The Naked Communist (8 page)

"Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence (system of law) is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your class."
²

From this it will be seen that Marx and Engels did not believe that men could arbitrarily choose any one of several forms of society but only that one which promotes the prevailing mode of production. The very nature of man's materialistic make-up requires him to do this. "Are men free to choose this or that form of society? By no means."
³
According to Marx the thing which we call "free will" is nothing more nor less than an awareness of the impelling forces which move an individual to action; in taking action he is not free to change the course his very nature dictates.

"Communism has no idea of freedom as the possibility of choice, of turning to right or left, but only as the possibility of giving full play to one's energy when one has chosen which way to turn."
⁴

In other words, human minds receive knowledge of existing economic circumstances and "choose" to turn in the direction which is necessary to preserve the current mode of production. They are then free only in the sense that they are moved to decide that they will expend vast quantities of energy in building a superstructure of government, morals, laws and religion which will perpetuate these basic economic circumstances. At the foundation of all activities of society lies "Economic Determinism." "The mode of production in material life determined the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life."
⁵

Marx and Engels now felt they had discovered something much more vital to human welfare than simply a philosophical explanation of history. In fact, they believed they had identified Economic Determinism as the basic
creative force
in human progress. Having made this important discovery they felt that if they could somehow force upon mankind the influence of a highly perfected system of economic production it would automatically produce a highly perfected society which, in turn, would automatically produce a higher type of human being. In other words, they would reverse the Judaic-Christian approach which endeavors to improve humanity in order to improve society. Here again they were reaffirming their conviction that human beings are not the creators of society but its products: "The final causes of all social changes and political revolution are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in man's insight into eternal truth and justice ... but in the economics of each particular epoch."
⁶

Therefore, Marx and Engels advocated a change in economic structure as the only valid way of improving society and refining the intellectual make-up of humanity. But how can a new, improved system of production and distribution be introduced among men? What historical procedure has Economic Determinism unconsciously followed to bring mankind to its present state of advancement?

Marx and Engels answered their own question by deciding that from earliest times the mode of production and the means of distribution have always produced two basic classes of people: those who owned the means of production and thereby became exploiters, and those who owned nothing and therefore had to sell or trade their physical labor to survive. The element of conflict between these two groups was identified by Marx and Engels as the basic force in history which has prompted the evolution of society toward ever-ascending levels of achievement.

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted ... fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
⁷

Here again Marx and Engels were applying the principles of Dialectics. All past societies have been a combination of opposite force or classes -- the exploiters and the exploited. The clash between them has always generated the dynamic force which has propelled society into some new development. The transition, they noted, was often accompanied by revolution and violence.

But must the course of human events always follow this never-ending cycle of clashes between the two opposing classes of society? Must there always be revolution to produce new orders which in turn are destroyed by revolution to produce others? Marx and Engels visualized a day when there would be unity among men instead of opposition, peace instead of war. Such a hope, of course, violated their own theory of dialectics which says nothing in nature can be at rest -- everything is a unity of opposing forces. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels reasoned that since they had discovered the inexorable law of history with its self-improving device of class struggle, they would use one final, terrible class struggle for the purpose of permanently eliminating the thing which had caused all past conflicts in society. What is this one terrible feature of all past societies which has caused selfishness, jealousy, class struggle and war? Marx and Engels thought all of these things could be traced to one root --
private property
. If they used a final revolutionary class uprising to overthrow private property, it would mean that class struggle would become unnecessary because there would be nothing to fight over!

Why do Communists believe that private property is the root of all evil?

Engels wrote that in primitive times he believed all people followed the principle of common ownership of everything except the most personal belongings such as clothing and weapons. Then he felt that the domestication of land and flocks resulted in certain men producing more commodities than they required for themselves, and therefore they began exchanging these surplus items for other commodities which they lacked. He said these commodities used in exchange were naturally identified with the person who possessed them and thus the concept of private property was born.
⁸

Engels then postulated that those who owned the land or other means of production would obviously reap the major profit from the economic resources of the community and ultimately this would place them in a position to hire other men to do their work. They would be able to dictate wages, hours and conditions of labor for their employees, thereby insuring their own freedom and social status while exploiting the toiling class. Therefore, said Engels, out of private property blossomed class antagonism with its entourage of camp followers: greed, pride, selfishness, imperialism and war. He said private property also had led to the necessity of creating the State.

