Class struggle, two line struggle and mass line (cont.)

Note from the Editorial Staff: This is the second part of the document of the Nucleus for Studies of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on the development of Karl Marx and Marxism. The first part can be read in AND 207.

The International Workers Association, The Capital, The Comune of Paris and the Civil War in France

Right after the defeat of the 1848 revolutionary proceedings, an important two-line struggle starts on the leadership of the Communists League. Whether, by one side, the proudhonism and its “no antagonistic solutions” had had an important defeat or a “mortal blow”, as Lenin states, on the other side, the blanquist stances kept influencing the veteran workers from the League of the Justes.

The Napoleon III coup and restoration of the Empire in France as well as the crowning of the emperor William IV by the Constituent Assembly in Prussia were the political expressions of the passage to an economic period of prosperity and capitalism growing. Marx and Engels have correctly analysed  such a situation and concluded that “a new revolution is only possible as a consequence of a new crisis. But it is as safe as this one”. However, the petty-bourgeois tactics of blanquism that preached the revolution as the coup of a enlightened minority has ( as the seizure of a public building or palace) unconsidered completely the economic and political analysis done by Marx, and defended that a daily task would be preparing for the new insurrections. In the League of the Communists, Karl Schapper headed the defense of the blanquist stances and created divisions. On the other side, as one more expression of the reactionarization process and restraining of the revolutionary situation, 12 militants from the League of the Justes were  arrested and their trial was well-known internationaly as the “Cologne Process”. The Prussian government accused the 12  revolutionaries of ‘high treason’; eight out of them were declared guilty and four acquitted.

After  the Cologne process, the league of the Communist was dissolved and months later the divisionist line disappeared. According to Engels the “first period of the working communist movement in Germany was ended”. It started the engendering of a new leap inside the proletarian ideology, a leap that would transform Marx-Thought, guide of the proletarian revolution in Europe, into Marxism, universal ideology of proletariat. From 1849 onwards, Marx and Engels lived in England and resumed, on a concentrated and disciplined effort, their theorical studies, mostly on the bourgeois political economy.

Living in London and having at hand a large bibliography at the London Museum Library, counting on the indispensable logistic support from Engels, Marx could elaborate on a systematic way the theory which represents the highest scientific and ideological leap in the whole history of humankind. After ten years of a hard and continuous work, never secluded – for Marx dwelling was a kind of Communist Party’s headquarter to where the revolutionaries and political exiled of the whole world would go – Marx was able to finally present to the class a first result of his researches. It was the Contribution for the Criticism of the Political Economy, printed in 1859. The most important aspect of this work is the extremely precise application of the dialectical materialism to the study of history and discovery of the general laws that explain the class society development, the contradiction between its economic basis and superstructure. It is at stake, therefore, a work with a deep philosophical meaning in which it is established in scientific and universal terms the theory of the marxist class struggle.

At the preface of this work Marx does one of the brightest systematization of his newly discoveries:
The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows: in the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production”.

These theorical results reached by Marx have enlarged enormously the universal meaning of his thought. His conclusion that the history of society is the history of class struggle has found a complete demonstration corresponding to its generalization. The class struggle is the motor of history since it is the solution of the contradiction between the development of the productive forces and the production relations. This result, despite being gigantic, was the beginning of a quality leap in the scientific ideology of the proletariat. It was not enough the general explanation of the development of the history of humankind, it was necessary the discovery of the law that rules the development and the crisis of the capitalist society, demonstrating why the class struggle under the capitalist regime leads “necessarily to the dictatorship of proletariat”. As Marx affirms in the preface of The Capital : ”The final objective of this work is to find out the economic law of the movement of the modern society”. The discovery of this law completes his findings in philosophy – the dialectical materialism and the historical materialism – and as to the socialist thought – with the scientific socialism , the communism – consists in the transformation of Marx thought into Marxism.

Marx political economy

Lenin, on his magnificent synthesis of Marxism – the small article Karl Marx * affirms that the essential in the proletarian ideology is its economical doctrine. In this text, Lenin shows us that the economic law, discovered by Marx, which explains the appearing of the development and end of the capialist society, is the value-law and its necessary result: the surplus-value.

