Socialist education

An Reabhloid - for a Workers Republic - Page 24

EXPLAINING MARXISM

What is a Programme? Whatexactly is Marxism? If youasked this question You might get as many answers as the number of people you asked. That's because it's many things.

A philosophical method - dialectics. An economic theory centred on the labour theory of value. Anapproach to understanding history - historical materialism. [tis consistently materialist - in other words Marxists are atheists. However if you wanted to join PD we wouldn't ask you - “Do you agree with dialectics, the labour theary of value?” etc. In fact you could regard dialectics as nonsense and the labour theory of value as rubbish. You could believe in God - or. a hundred Gods. You could still join PD. Of course we would try to show you that you were wrong to take these views but any disagreement we had would be between comrades in the same organisation.

PROGRAMME

There is something that we would insist that you .

agree with. That is the Marxist programme - the political demands and policies which Marxists put forward to organise and direct the working class and its allies in the struggle against capitalism and fora socialist revolution. This is the most important thing about Marxism. As Marx himself said; “Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The pointis to change it. The programme is our perspective for changing the world.

If we want to learn what this Marxist programme is we can have no better starting point than the most famous statement of Marxist politics -The Communist Manifesto written By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848. The first line of the Manifesto is; “A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism” Today that might seem ridiculous. The collapse of the Berlin wall and of “Communism” in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe might seem to invalidate this declaration and undermine everything in the manifesto, Surely Communism is dead?

We would disagree. Itis not Communis: ) which has just suffered a mortal blow but Stalinism - a corruption of Communism, the resu!t of the strangulation of the socialist revolution in Russia, rather than its full development. There is nothing in the Communist Manifesto which gives the least support to Stalinist politics.

CLASS STRUGGLE

There is another more important reason why we haven't seen the death of Communism and this is explained by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto.

“The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been

An Reabhioid - for a Workers Republic - Page 25 invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer, They merely express,in general terms, actual relations arising from an existing class struggle, froman historical movement going on under our yery eyes.” In other words the real inventor of Communism is not Karl Marx but the class struggle and the working class. The struggle for Communism, or whatever it might be called to distinguish it from Stalinism, will disappear only after the working class and class struggle disappears. Neither has happened or will happen until the class struggle is resolved in favour of the working class. An old approach to dismissing the Manifesto is to claim that capitalism haschanged and that the ideas of the Manifesto areno longer relevant. Noone however was more aware of the changing nature of capitalism than Marx and Engels. Again from the Manifesto; The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production and, with them, the whole relations of society.”

But no matter how much capitalism changes it will always need a working class; as capitalism has developed so also has the working class.

“What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, is its own gravediggers.”

50 what really is the Marxist programme? What does it stand for? The communists are distinguished from the other working class parties by this only. 1.In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the fore the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2.In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement asa whole.” Working class unity and internationalism has one object. “the theory of the Communists can be summed up in a single sentence. Abolition of private property.”

Marx and Engels heap scorn on the opponents of such an idea, pointing to the fact that the capitalist system can only exist by keeping the majority, the working class, without property and continually depriving weaker capitalists of their property during capitalist economic crises (bankruptcies). By property Marx doesn’t mean personal possessions but factories, offices and machines, “We by no means intervene to abolish the personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintainance and reproduction of human life, and that have no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others.

Marx also pokes fun at those who say that abolition of private property will destroy all incentive to work. As he points out, in today’s society those who work hardest often get least [hardly an incentive to work] while those that work the least - the stock and share owners - get the most [an incentive to do nothing]. As Marx says; “according to this, bourgeois society should have passed away itself through sheer idleness...”

REVOLUTION

To achieve this abolition of private property along with the greed, inequality, oppression, exploitation and poverty that go with it, it is necessary to have a revolution; “Communists openly declare that their ends can only be achieved only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”

The purpose of this revolution is to put the working class in power. “The proletariat organised as the ruling class.” This short summery of what Marxists stand for raises Many issues such as nationalism and internationalism, the united frontand many more. Weshall look at these in future articles. The main point to understand is that for Marxists; “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class strugele.”

In capitalist society this struggle is one between the capitalist class and working class. Victory for the working class means death to capitalism and private property. It does not mean a “mixed economy” or other euphemisms for a continuation of capitalism.

Only one class can rule and there is no such society thatstands outside or above this class struggle, That's why the fundamental question Marxists ask about a society or state is - what is its class character? Which class rules the state? What for example is the class content of the demand fora United Ireland? What is the class nature of Irish republicanism? In future articles of our journal we will answer these questions. But first we must understand that the Marxist programme is not just about what we want to achieve but about how we get from todays capitalism to tomorrows socialism.