By Sandra Reid

From the beginning of class society centuries ago, humanity has been yearning and striving for a just and better world.

In primitive societies, people could only survive through cooperation. The land and tools were owned in common. Hunting and gathering were the primary means of survival.  People consumed everything that they produced.  There was no surplus.  In such societies, there was no need for a state to enforce the exploitation of one group over another.  These primitive cooperative societies were overthrown as new tools, and especially animal husbandry, developed. Organizing production around use of these new tools humans produced a surplus beyond their immediate needs, making it possible for one group to seize the surplus and force another group to work for them. A new epoch in human history evolved with the formation of class society, private property and human exploitation.

From that moment on, revolutionaries have struggled for a vision of a world where people would live in harmony.  Spartacus led a rebellion for death to the slaveholders and freedom for the enslaved. Babeuf, the first communist of modern times, was executed for fighting for a society where all would share in the products of the economy. Robert Fourier, in early industrial society, exposed the moral misery of the bourgeois world, bringing a vision of universal happiness. Robert Owen built cooperative communities where workers would be treated equally. Walt Whitman, after the American Civil War envisioned a world with “the most beautiful race the sun has ever shown upon.”

As revolutionaries, we stand on the contributions of the visionaries who gave their lives to the struggle for humanity.  We understand that these movements failed because the material conditions did not yet exist to make them possible. History shows that it is not enough to have an ideal. There has to be a reason rooted in the economy. Up to now, the means of production were not developed enough to create a world of abundance and a practical movement that could forever end private property.

We are entering a new epoch of world history.  For the first time a practical movement for communism is coming into existence. It is composed of a growing section of humanity that doesn’t have the money to pay for the necessities of life. It is being created by the new means of production – the computers and robots -- that are eliminating human labor permanently.  Of necessity, the goal of this movement is a new society organized around distribution by need.  This goal cannot be achieved under a social system based on private property.

Revolution occurs when antagonism between production and distribution develops. Antagonism develops in the economy as economic revolution disrupts the unity between the mode of production and the mode of distribution. As the economic revolution destroys the existing society, a spontaneous movement for reform begins. With the help of conscious revolutionaries working within it with a vision of what is possible, the spontaneous movement becomes a conscious struggle for the political power necessary to construct a new society.

The practical movement for communism is in antagonism to a capitalist system based on the buying and selling of labor power. This antagonism is expressed in the inability of the workers to sell their labor power while at the same time they are unable to live without selling their labor power.  This movement’s demand is for a change in the mode of distribution – a change in the way society distributes its food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare, utilities and a cultured life. Its demands strike at the political heart of the capitalist system.

No one started this objective process and no one can stop it. It is communist because it has no way to achieve its goal for a decent life outside of the reorganization of society cooperatively.

Karl Marx, one of the great social scientists and visionaries of the 19th century, called the communist movement a movement of the vast majority in the interests of that majority. Today we have the possibility of ensuring the success of the communist movement by uniting this practical movement for communism with the age-old vision of a peaceful, orderly world.

For the first time, with the creation of a practical movement, communism can be put on a solid foundation. There is no way to solve the problem of the inability of the system to provide the necessities of life to people who cannot work, except by creating an economy based on distribution according to need. In a new society, the scarcity of necessities that was once the material foundation for oppression will no longer exist. Today the new means of production are creating a world of abundance. Once the means of production are owned in common and the social products are distributed based on need, no one will go without and the basis for greed and strife will be eliminated.

The role of conscious revolutionaries is to make the new social forces conscious of their historic mission, and by so doing, set the conditions for communism to become a reality.  Without a vision, a people will perish.

We have to show that what people are actually fighting for is communism – an economic system where the means of production are owned in common.  This will require that conscious revolutionaries come to see themselves as communists and drop all conceptions that communism is an ideological movement. Communism today is simply the practical solution to the crisis that confronts us.

Our choice is clear. Humanity stands at an historic juncture. As the old society is destroyed, some kind of new system will come into existence. Will it be a system based on humanity’s interests, or the interests of a few exploiters? The rich and powerful will stop at nothing to maintain their profits and privilege. They want a new world built around their interests. Fascism is ultimately their only choice. Conscious revolutionaries have a window of opportunity. Our strategies must be built around the new reality. We have to boldly take the vision of a communist reorganization of society to the people.

 

April.2006.Vol16.Ed3
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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