In The Capital Marx starts an explanation on the functioning of the law from the merchandise point of view, the dominating element in the capitalist society. The merchandise is, first of all, something that satisfies man’s needs and, secondly, something that may be exchanged by another. The utility makes mechandise a value of use. The value of exchange  ( simply the value) is firstly the proportional relationship that is established  in the exchange of a value of use by another one. What permits that a merchandise can be exchanged by another is that both are work products, therefore, what is in common with these merchandise is not the concrete work of a determined branch of production, but the abstract work, the work in general. Each merchandise isolately considered represents a part of the time of work socially necessary; the value of a merchandise, therefore, is the time of work socially necessary for its production. This value, however, cannot be measured in another way but the equalization with another merchandise; that is why the value of exchange is the value form. Along the appearance of the capitalist society, the form of value has been evolving from its fortuitous form ( when a merchandise is exchanged occasionally by another) to the general form of value ( when, from the intensification of the exchange process, it is established a determined merchandise like the general equivalent of such a process), till reaching the form of money of value. Marx has demonstrated that money, as a supreme form of development of the exchange and production of merchandise, conceals and dissimulates the social character of the partial works.

In a certain grade of production development for merchandises, money is transformed into capital. The merchandise circulation formula ( M-D-M) that is, the merchandise production for purchasing other ones, is replaced by the general formula of the capital (D-M-D), i. e., the purchase for selling with profit. This addition to the primitive value in circulation is what Marx names the surplus value. It is precisely this addition of value which transforms money into capital. However, such an addition in value could not appear from the merchandise circulation, because the exchange is only possible between equivalent values. For obtaining the surplus value “it would be necessary the money possessor found out in the market a merchandise which use value would have a singular property to be a value source”, Marx points out in The Capital.  This merchandise  exists: it is the human labour-force whose value, as any other merchandise, is determined by the time of work socially necessary for its production ( that is, by the maintenance cost of the worker and his family). The money owner buys, for example, the labour-force for 8 hours but in 4 hours ( necessary time of work) the worker creates a product which covers the expenses of his maintenance and, during the other 4 hours ( suplementar time of work) the worker creates a surplus not retributed by the capitalist which is the surplus value. From the point of view of the production process, the capital must be distinguished into two parts: the constant capital, invested into means of production ( equipment, machines, instruments, raw-material,etc.); and the variable capital that is invested for paying the labour-force. The surplus-value tax, however, must be calculated through the relation between the variable capital and the produced surplus-value which, in the above exemple, would be of 100%.

The increase of the surplus-value is possible because of two fundamental processes: the extending of the working hours ( absolute surplus-value) and the reduction of the necessary working time (relative surplus-value). In his analysis of the production of the relative surplus-value, Marx studies the fundamental historical three phasis for intensification of productivity of work by capitalism: 1.simple cooperation; 2. work division and manufacture; 3. the machines and the big industry. Marx also analyses the processo for accummulation of capital, that is, the transformation of part of the surplus-value into capital and its use not to satisfy  the capitalist personnal needs but to produce again. Marx demonstrated the mistake of all the bourgeois political economy that considered that all new value generated in the productive process is converted into capital and starts being a part of the variable capital. In fact, the surplus-value obtained is decomposed into means of production and variable capital. The faster growing of the constant capital in relation to the variabale capital (resulting of the need for the continuous implementation of mechanization for increasing of productivity) has a paramount importance for the explanation of the cicle crises of capitalism, and preparation for the conditions of its replacement by communism.

The value law and its especification in the capitalist society, that is, the surplus-value, is the basis for all the explanation of the different phenomenon of capitalism since the land profit until the  decreasing tendence of the profit tax. The discovery of such a law, besides representing the first complete truly scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of producation – analysis that could only be performed by the revolutionary proletariat – from the ideological point of view, represents, with The Capital, a total development of the marxist philosophy, the dialectical materialism, applied to the study not only of the appearance, development and crisis of capitalism, but mostly its overcoming. The great scientific demonstration marxism has reached on this decisive moment is that the proletarian revolution is not an abstract possibility but a historical need. From the top of the revolution mountain, contemplating thousands of centuries, Karl Marx proclaims to the oppressed workers and  people of the world:

