how far we have progressed, but more importantly, how much further we must go in order to obtain genuine freedom.

#TallahasseeFL #Marxism #InternationalWomensDay

Now that we have talked about the Marxist theory of knowledge and examined the meaning and function of dialectical materialism, let’s look at how that is applied to studying the historical development of society. Marx called this “the materialist conception of history,” or historical materialism. It is historical materialism that demonstrates the link between dialectical materialism and political economy. Here we have dialectical materialism applied to history.

Before we get into all of the details of historical materialism, let’s take an introductory look at some of the key concepts. This way we can understand how they fit together. After this we can look more closely at them each piece by piece.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels famously proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” This is the main point of historical materialism, but there is a lot to unpack in that statement, and we should spend some time understanding how Marx and Engels arrived at that conclusion and what it means for revolutionaries.

Engels summed it up like this in his speech at the grave of Karl Marx in 1883:

“Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.”

As we’ve said before, Marxism is monistic rather than dualistic, meaning it doesn’t separate matter and thought, but recognizes thought as arising from and dependent upon matter. Our material being determines our consciousness. Before we can think, we must eat. Basically, Marxism understands that human society has always been organized around its tools in the production of its material needs. Each historical period is characterized materially by its forces of production and relations of production. Together these make up the material and economic base of society, the mode of production.

Forces of production include everything we use to fulfill human needs. This includes everything from tools, to factories, alongside land, raw materials, logistical infrastructure, warehouses, offices, retail facilities, restaurants, and so on. The tools and factories make up the instruments of production. The raw materials and resources make up the objects of production. The means of production consist of the instruments and objects of production together. The forces of production also include the living labor of the workers, the agents of production. In early human society, these productive forces were limited mainly to things like stone arrowheads and spear tips for hunting. Now they include highly complex technologies and methods.

Relations of production are the definite social relations that people enter into in order to organize the production of their needs. Production is a social process, based on some degree of a division of labor, and, following the end of primitive communal societies and the rise of the ancient slave societies, division of ownership, or class division. In class society, the means of production and the agents of production are separated, such that a minority of people own the means of production while a much larger majority of people work as the agents of production.

For now, let’s just emphasize that in the contradiction between the forces and relations of production, the forces of production tend to be the principal, or determining aspect. It is the forces of production, that is, the instruments of production together with living labor, acting upon nature, that plays the leading role. However, at times the relations of production may be the principal aspect, hastening or slowing the development of the productive forces.

Corresponding to this economic and material base of society there is also a superstructure of society, made up of a set of repressive and ideological apparatuses whose function is the reproduction of the mode of production. This includes legal systems, the courts and the police, but it also includes cultural institutions, schools, the media, religion and the broad political and philosophical ideas that characterize society. For now, let’s just emphasize that in the contradiction between the base and superstructure, the base is typically the principal aspect. The superstructure arises from the material base, though the superstructure also acts upon the base and reinforces it.

Each historical mode of production is defined by the level of the development of its productive forces and the corresponding relations of production. As the productive forces develop to higher levels, eventually the relations of production that at first encouraged and accelerated their development begin to hold them back, and those relations of production must be changed in order for the productive forces to be able to develop further.

Marx sums this up most succinctly in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.”

As society’s productive forces developed, so too did the relations of production develop from primitive communalism to the ancient slave societies, and on to feudalism, then capitalism, and from capitalism to socialism. These are the relations of production Marx and Engels identified from their analysis of how they had developed in Europe and how they would continue to develop based on their laws of motion that they drew from that analysis. Each change from one mode of production to the next meant the advancement of the productive forces and the revolutionizing of the relations of production. These changes also created great shifts in the legal, political and ideological superstructure to reinforce the base, demanding changes in legal structures, education, family relations and so on.

Historical materialism exposes the great lie of bourgeois ideology, that capitalism is eternal. It shows us that, on the contrary, it wasn’t always like this, that things have come to be this way as a result of a historical process, and that we can and must change things fundamentally and for the better. Historical materialism is a vast subject, and it will take us some time to do it justice. This article can only serve as a brief introduction to the elements of historical materialism. In our forthcoming articles we will go more deeply into each of these.

#UnitedStates #Marxism #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory #dialecticalMaterialism

For anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, May 5, 1818, Fight Back! is reprinting “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League”. Drafted by Marx in 1850, this work shows Marx to be, above all else, a revolutionary.

Brethren!

