“The immediate aim of
the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation
of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest
of political power by the proletariat.” – Karl Marx
Marx’s proposed
steps for a utopian society started with the abolishment of private property.
Private property in Marxist terms refers to property within capitalist class
society and thus is a social and historical category; the term does not refer
to personal objects for use in society. He claimed that bourgeois private
property is the most important expression of social exploitation; to abolish
private property is to abolish individuality and freedom. The key is that this
would eliminate freedom. He goes on to explain it as free trade, free selling
and free buying; this is the center of the problem with the bourgeois and
capitalism. As he wrote, “private property is therefore the product, the necessary
result of alienated labor and private property is thus derived from the
analysis of the concept of alienated labor, that is alienated man, alienated
life, and estranged man.”[i]
Marx viewed free buying as the heart of the issue of exploitation and abolition
of private property is a critical cog in his communist philosophy.
The next step is abolition
of the bourgeois family, which Marx asserted would be difficult, but necessary.
Marx believed that the family is built upon a foundation of personal gain and to
eliminate it is to eliminate capital. The exploitation of children by their parents
and the exploitation of wives by husbands would end; Marx said, “The point is
to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production.”[ii]
In addition to abolishing the family, Marx
proposed that home education must be replaced with social education. To argue
his point, he claimed that home education is already a form of social education
as the lessons taught are determined by the current social condition. He goes
on to say that communists are not the inventors of social education, but a party
that wishes to change the influence of the bourgeois society over it.
Next is possibly
the most monumental in the path towards communism, and that is the abolishment
of countries and nationalities. Marx went on to claim that, “the working men
have no country and they will not lose what they do not already have.”[iii] He
believed that when the antagonism between classes diminishes, the hostility of
one country to the other would also diminish and eventually cease. He said that
this is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat
classes and is needed to fully unite the proletariat against the bourgeois.
Those are the main
steps to a communist utopian society as defined by Karl Marx; the main steps to
dismantle the bourgeois and spread equality to the proletariat. With these
steps a perfect society would be unavoidable in Marx’s beliefs, a society
without the worker being alienated from his labors and without wealthy upper
class getting richer via the exploitation and oppression of the proletariat.
Communism also
abolishes eternal truths in its quest for equality; it eliminates all religion
and morality. These are tools of the bourgeois; to do away with them is a must
in Marx’s beliefs. He said that the tools of religion and morality are nothing
more then just a construction of man. He claimed that religion was “opium of
the people”[iv]
and went further on to say that, “to abolish religion as the illusory happiness
of the people is to demand their real happiness.”[v]
This is what a society that is fundamentally socialist is supposed to manifests
as; a society that has people as the center point and gives contempt and
disdain to any form of exploitation of men.
As it reads, Karl
Marx’s concept of communism is a socialist society where men are no longer
enslaved and exploited by the bourgeois, but where men have “true happiness”
unhindered by social class structures. Communism is a process that is not
instant, but is a slow progression that begins with the revolution of the
working class. The Revolution begins politically as the first objective is for
the proletariat to wrestle the monopoly of democratic power away from the
bourgeois. He explained this revolution; “the proletariat will use its
political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to
centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State.” [vi]
Karl Marx had
grandiose ideas for communism and how it could become a brilliant key to the
social equality of men. He outlined the perfect society, but never had the opportunity
to see how it materialized. He died in 1883 and it was not until 1917 that Vladimir
Lenin implemented his version of communism; it was born from a forced revolution
that overpowered the Russian Empire.
Lenin ignored
Marx’s statement that the revolution would be gradual and mostly political, he
took matters into his own hands in what is now called the February Revolution.[vii]
This form of ruling, more appropriately called Leninism, lasted until 1991 and
did not follow with Marx’s ideology. It overturned the current bourgeois, but
then Lenin became part of the new bourgeois. It was simply an exchange of one
for of exploitation for another.
Marx’s hope was
for communism to end capitalism and the exploitation of the proletarians and it
has not happened yet. The evolution of the communist party has been tainted
under the new leaders, ideologists and philosophers of today. Although it would
be difficult to argue that it is not what Karl Marx would have wanted, as he
repeatedly emphasized the idea to not be satisfied with the current political
climate of a nation. He was an advocate for action, as is evident by the quote
engraved on his tomb, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in
various ways, the point however is to change it.”[viii]
[i] Erich Fromm, Marx’s
Concept of Man, (Continuum: 2003), p 36
[ii] Karl Marx, Capital
I, (J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd: 1946), p 105-6
[iii] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto, (Filiquarian Publishing: 2005), p 31
[iv] Ibid, p 32
[v] Ibid, p 34
[vi] Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Werke, Towards a Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of
Right, trans. A. Wood, p 378
[vii] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto, (Filiquarian Publishing: 2005), p 35
