A Better World - Part One - 3

Social Revolution and Communism

The free communist society
It is easy to see how the capitalist world is a world that is upside down. The relations among commodities form the basis of the relations among people. The daily work of billions of people to build the world manifests itself as the growing domination of capital over their lives. The motivating aim of economic activity is not satisfaction of people's needs, but profitability of capital. Scientific and technological progress, which are the key to human welfare and well-being, translate in this system into even more unemployment and impoverishment for hundreds of millions of workers. In a world that has been built through cooperation and collective action, it is competition that reigns. The economic freedom of the individual is merely a guise hiding his inescapable compulsion to appear in the labour market each and every day. The political freedom of the individual is a cover for his actual rightlessness and lack of political influence, and a means of legitimizing the political rule and the state of the capitalist class. Law is the will and interest of the ruling class made into rules binding for all. From love and compassion to right and justice, from art and creativity to science and truth, there is no concept in this capitalist world that does not bear the imprint of this invertedness.
This inverted world must be put right side up. This is the task of-worker-communism. It is the aim of workers' communist revolution.
The essence of communist revolution is abolition of private ownership of the means of production and their conversion into common ownership of the whole society. Communist revolution puts an end to the class division of society and abolishes the wage-labour system. Thus, market, exchange of commodities, and money disappear. Production for profit is replaced by production to meet people's needs and to bring about greater prosperity for all. Work, which in capitalist society for the overwhelming majority is an involuntary, mechanical and strenuous activity to earn a living, gives way to voluntary, creative and conscious activity to enrich human life. Everyone, by virtue of being a human being and being born into human society will be equally entitled to all of life's resources and the products of collective effort. From everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need - this is a basic principle of communist society.
Not only class divisions but also the division of people according to occupation will disappear. All fields of creative activity will be opened up to all. The development of each person will be the condition of development of the society. Communist society is a global society. National boundaries and divisions will disappear and give way to a universal human identity. Communist society is a society free of religion, superstitious beliefs, ideology and archaic traditions and moralities that strangle free thought.
The disappearance of classes and class antagonisms makes the state superfluous. In communist society the state withers away. Communist society is a society without a state. The administrative affairs of the society will be managed by the cooperation, consensus and collective decision-making of all of its members.
Thus it is in the communist society that the ideals of human freedom and equality are truly realised for the first time. Freedom not only from political oppression but from economic compulsion and subjugation and intellectual enslavement. Freedom to enjoy and experience life in its diverse dimensions. Equality not only before the law but in the enjoyment of society's material and intellectual wealth. Equality in worth and dignity for everyone in society.
Communist society is not a dream or utopia. All the conditions for the formation of such a society have already created within the capitalist world itself. The scientific, technological and productive powers of humanity have already grown so enormously that founding a society committed to the well-being of all is perfectly feasible. The spectacular advances in communication and information technology during the last two decades have meant that the organization of a world community with collective participation in the design, planning and execution of society's diverse functions is possible more than ever before. A large part of these resources is now either wasted in different ways or is even deliberately used to hinder efforts to improve society and satisfy human needs. But for all the immensity of society's material resources, the backbone of communist society is the creative and living power of billions of men and women beings freed from class bondage, wage-slavery, intellectual slavery, alienation and degradation. The free human being is the guarantee for the realization of communist society.
Communist society is not a utopia. It is the goal and result of the struggle of an immense social class against capitalism; a living, real and ongoing struggle that is as old as bourgeois society itself. Capitalism itself has created the great social force that can materialise this liberating prospect. The staggering power of capital on a global scale is a reflection of the power of a world working class. Unlike other oppressed classes in the history of human society, the working class cannot set itself free without freeing the whole of humanity. Communist society is the product of workers' revolution to put an end to the system of wage-slavery; a social revolution which inevitably transforms the entire foundation of the production relations.

Proletarian revolution and workers' state
The exponents and ideologues of the bourgeoisie accuse Marxism and worker-communism of advocating force and violence to achieve their social objectives. The truth, however, is that it is the bourgeois system itself that is founded on organised violence; violence against people, against their bodies and minds, against their thoughts and emotions, against their hopes and aspirations and against their struggle to improve their lives and the world they live in.
The wage-labour system, that is the daily compulsion of the great majority of people to sell their physical and intellectual abilities to others in order to make a living, is the source and essence of the violence which is inherent of this system. This naked violence has many direct victims: Women, workers, children, the aged, people of the poorer regions of the world, anyone who asks for their rights and stands up to any oppression, and anyone who has been branded as belonging to this or that 'minority'. In this system, thanks essentially to the rivalry of capitals and economic blocs, war and genocide have assumed staggering proportions. The technology of war and mass destruction is far more advanced than the technology used in production of goods. The bourgeoisie's global arsenal can annihilate the world several times over. This is the system that has actually used horrendous nuclear and chemical weapons against people. Bourgeois society can also take pride in its remarkable advances in turning crime, murder, abuse and rape into a routine fact of life in this system.
Can such a system be swept out of the way of human liberation and a permanent end to violence without the working people resorting to force? Nowhere in communist theory is use of force viewed as a necessary component of workers' revolution. But anyone with even the slightest grasp of the realities of this society would admit that the ruling class will never peacefully stand aside and bow to the will of the overwhelming majority to change the system. If protection of the day to day business and interest of the bourgeoisie is the job of the state, defending the existence of capitalism and bourgeois property is its very essence. If demands for higher wages and free speech incur the wrath of the state, police and the military, one can imagine the kind of resistance that will be put up to the attempt to expropriate the bourgeoisie politically and economically. Violence by the bourgeoisie and its state against workers' revolution, against the will of the overwhelming majority of people who, with the working class in their lead, rise to set up a new society is practically inevitable.
Workers' revolution must bring down the bourgeois state. Bourgeois resistance against the revolution, and particularly against the attempt to turn the means of production into common ownership, will continue even after bourgeois state power has been dismantled. Therefore it is crucial to establish a workers' state that could breaks this resistance and enforce the will of the revolution. Like any other state, workers' state does not stand above society and classes. It is a class rule. But this state, which accordingly in Marxist theory has been called a dictatorship of the proletariat, is the rule of the exploited majority to dictate to the exploiting classes the decree of human freedom and equality and defeat their attempts and intrigues. In its form, workers' state is a free state which organises the direct decisions and will of the masses of the working people themselves. By its nature, workers' state is a transient state withers away as soon as the aims of the revolution have been realised.

The communist party
and the communist International of the working class
A critical requirement for the progress and victory of workers' social revolution is the formation of worker- communist parties that put such a perspective before the working class and mobilise and lead the forces of the class in this struggle. These parties should be formed in different countries, as organizations uniting above all the most conscious and active leaders of workers' struggles. Capitalism is a world system, the working class is a world class, workers' conflict with the bourgeoisie is a daily struggle on a global scale, and socialism is an alternative that the working class presents to the whole of humanity. The worker- socialist movement must also be organised on a global scale. The building of a worker-communist International, as the body uniting and leading the workers' global struggle for socialism, is an urgent task of the various sections of the worker-communist movement and worker-communist parties around the world.