In the two revolutionary years of 1848-49 the League proved itself in two ways. First, its members everywhere involved themselves energetically in the movement and stood in the front ranks of the only decisively revolutionary class, the proletariat, in the press, on the barricades and on the battlefields. The League further proved itself in that its understanding of the movement, as expressed in the circulars issued by the Congresses and the Central Committee of 1847 and in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, has been shown to be the only correct one, and the expectations expressed in these documents have been completely fulfilled. This previously only propagated by the League in secret, is now on everyone’s lips and is preached openly in the market place. At the same time, however, the formerly strong organization of the League has been considerably weakened. A large number of members who were directly involved in the movement thought that the time for secret societies was over and that public action alone was sufficient. The individual districts and communes allowed their connections with the Central Committee to weaken and gradually become dormant. So, while the democratic party, the party of the petty bourgeoisie, has become more and more organized in Germany, the workers’ party has lost its only firm foothold, remaining organized at best in individual localities for local purposes; within the general movement it has consequently come under the complete domination and leadership of the petty-bourgeois democrats. This situation cannot be allowed to continue; the independence of the workers must be restored. The Central Committee recognized this necessity and it therefore sent an emissary, Joseph Moll, to Germany in the winter of 1848-9 to reorganize the League. Moll’s mission, however, failed to produce any lasting effect, partly because the German workers at that time had not enough experience and partly because it was interrupted by the insurrection last May. Moll himself took up arms, joined the Baden-Palatinate army and fell on 29 June in the battle of the River Murg. The League lost in him one of the oldest, most active and most reliable members, who had been involved in all the Congresses and Central Committees and had earlier conducted a series of missions with great success. Since the defeat of the German and French revolutionary parties in July 1849, almost all the members of the Central Committee have reassembled in London: they have replenished their numbers with new revolutionary forces and set about reorganizing the League with renewed zeal.

This reorganization can only be achieved by an emissary, and the Central Committee considers it most important to dispatch the emissary at this very moment, when a new revolution is imminent, that is, when the workers’ party must go into battle with the maximum degree of organization, unity and independence, so that it is not exploited and taken in tow by the bourgeoisie as in 1848.

We told you already in 1848, brothers, that the German liberal bourgeoisie would soon come to power and would immediately turn its newly won power against the workers. You have seen how this forecast came true. It was indeed the bourgeoisie which took possession of the state authority in the wake of the March movement of 1848 and used this power to drive the workers, its allies in the struggle, back into their former oppressed position. Although the bourgeoisie could accomplish this only by entering into an alliance with the feudal party, which had been defeated in March, and eventually even had to surrender power once more to this feudal absolutist party, it has nevertheless secured favorable conditions for itself. In view of the government’s financial difficulties, these conditions would ensure that power would in the long run fall into its hands again and that all its interests would be secured, if it were possible for the revolutionary movement to assume from now on a so-called peaceful course of development. In order to guarantee its power the bourgeoisie would not even need to arouse hatred by taking violent measures against the people, as all of these violent measures have already been carried out by the feudal counter-revolution. But events will not take this peaceful course. On the contrary, the revolution which will accelerate the course of events, is imminent, whether it is initiated by an independent rising of the French proletariat or by an invasion of the revolutionary Babel by the Holy Alliance.

The treacherous role that the German liberal bourgeoisie played against the people in 1848 will be assumed in the coming revolution by the democratic petty bourgeoisie, which now occupies the same position in the opposition as the liberal bourgeoisie did before 1848. This democratic party, which is far more dangerous for the workers than were the liberals earlier, is composed of three elements: 1) The most progressive elements of the big bourgeoisie, who pursue the goal of the immediate and complete overthrow of feudalism and absolutism. This fraction is represented by the former Berlin Vereinbarer, the tax resisters; 2) The constitutional-democratic petty bourgeois, whose main aim during the previous movement was the formation of a more or less democratic federal state; this is what their representative, the Left in the Frankfurt Assembly and later the Stuttgart parliament, worked for, as they themselves did in the Reich Constitution Campaign; 3) The republican petty bourgeois, whose ideal is a German federal republic similar to that in Switzerland and who now call themselves ‘red’ and ’social-democratic’ because they cherish the pious wish to abolish the pressure exerted by big capital on small capital, by the big bourgeoisie on the petty bourgeoisie. The representatives of this fraction were the members of the democratic congresses and committees, the leaders of the democratic associations and the editors of the democratic newspapers.

After their defeat all these fractions claim to be ‘republicans’ or ’reds’, just as at the present time members of the republican petty bourgeoisie in France call themselves ‘socialists’. Where, as in Wurtemberg, Bavaria, etc., they still find a chance to pursue their ends by constitutional means, they seize the opportunity to retain their old phrases and prove by their actions that they have not changed in the least. Furthermore, it goes without saying that the changed name of this party does not alter in the least its relationship to the workers but merely proves that it is now obliged to form a front against the bourgeoisie, which has united with absolutism, and to seek the support of the proletariat.