Engels decided that when the non-property class had been exploited to the point where there was danger of revolt, the dominant class created an organ of power to maintain "law and order," that is, a system of laws to protect the private property and advantages of the exploiting class. This new order, he said, is the State.

"The state, then, is ... simply a product of society at a certain stage of evolution. It (the creation of any kind of government) is the confession that this society has become hopelessly divided against itself, has entangled itself in irreconcilable contradictions which it is powerless to banish."
⁹

Therefore the State is designed to postpone the day of judgment. Government is the "instrument of power" -- the unnatural appendage to society -- which is created for the express press purpose of protecting the privileged class and the private property it possesses from the just demands of the exploited class. Marx and Engels reasoned that if they somehow could eliminate private property, it would do away with class struggle, and then the state would no longer be necessary and it would gradually wither away.

Marx and Engels further believed that another great evil has grown out of private property--the exploitation of religion, They recognized, of course, that probably the roots of religion were established long before the institution of private property. However, they felt that since religion was not of divine origin it must have grown out of the frantic efforts of early man to explain the forces of nature and man's psychic experiences such as dreams. When private property emerged as the foundation of society, they believed religion was seized upon as a device to put down the rebellion of the exploited class.

According to Marx it was the property class who wanted their workers to be taught humility, patience and long-suffering; to endure the wrongs heaped upon them with the hope that justice would be meted out "in the next life." He said religion was made to serve as an opiate for the oppressed. The workers were told to "judge not" but to remain passive and dutiful toward their masters. "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
¹⁰

This explains the presence of vigorous anti-religious campaigns in the Communist program: "One of the most important tasks of the Cultural Revolution affecting the wide masses is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion -- the opium of the people."
¹¹
"There can be no doubt about the fact that the new state of the USSR is led by the Communist Party, with a program permeated by the spirit of militant atheism.
¹²
"Have we suppressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated."
¹³

Up to this point Marx and Engels felt they had established that the evil of private property is responsible for the origin of class antagonisms, the creation of the State and the exploitation of religion. Now they attached a similar explanation to the origin and economic significance of morals. Engels and Marx denied that there could be any eternal basis for the moral standards of "right and wrong" set up in the Judaic-Christian code. Lenin summarized their ideas when he said: "In what sense do we deny ethics, morals? In the sense in which they are preached by the bourgeoisie, which deduces these morals from God's commandments. Of course, we say that we do not believe in God. We know perfectly well that the clergy, the landlords, and the bourgeoisie all claimed to speak in the name of God, in order to protect their own interests as exploiters. We deny all morality taken from super-human or non-class concepts. We say that this is a deception, a swindle, a befogging of the minds of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landlords and capitalists."
¹⁴

The Marxists believe that "Thou Shalt Not Steal" and "Thou Shalt Not Covet" are examples of the dominant class trying to impose respect for property on the exploited masses who cannot help but covet the wealth and property of their masters. As Engels said: "Thou shalt not steal. Does this law thereby become an eternal moral law? By no means."
¹⁵
They called such teachings "class" morality -- a code designed to protect the property class.

But in rejecting the Judaic-Christian code of morals, Engels tried to represent that Communism was merely moving up to a higher level where human conduct will be motivated exclusively by the needs of society: "We say that our morality is wholly subordinated to the interest of the class-struggle of the proletariat." But in spite of this attempt to delicately obscure the true significance of Communist moral thought, Engels could not prevent himself from occasionally unveiling the truth of what was in his mind: "We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma what-ever...."
¹⁶

In other words, Communism undertakes to replace Judaic-Christian morals with a complete absence of morals. That this was exactly what later Communists deduced from the teachings of their leaders is demonstrated in the words of a modern American Marxist: "With him (the Communist) the end justifies the means. Whether his tactics be 'legal' or 'moral' or not, does not concern him, so long as they are effective. He knows that the laws as well as the current code of morals are made by his mortal enemies.... Consequently, he ignores them insofar as he is able, and it, suits his purposes. He proposes to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of 'legality,' 'fairness,' 'right,' etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have...."
¹⁷

So now Marx and Engels had completed their original purposes in making an intensive study of history. They felt they had successfully explained the origin of the various institutions in society by showing that all of these were the product of Economic Determinism, and they felt they had traced to its source the cause of strife, inequity and injustice among men -- private property. Only one task now remained for the master architects -- to apply this knowledge to a "plan of action" which would permanently solve the economic, political and social ills of all mankind.