“The capital monopoly starts to hinder the mode of production which has grown with and under it. The centralization of the means of production and the work socialization have reached a point in which they become incompatible with the capitalist cover. The cover breaks open and it sounds the end of the private propriety.The expropriators will be expropriated”

The First International and the two-line struggle

The scientific demonstration that from the womb of the capitalist society has inevitably brought about the communist society and that “the violence is the midwife of history” could only be reached amidst the development of the class struggle and two line struggle in the working and communist movement, Only the rotten revisionism and the bourgeois academicism can present this work as an office construction or just the creation of an individual bright mind. The Capital was published in 1867, three years after the foundation of the  International Workers’ Association (IWA) which corresponded to to the constitution of the proletariat’s World Communist Party, in a period of expansion of the communism ideas which surpassed Europe’s limits for the first time. The IWA represented an important development in the concept of the proletariat party. Differently from the League of the Communists, the World Communist Party  has an important delimitation in the international workers’s organization and its national organizations; on the first chapter of its statute one can read:  “ This Association has been founded with the aim to establish a communication and cooperation centre among the Working Societies from different countries and with the same objective, that is, the protection, progress and the complete emancipation of the working class”.

The conformation of the IWA was, in this sense, the product of the development of the working class struggle during the period after the 1848 revolutions, the period which was characterized by Marx as the generation of the new revolutions. As a matter of fact, the foundation of the IWA was the necessary correspondence for the rippenning of the objective conditions for a new revolutionary peak in Europe. The 1866 Austro-Prussian War, the 1870 Franco-Prussian War would be important predictions of the great events in the European working movement.

The IWA was founded in London during a working meeting, on September, 1864. In the assembly an International leadership and a commission in charge of writing the statutes and an Inaugural Message were elected. Both versions were written by Marx and were approved by the leadership. In its yearly congresses the IWA was becoming stronger and expanding as an organization. So that a Working Society could be a member of the IWA it was necessary the analysis and ratification of its statutes by the IWA General Council. Thus, it advanced in a progressive way for the concept of the democratic centralism.

During those years of existence ( 1864 to 1872) the IWA main two-line struggle occurred against the petty-bourgeois stances of Bakunin who was a Russian anarchist. Althought the stances did not have a mass base and concrete organization, with its theorical ecletism, it served as a mouthpiece for the opportunist stances from the right and ‘left’ within the International. Generally speaking, Bakunin’s stance was a mix of Proudhon’s socialism, Blanqui’s tactics and the bourgeois reformist positions. Before becoming a member of the IWA, Bakunin was a leader of a Suiss pacifist organization, the League for Peace and Freedom. After being defeated his League’s position by the International – the IWA unanimous retreat – Bakunin wanted to associate with  the International what became effective  in 1868. Bakunin starts a fraccionist work attacking the General Council of IWA, mostly under Marx’s leadership, accusing him of authoritarism. Bakunin has always had a double and disloyal position in the inner struggle that lasted four years. His stances were the following:  abstension of the political movement; denied the the leading role of proletariat, defending the principality of the petty-bourgeoisie and lumpen; defended the “economic and social equality among the classes” and propposed the replacement of the consign of appropriation of the means of production by the “end of the rigth to inheritance”. Under such a reformist position and ‘leftist’ one typical of the petty-bourgeoisie, Bakunin served as unity point for the English reformist as Halles as the national-socialists as Mazzini, in Italy. All were united around the consign of autonomy for each national section, in a clear resistance to the development of the proletarian democratic centralism.

Bakunin’s position was overwhelmingly defeated on the  1872 The Hague Congress that ratified the strengthening  of the General Council and, at the same time, Bakunin’s expulsion from IWA. It was an important victory for marxism once more under Marx’s personal leadership.

Marx triumphs in the working movement

As a matter of fact, the two-line struggle against Bakunin was the expression of the final ideological line against all the varied ones of the utopian petty-bourgeois still prevailing in Europe. From the ideological point of view, Marx’s O Capital was the definite statement that marxism was the only truly scientific socialism. From the practical point of view, it represented the decisive defeat of anarchism and the utopian socialism or, as Lenin systematizes, Marxism and revisionism.

“Marxism triumphs unconditionally over all the other ideologies of the working movement”.