The petty-bourgeois democratic party in Germany is very powerful. It not only embraces the great majority of the urban middle class, the small industrial merchants and master craftsmen; it also includes among its followers the peasants and rural proletariat in so far as the latter has not yet found support among the independent proletariat of the towns.

The relationship of the revolutionary workers’ party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position.

The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible. They therefore demand above all else a reduction in government spending through a restriction of the bureaucracy and the transference of the major tax burden into the large landowners and bourgeoisie. They further demand the removal of the pressure exerted by big capital on small capital through the establishment of public credit institutions and the passing of laws against usury, whereby it would bty; they also require a democratic system of local government to give them direct control over municipal property and over a series of political offices at present in the hands of the bureaucrats.

The rule of capital and its rapid accumulation is to be further counteracted, partly by a curtailment of the right of inheritance, and partly by the transference of as much employment as possible to the state. As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage labourers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable. The demands of petty-bourgeois democracy summarized here are not expressed by all sections of it at once, and in their totality they are the explicit goal of only a very few of its followers. The further particular individuals or fractions of the petty bourgeoisie advance, the more of these demands they will explicitly adopt, and the few who recognize their own programme in what has been mentioned above might well believe they have put forward the maximum that can be demanded from the revolution. But these demands can in no way satisfy the party of the proletariat. While the democratic petty bourgeois want to bring the revolution to an end as quickly as possible, achieving at most the aims already mentioned, it is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far – not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world – that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers. Our concern cannot simply be to modify private property, but to abolish it, not to hush up class antagonisms but to abolish classes, not to improve the existing society but to found a new one. There is no doubt that during the further course of the revolution in Germany, the petty-bourgeois democrats will for the moment acquire a predominant influence. The question is, therefore, what is to be the attitude of the proletariat, and in particular of the League towards them:

1) While present conditions continue, in which the petty-bourgeois democrats are also oppressed;

2) In the coming revolutionary struggle, which will put them in a dominant position;

3) After this struggle, during the period of petty-bourgeois predominance over the classes which have been overthrown and over the proletariat.

1. At the moment, while the democratic petty bourgeois are everywhere oppressed, they preach to the proletariat general unity and reconciliation; they extend the hand of friendship, and seek to found a great opposition party which will embrace all shades of democratic opinion; that is, they seek to ensnare the workers in a party organization in which general social-democratic phrases prevail while their particular interests are kept hidden behind, and in which, for the sake of preserving the peace, the specific demands of the proletariat may not be presented. Such a unity would be to their advantage alone and to the complete disadvantage of the proletariat. The proletariat would lose all its hard-won independent position and be reduced once more to a mere appendage of official bourgeois democracy. This unity must therefore be resisted in the most decisive manner. Instead of lowering themselves to the level of an applauding chorus, the workers, and above all the League, must work for the creation of an independent organization of the workers’ party, both secret and open, and alongside the official democrats, and the League must aim to make every one of its communes a center and nucleus of workers’ associations in which the position and interests of the proletariat can be discussed free from bourgeois influence. How serious the bourgeois democrats are about an alliance in which the proletariat has equal power and equal rights is demonstrated by the Breslau democrats, who are conducting a furious campaign in their organ, the Neue Oder Zeitung, against independently organized workers, whom they call ‘socialists’. In the event of a struggle against a common enemy a special alliance is unnecessary. As soon as such an enemy has to be fought directly, the interests of both parties will coincide for the moment and an association of momentary expedience will arise spontaneously in the future, as it has in the past. It goes without saying that in the bloody conflicts to come, as in all others, it will be the workers, with their courage, resolution and self-sacrifice, who will be chiefly responsible for achieving victory. As in the past, so in the coming struggle also, the petty bourgeoisie, to a man, will hesitate as long as possible and remain fearful, irresolute and inactive; but when victory is certain it will claim it for itself and will call upon the workers to behave in an orderly fashion, to return to work and to prevent so-called excesses, and it will exclude the proletariat from the fruits of victory. It does not lie within the power of the workers to prevent the petty-bourgeois democrats from doing this; but it does lie within their power to make it as difficult as possible for the petty bourgeoisie to use its power against the armed proletariat, and to dictate such conditions to them that the rule of the bourgeois democrats, from the very first, will carry within it the seeds of its own destruction, and its subsequent displacement by the proletariat will be made considerably easier. Above all, during and immediately after the struggle the workers, as far as it is at all possible, must oppose bourgeois attempts at pacification and force the democrats to carry out their terroristic phrases. They must work to ensure that the immediate revolutionary excitement is not suddenly suppressed after the victory. On the contrary, it must be sustained as long as possible. Far from opposing the so-called excesses – instances of popular vengeance against hated individuals or against public buildings with which hateful memories are associated – the workers’ party must not only tolerate these actions but must even give them direction. During and after the struggle the workers must at every opportunity put forward their own demands against those of the bourgeois democrats. They must demand guarantees for the workers as soon as the democratic bourgeoisie sets about taking over the government. They must achieve these guarantees by force if necessary, and generally make sure that the new rulers commit themselves to all possible concessions and promises – the surest means of compromising them. They must check in every way and as far as is possible the victory euphoria and enthusiasm for the new situation which follow every successful street battle, with a cool and cold-blooded analysis of the situation and with undisguised mistrust of the new government. Alongside the new official governments they must simultaneously establish their own revolutionary workers’ governments, either in the form of local executive committees and councils or through workers’ clubs or committees, so that the bourgeois-democratic governments not only immediately lost the support of the workers but find themselves from the very beginning supervised and threatened by authorities behind which stand the whole mass of the workers. In a word, from the very moment of victory the workers’ suspicion must be directed no longer against the defeated reactionary party but against their former ally, against the party which intends to exploit the common victory for itself.

2. To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.

3. As soon as the new governments have established themselves, their struggle against the workers will begin. If the workers are to be able to forcibly oppose the democratic petty bourgeois it is essential above all for them to be independently organized and centralized in clubs. At the soonest possible moment after the overthrow of the present governments, the Central Committee will come to Germany and will immediately convene a Congress, submitting to it the necessary proposals for the centralization of the workers’ clubs under a directorate established at the movement’s center of operations. The speedy organization of at least provincial connections between the workers’ clubs is one of the prime requirements for the strengthening and development of the workers’ party; the immediate result of the overthrow of the existing governments will be the election of a national representative body. Here the proletariat must take care: 1) that by sharp practices local authorities and government commissioners do not, under any pretext whatsoever, exclude any section of workers; 2) that workers’ candidates are nominated everywhere in opposition to bourgeois-democratic candidates. As far as possible they should be League members and their election should be pursued by all possible means. Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.

The first point over which the bourgeois democrats will come into conflict with the workers will be the abolition of feudalism as in the first French revolution, the petty bourgeoisie will want to give the feudal lands to the peasants as free property; that is, they will try to perpetrate the existence of the rural proletariat, and to form a petty-bourgeois peasant class which will be subject to the same cycle of impoverishment and debt which still afflicts the French peasant. The workers must oppose this plan both in the interest of the rural proletariat and in their own interest. They must demand that the confiscated feudal property remain state property and be used for workers’ colonies, cultivated collectively by the rural proletariat with all the advantages of large-scale farming and where the principle of common property will immediately achieve a sound basis in the midst of the shaky system of bourgeois property relations. Just as the democrats ally themselves with the peasants, the workers must ally themselves with the rural proletariat.

The democrats will either work directly towards a federated republic, or at least, if they cannot avoid the one and indivisible republic they will attempt to paralyze the central government by granting the municipalities and provinces the greatest possible autonomy and independence. In opposition to this plan the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also, within this republic, for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, etc. In a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished, where so much local and provincial obstinacy has to be broken down, it cannot under any circumstances be tolerated that each village, each town and each province may put up new obstacles in the way of revolutionary activity, which can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point. A renewal of the present situation, in which the Germans have to wage a separate struggle in each town and province for the same degree of progress, can also not be tolerated. Least of all can a so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate a form of property which is more backward than modern private property and which is everywhere and inevitably being transformed into private property; namely communal property, with its consequent disputes between poor and rich communities. Nor can this so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate, side by side with the state civil law, the existence of communal civil law with its sharp practices directed against the workers. As in France in 1793, it is the task of the genuinely revolutionary party in Germany to carry through the strictest centralization. [It must be recalled today that this passage is based on a misunderstanding. At that time – thanks to the Bonapartist and liberal falsifiers of history – it was considered as established that the French centralized machine of administration had been introduced by the Great Revolution and in particular that it had been used by the Convention as an indispensable and decisive weapon for defeating the royalist and federalist reaction and the external enemy. It is now, however, a well-known fact that throughout the revolution up to the eighteenth Brumaire c the whole administration of the départements, arrondissements and communes consisted of authorities elected by, the respective constituents themselves, and that these authorities acted with complete freedom within the general state laws; that precisely this provincial and local self-government, similar to the American, became the most powerful lever of the revolution and indeed to such an extent that Napoleon, immediately after his coup d’état of the eighteenth Brumaire, hastened to replace it by the still existing administration by prefects, which, therefore, was a pure instrument of reaction from the beginning. But no more than local and provincial self-government is in contradiction to political, national centralisation, is it necessarily bound up with that narrow-minded cantonal or communal self-seeking which strikes us as so repulsive in Switzerland, and which all the South German federal republicans wanted to make the rule in Germany in 1849. – Note by Engels to the 1885 edition.]