The Commune of Paris has been the major deed of the international proletariat in the 19th century. As chairman Gonzalo has correctly pointed out, it is the milestone of the beginning of the World Proletarian Revolution, from its first Big Wave. After the defeat of the June 1848 insurrection, the French proletariat once more confronted, weapons in hands, the republican bourgeoisie, but this time was the winner. However, it was not either a planned seizure of power or led by a Working Society, linked to IWA. In 1870, Napoleon III started his war against the Prussian Empire; the French campaign was a failure and he was imprisoned by the Prussian Army. Right away the French bourgeoisie seizes the power and establishes the Republic again. The Prussian Empire imposes a hard siege to Paris that surrenders to the Prussian troops on January, 1871. Most of the French Army was imprisoned by the Prussian empire. Despite that the bourgeois government in Versailles, on March 18th , sends troops for disarming the National Guard that was resisting to the Prussian siege in Paris. The government troops are defeated and the National Guard seizes the power in the French capital. On March 21st was proclaimed the Commune of Paris; the French tricolour banner did not wave anymore but the proletariat red flag.

The members of the Commune were divided into three groups: the largest, which had been the majority in the Central Committee of the national Guard, formed by blanquists, and the smallest by IWA members. Among these, the majority was composed by proudhonists and only a small part by communists. From the political point of view, the mistakes and adroitnesses were due to the blanquist stances; from the economic point of view, the responsibility for the main measures was of the proudhonist stances. As Engels emphatizes, in both cases the practice has contradicted the doctrine concepts of these two schools. Blanquism defended a republic with an absolutist republic and summoned the whole France for constituting a federation of free Communes. The proudhonists defended the workmanship self-management for each production unit done by a small worker’s committee and approved the creation of an organization for the big industry, including  the manufacture, not based only in the working association in every factory, but that would unite all associations in a great Union. The Commune survived two months to the French bourgeoisie siege that, supported by the newly crated German Empire, raided and defeated the proletarian Paris.

Historically the Commune of Paris has proved the marxist evalutation of the 1848 revolutions. It is not enough for the proletariat to overthrown the bourgeoisie; it is necessary to build a new State power over the ashes of the bourgeoisie State deprived of power. The proletarian revolution must lead to the proletariat dictatorship. That was the main lesson of 1848 and has showed that as the principal mistake that led to the Commune defeat. Their greatest lessons were those which, in practice, were near the marxist evalutaion in 1848. Nevertheless, obviously the French proletariat’s heroic and historical fact has brought extraordinary teachings to the international proletariat. Once more, it was Karl Marx who, handling brightly the mass line, knew how to take great lessons from that teaching that enriched still more the scientific ideology of the proletariat, Thus, Marx affirms in his work, Civil War in France, that it had been proved the IWA evaluation on the historical experience of the Commune:

“Its true secret was this: it was essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.”

The Commune’s secret, discovered by Marx, is that it has solved – under the historical point of view – the form by which it would accomplish the dictatorship of the proletariat. It became crystal clear for Marx that such a dictatorship would mean the constitution of a proletarian government as a political form of exercising its dictatorship, a guarantor of the appropriatioin of the means of production. The Commune of Paris has represented the peak of IWA as well as its historical limit. The remarkable experience of the French working class has showed that for the victory of the socialist revolution it is necessary the constitution of marxist Communist Parties in evey country which would struggle in a legal and clandestine manner for seizing the power for the proletariat and the establishing of its dictatorship. That is why the last The Hague Congress decision, in 1872, which was the transference of the General Council of IWA to New York, constituted a victory in the two-line struggle of marxism against bakunism since it was more advisable to stop its activities in Europe than being “murdered by the unit with no principles”. On the other hand, the Franco-Prussian War had moved the gravity centre of the working movement in France to Germany and that is why the process for the constitution of the marxist Party would have great importance in that country. After the Commune, as Lenin has indicated, it started a “relatively peaceful” period that woul extend till 1905 with the Russia Revolution. The main legacy for the international proletariat from the period of 1848 up to 1871 is definitely the complete, theorical and practical establishing of the scientific ideology of the proletariat, all mighty because it is true: the Marxism.#

* The next paragraphs are a paraphrase of parts of the above refered Lenin’s texts.