We have seen how the next upsurge will bring the democrats to power and how they will be forced to propose more or less socialistic measures. it will be asked what measures the workers are to propose in reply. At the beginning, of course, the workers cannot propose any directly communist measures. But the following courses of action are possible:

1. They can force the democrats to make inroads into as many areas of the existing social order as possible, so as to disturb its regular functioning and so that the petty-bourgeois democrats compromise themselves; furthermore, the workers can force the concentration of as many productive forces as possible – means of transport, factories, railways, etc. – in the hands of the state.

2. They must drive the proposals of the democrats to their logical extreme (the democrats will in any case act in a reformist and not a revolutionary manner) and transform these proposals into direct attacks on private property. If, for instance, the petty bourgeoisie propose the purchase of the railways and factories, the workers must demand that these railways and factories simply be confiscated by the state without compensation as the property of reactionaries. If the democrats propose a proportional tax, then the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the democrats themselves propose a moderate progressive tax, then the workers must insist on a tax whose rates rise so steeply that big capital is ruined by it; if the democrats demand the regulation of the state debt, then the workers must demand national bankruptcy. The demands of the workers will thus have to be adjusted according to the measures and concessions of the democrats.

Although the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development, this time they can at least be certain that the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated. But they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organized party of the proletariat. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution.

#UnitedStates #Marxism #Socialism #KarlMarx

In our last article we looked at some of the core concepts of dialectical materialism. We broke down the meaning of contradiction, and we looked at how contradictions develop unevenly in complex processes, into principal and secondary contradictions. We also looked at how any given contradiction has its own principal and secondary aspects, with the principal aspect playing the dominant role. Now let's look more closely at identity in contradiction and the role of antagonism in resolving contradictions of different types.

In “On Contradiction” Mao Zedong writes, “In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another.”

In one sense, identity means that the two aspects of a given contradiction are also conditions for each other's existence. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without the proletariat, and vice versa. The class of exploiters depends entirely on the existence of a class of exploited from whom they draw their wealth and over whom they wield their power. Without the class of exploiters, the exploited too would not exist as a class. In this contradiction, the capitalist class plays the dominant role. They control the means of production along with the superstructure of the state and its repressive and ideological apparatuses.

However, the two aspects of this contradiction can exchange places. As Mao puts it, “by means of revolution the proletariat, at one time the ruled, is transformed into the ruler, while the bourgeoisie, the erstwhile ruler, is transformed into the ruled and changes its position to that originally occupied by its opposite.” From this qualitatively new position, the proletariat can wield state power in the socialist transition to eliminate exploitation, thereby eliminating the conditions for the existence of both itself and the bourgeoisie as classes.

One way to think about this is to say that identity is what holds things together. In other words, identity represents the real, concrete relationships that bind these opposing forces to each other. In the case of the working class and capitalists, these are the real, concrete relations of production. The capitalists own the means of production, and workers have to sell their labor to the capitalists to survive. Nevertheless, Lenin makes an important point here. “The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute.” This is crucial for revolutionaries to grasp. Struggle and change are both constant and necessary.

So, to sum up, identity is the concrete relationship between contradictory aspects. On the one hand, it means that the two aspects of a contradiction are interdependent. On the other hand, it means that they can exchange places between which aspect is principal and which is secondary.

But what role does antagonism play in the identity and struggle of opposites? Mao says that “antagonism is one form, but not the only form, of the struggle of opposites.” In his essay “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” Mao divides contradictions into two categories: those between the masses of the people and the enemy, and those among the people themselves. Contradictions between the people and the enemy are antagonistic. Contradictions among the people are non-antagonistic. For example, under capitalist society, the contradiction between the capitalists and the working class is an antagonistic contradiction. The capitalists derive their wealth through the exploitation of the workers. They get rich from the surplus value produced by workers, that is, the difference between the value added by living labor and the amount the capitalists pay the workers for that labor power. Over the long run, the more wealth the capitalists accumulate, the less the workers are able to take home in pay, and vice versa. This means the material interests of these two classes are directly and irreconcilably opposed to one another. One benefits only at the expense of the other.

But there also exist contradictions among the masses of the people themselves. These contradictions are not antagonistic, not irreconcilably opposed to one another. Non-antagonistic contradictions are resolved through a process of unity-criticism-unity. This is a peaceful and democratic method of resolving non-antagonistic contradictions that means “starting from the desire for unity, resolving contradictions through criticism or struggle, and arriving at a new unity on a new basis.” This is the way communists should seek to resolve contradictions among themselves and among the broad masses of the people.

This brings to a close our preliminary discussion of the primary law of dialectics, the law of contradiction, which Engels called the law of the interpenetration of opposites. It is one of our most powerful and important theoretical tools and deserves serious and ongoing study, well beyond the limitations of these short articles. From here we understand how contradiction operates well enough to proceed, and so in our next article we will look more closely at how contradiction operates in the transformation of quantity into quality.

See our full series of articles on Marxist-Leninist theory here.

#Minneapolis #MaoZedong #Marxism #Theory #MLTheory

Continuing the Fight Back! series on the theoretical concepts of Marxism-Leninism, let’s examine how Marxism emerged, and the struggles that it grew out of.

Marxism-Leninism didn’t spring fully grown from the heads of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. It developed historically as a result of the struggles that were taking place as it emerged. This is because revolutionaries needed to understand the world in order to change it. In the time that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were working, they took the most advanced theory in philosophy, political economy and socialist thought and brought them to a higher level according to the needs of the working class movement. In philosophy, they took the idealist dialectic of Hegel and put it on a materialist basis. In political economy, they took the ideas of Smith and Ricardo and pushed them to their logical conclusions, revealing the inner workings of the capitalist system. And in socialist theory, they built upon the successes and struggled against the shortcomings of the utopian socialists to make socialist theory scientific. They did this in the context of the bitter inequality of the early Industrial Revolution and the resulting growth of the international workers movement, which they helped to lead. It was in the crucible of the class struggle that Marxism was forged.

The revolutions of 1848 swept through Europe while Marx and Engels were in Brussels, Belgium. Marx was expelled and went to Paris, joined by Engels. From there they went to Germany where they led the Communist League (for which they wrote the Communist Manifesto) and published the newspaper Neue Rheinische Zeitung. The 1848 Revolution was defeated in Germany and Marx was again expelled and returned to Paris, while Engels was able to remain in Germany as a soldier in the revolutionary army until its final defeat. Marx was expelled from Paris in 1849 when he finally settled down in London.

The defeat of the revolutionary upsurge of 1848 set the revolutionary movement into disarray, and therefore required analysis and summation. Marx set to work drawing theoretical lessons from that set of practical experiences in order to see the way forward. It was in this period that he wrote Class Struggles in France: 1848 to 1850 and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. These experiences helped to clarify the relationship between classes at the time and allowed Marx to discern who were the friends and who were the enemies of the proletariat in the struggle to transform society.

In 1864 the International Workingmen’s Association was formed. Marx helped found the First International, wrote its program, and came almost immediately to lead it. However, the First International reflected the ideological disarray of the post-1848 revolutionary movement, and within it Marxism had to struggle against both the utopian socialists and the anarchists, preventing the revolution from being led down these blind alleys. The Utopian Socialists and Anarchists advanced pie-in-the-sky theories of what a socialist society would look like and combined this with idealist notions of how to get there. The Utopians’ theory was not grounded in practice or in the practical needs of the workers movements and had no way to see their admirable ideas realized.

In 1871 the experience of the Paris Commune further clarified these questions and sharpened these ideological struggles and Marx wrote The Civil War in France to sum up the tremendous revolutionary experience of the Communards, the first instance of working-class state power, which Marx called “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” Marx's famous work, the Critique of the Gotha Program, addressed some of the same issues, in the context of revolutionary strategy. All of these interventions were instrumental to the growth of the revolutionary working-class movement and helped to propel it forward.

As the struggle against idealism in the working class movement progressed, Engels wrote a brilliant pamphlet, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. In this important text, Engels helped to popularize Marxism and explain the differences between it and the thought of the Utopians Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Robert Owen, who all had followers in the First International. He explained the basis of Marxist Dialectical and Historical Materialism and how these theoretical tools allowed the revolutionary movement to advance past utopian idealism and put the revolutionary movement on a materialist foundation.

All the while, Marx had been deeply engaged in the intense study of political economy that would finally bear fruit in the publication of Volume 1 of his great work, Capital, in 1867. In this mammoth study Marx gave the working-class movement a rigorous critique of capitalism, how it arose historically, how it functions, why exploitation and economic crisis are at its core, and an understanding of how capitalism could be overcome.

It is impossible, of course, to do justice to all of these ideas here. This is but an overview to help give context to Marxism and show its development through struggle. In the following articles in this series, we will show how Marxism continues to develop in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, and we will then go deeper into all of the ideas we have covered here.

See the full series on Marxist-Leninist theory here.

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #Marxism #Socialism #MLTheory

To mark the Nov. 28, 1820 birthday of the revolutionary Frederick Engels, Fight Back News Service is circulating the one of his writings – On Authority. On Authority

A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. This summary mode of procedure is being abused to such an extent that it has become necessary to look into the matter somewhat more closely.

Authority, in the sense in which the word is used here, means: the imposition of the will of another upon ours; on the other hand, authority presupposes subordination. Now, since these two words sound bad, and the relationship which they represent is disagreeable to the subordinated party, the question is to ascertain whether there is any way of dispensing with it, whether — given the conditions of present-day society — we could not create another social system, in which this authority would be given no scope any longer, and would consequently have to disappear.

On examining the economic, industrial and agricultural conditions which form the basis of present-day bourgeois society, we find that they tend more and more to replace isolated action by combined action of individuals. Modern industry, with its big factories and mills, where hundreds of workers supervise complicated machines driven by steam, has superseded the small workshops of the separate producers; the carriages and wagons of the highways have become substituted by railway trains, just as the small schooners and sailing feluccas have been by steam-boats. Even agriculture falls increasingly under the dominion of the machine and of steam, which slowly but relentlessly put in the place of the small proprietors’ big capitalists, who with the aid of hired workers cultivate vast stretches of land.

Everywhere combined action, the complication of processes dependent upon each other, displaces independent action by individuals. But whoever mentions combined action speaks of organization; now, is it possible to have organization without authority?

Supposing a social revolution dethroned the capitalists, who now exercise their authority over the production and circulation of wealth. Supposing, to adopt entirely the point of view of the anti-authoritarians, that the land and the instruments of labor had become the collective property of the workers who use them. Will authority have disappeared, or will it only have changed its form? Let us see.

Let us take by way if example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other laborer’s whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labor or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way. The automatic machinery of the big factory is much more despotic than the small capitalists who employ workers ever have been. At least with regard to the hours of work one may write upon the portals of these factories: Lasciate ogni autonomia, voi che entrate! [Leave, ye that enter in, all autonomy behind!]

If man, by dint of his knowledge and inventive genius, has subdued the forces of nature, the latter avenge themselves upon him by subjecting him, in so far as he employs them, to a veritable despotism independent of all social organization. Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.

Let us take another example — the railway. Here too the co-operation of an infinite number of individuals is absolutely necessary, and this co-operation must be practiced during precisely fixed hours so that no accidents may happen. Here, too, the first condition of the job is a dominant will that settles all subordinate questions, whether this will is represented by a single delegate or a committee charged with the execution of the resolutions of the majority of persona interested. In either case there is a very pronounced authority. Moreover, what would happen to the first train dispatched if the authority of the railway employees over the Hon. passengers were abolished?

But the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at that, will nowhere be found more evident than on board a ship on the high seas. There, in time of danger, the lives of all depend on the instantaneous and absolute obedience of all to the will of one.

When I submitted arguments like these to the most rabid anti-authoritarians, the only answer they were able to give me was the following: Yes, that's true, but there it is not the case of authority which we confer on our delegates, but of a commission entrusted! These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organization, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate.

We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society. If the autonomists confined themselves to saying that the social organization of the future would restrict authority solely to the limits within which the conditions of production render it inevitable, we could understand each other; but they are blind to all facts that make the thing necessary and they passionately fight the world.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #Marxism #Socialism #FrederickEngels #OnAuthority

The New China News Agency (Xinhua) is reporting that Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, told a May 5 Beijing gathering to commemorate the bicentennial of Karl Marx’s birth that Marx is the “teacher of revolution for the proletariat and working people all over the world, the main founder of Marxism, creator of Marxist parties, a pathfinder for international communism and the greatest thinker of modern times.”

Xi told attendees, “Today, we hold this grand gathering with great veneration to mark the 200th anniversary of Marx's birth, to remember his great character and historic deeds and to review his noble spirit and brilliant thoughts.”

Xi also stated, “Marxism, for the first time, explored the path for humanity's freedom and liberation from the stance of the people, and pointed out the direction, with scientific theory, toward an ideal society with no oppression or exploitation, where every person would enjoy equality and freedom.”

#China #CommunistPartyOfChina #Marxism #XiJinping #Socialism #KarlMarx

The Communist Party of the Philippines – North Central Mindanao Region (CPP-NCMR) unites with the people around the world in commemorating Karl Marx’s 135th death anniversary, in light with the Party’s celebration of his 200th birth anniversary this year.

On the 14th of March 1883, while the proletarians around the world were in grief at the loss of the great thinker Marx, they also attained more ardor on the other hand to perpetuate his theoretical foundations to verify and advance it in the revolutionary practice. We are commemorating the death of Marx, but most of all, we are celebrating the fact that Marxism is very much alive among the revolutionaries and people around the world.

Marxism is prominent in correctly expounding dialectical and historical materialism as fundamental philosophical guide in understanding and changing the world. Marx practically elucidated to the working class the concrete forms of oppression they suffer through his meticulous investigation in the political economy. He sharply pointed out that capitalism will inevitably deteriorate and scientific socialism will then pave way for the demolition of the class to achieve communism.

Marx noticeably introduced the decisive role of the proletariat in realizing Communism. It would only be the proletariat, who are property less, who would arduously endure to attain a classless society, even to his death’s door. The proletariats around the world concretely practiced this, and several countries had proven its correctness such as China and Russia.

Furthermore, in light with commemorating Marx’s death anniversary, we also pay the highest honors to all heroes and martyrs who have made the greatest sacrifice in order to advance the cause of the national democratic revolution. We give our salute to Comrade Mamerto Piscadero, Manuel Jabagat, Julito Tiro Jr., and other 200 revolutionary martyrs in the region. Just like Marx, they did not hesitate to give their lives for the liberation of the oppressed and exploited class.

More than ever, let us continue to enliven and advance Marxism in all aspects of our revolutionary duties. Amid the intensified offensive of imperialist powers on the economic, political and cultural aspects of the toiling masses, Marxism is becoming more valid and justified. Let us constantly banner the call “Workers of the world, Unite!”

#Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Marxism #Socialism #KarlMarx #Asia

For many years young people have been told that they should go to college to improve their opportunities in life. And it is true that adults who are college graduates do have higher incomes and lower unemployment rates on average than those who did not get a college degree.

But today’s college students are facing a triple whammy of soaring college costs, cutbacks in public schools that make it more difficult to attend and graduate from college and bleak job prospects once they graduate. After accounting for financial aid, as well as government aid in the form of tax credits, the cost of college tuition has risen 87% faster than the overall rate of inflation over the last ten years. This has led to a huge rise in student loan debt, which now totals about $1 trillion and is more than credit card balances, auto loans or any other consumer debt.

Cutbacks in public colleges and universities are forcing students to take longer (and spend more) to complete their degrees, or turn to even more expensive private schools that at least offer a shorter path to graduation. At Sonoma State University (one of the California State University campuses north of the San Jose-San Francisco Bay area), students this spring were allowed to sign for only nine units in the first round of registration, and then there was a second round where few classes were available for the rest of the units. At that rate it would take a student almost seven years to graduate.

Both these trends of higher fees and class cuts can be seen at the College of San Mateo, a community college about half way between San José and San Francisco. Enrollment at CSM fell 10% over the last year as fees went up 40%, a new, stricter payment policy was implemented and class sections cut. The administration there is planning another 5% cut in class sections, and fees are going up another 30% for this coming fall semester. And to add insult to injury, administrators at CSM and the other campuses in its district are phasing in a 20% raise for themselves, even as they say there is no money for more classes.

Last, but not least, there is a just plain terrible job market for new graduates. Of the nearly 3 million young people with college degrees, about a quarter, or 750,000, had no jobs at all. Another 750,000 were underemployed, or working in occupations that didn’t need a college degree, such as food service workers, receptionists, and retail clerks. A sign of these hard times is that a recent poll of college seniors showed that 85% planned to move back home after graduation. On college campuses across the country, students, with support of progressive faculty and staff and their unions, have been fighting both campus administrators as well as state politicians to limit tuition increases and stop the cutbacks in higher education. But college students and college graduates will need to struggle with the capitalists and their economy to provide more jobs that use their skills.

One reason for the bleak job market is the financial crisis and deep recession brought about by Wall Street’s financing a boom and bust in housing. Studies show that almost all the job losses were in middle-income, semi-skilled jobs that could provide entry-level work for college grads. But the elimination of middle-income jobs did not just start during the last economic downturn.

There is a long term tendency, first described by Karl Marx 150 years ago, for capitalism to deskill jobs with the use of new technology. The government’s Department of Labor estimates that only 10% (3 of 30) of the fastest growing occupations in 2020 will require a college degree, while the other 90% will not.

While right-wing Republicans and those enthralled by or on the payroll of Wall Street call big corporations and the rich “job-creators.” In fact, large U.S. corporations have cut millions of jobs in the United States through the use of technology and off-shoring jobs to other countries. Big business (and capitalism) itself is not about job creation, it is about profit maximization, which often mean cutting jobs and making the remaining workers work even harder. Look at the reaction of Wall Street when a big company announces another round of lay-offs – the company’s stock price goes up, showing that wealthy investors think that the business will be more profitable.

As we build a fightback against tuition increases and even more cuts to education, we also need to demand that the government start a jobs program that puts the millions of unemployed back to work and offers unemployed and underemployed college grads a chance to use their education. Those who see the need for radical change should study the political economy of Marx and other socialists to better understand our capitalist system and the need for a socialist economy that is based on people’s needs, not profit.

#SanJoséCA #BudgetCuts #Capitalism #TuitionHike #DefendEducation #MasaoSuzuki #Marxism