Al Qaeda's Opposition to Qaddafi: Are There Two Outmodeds?

As some are probably aware, Bob Avakian (Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA) has, for many years now, been putting out a theory on America's global war of terror that he calls the two outmodeds theory. He sums it up this way:

“What we see in contention here with Jihad on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these ‘outmodeds,’ you end up strengthening both.”

A compelling response to this formulation was provided a couple years back in the Monkey Smashes Heaven theoretical journal. The entire article is worth reading. It was in large part a polemic on the RCP's line provided in response to their position on the U.S.-backed late-2008/early-2009 Israeli attack on the people of Gaza. Below I'll provide some of the key highlights from that article that really sum up its main point on the two outmodeds theory:

According to the RCP (USA), supporting Hamas, who are the main force resisting this latest escalation of the genocidal violence against Palestinians, is tantamount to supporting the United States. To support Hamas, according to Bob Afakean, is to support the imperialist system. For the RCP (USA), Hamas and Amerikan Imperialism are two sides of the same coin. What this amounts to is a call for the Palestinian people to abandon their resistance, which happens to be often led by Islamic forces. The RIM-line, in the concrete, is a call to abandon any real resistance.

...

Maoist-Third Worldists recognize that the principal contradiction in the world is between imperialism and exploited nations. Maoist-Third Worldists support the broad united front against the principal enemy: imperialism, especially Amerikan Imperialism. Maoist-Third Worldists support the oppressed in their struggles against imperialism, even when the resistance against imperialism is not led by the proletariat.

As you can see, it is an excellent polemical response! It clearly shows that, at best, Bob Avakian's formulation is overly simplistic. In fact, in an overall sense, that MSH article is persuasive as a counterpoint to me. In the past, I had not really even thought much about what the practical alternative was for the oppressed if you opposed all their real resistance to imperialism. Back when I first read it, that article got me thinking more deeply about the real world implications of the RCP's line both regarding the two outmodeds theory and more broadly. But what I will call into question here though is whether the two outmodeds theory should be totally disregarded. Is it really accurate to say that there is absolutely no truth to the two outmodeds formulation?

Consider the present situation in Libya. We know that government leader Muammar Qaddafi for much of the last decade has supported and joined his country to America's global war of terror as part of a general rapprochement with the United States and the global Northwest more broadly. Yet when the imperialists began moving toward a direct military attack on his country, Qaddafi retreated from all this and put forward that he would be willing to forge an alliance with Al Qaeda against the U.S. and the West if attacked by his erstwhile patrons. And...

Gaddafi also indicated that certain oil and gas contracts involving Libya and several Western companies, such as Italy's state-controlled energy giant ENI, would be reviewed once the rebellion had been quashed.

'I think and I hope that the Libyan people will reconsider the economic, financial and security ties with the West,' Gaddafi said.

By contrast, what is Al Qaeda's orientation in this situation of actual U.S. and Western military attack on the legitimate government of Libya, that of Qaddafi, in support of their stooge regime in Benghazi? While Qaddafi's claims that Al Qaeda is running the rebellion are obviously untrue exaggerations, they ARE fully supporting it. They claim to be fighting against both the U.S. and the West on the one hand and against the Qaddafi government on the other. Qaddafi offers an alliance against the U.S. and the West and Al Qaeda rejects it and opts to go their own road alone. Thus which side, in Al Qaeda's view, is really the greater enemy? They are willing to support the stooge regime in Benghazi that is also embraced by the United States, after all. Thus we see how, even as they are fighting the American occupation of Afghanistan, they are effectively helping to foster one in Libya. In the latter scenario, is it not indeed transparently the case that "If you side with either of these ‘outmodeds,’ you end up strengthening both” since they are on the same side of the battle lines, even if in an uneasy way?

Well let's dig deeper and get to the real root of this question. What do we mean by "outmoded"? I sought to clarify that matter in this earlier entry. At one point I made the statement that...

The consistent historical meaning of "left" and "right" is that "left wing" refers to those who support a new and historically more advanced mode of production, whereas "right wing" refers to those who uphold the old order, whatever it may be in the given situation (feudalism, capitalism, or whatever).

The immediate objective of authentic communist revolutionaries in the modern era, the era of capitalist imperialism, is the accomplishment of democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat. And while we demand communist leadership of democratic revolutionary struggles against imperialism, it is not always immediately possible to affect that said leadership. But we unite with anti-imperialist democratic forces regardless because they are progressive relative to the principal contradiction. From the time of Lenin we have understood that imperialism stunts and warps the development of the global countryside, the Third World, such that major remnants of feudalism remain permanently intact. Thus, in the era of capitalist imperialism, even the bourgeoisie themselves are incapable of actually rupturing with feudalism in a complete way. That is why imperialism in the main enemy of the proletariat in the contemporary world. But what if you have patriotic, or even more internationalist, feudal forces who are willing to put up a fight against imperialism to an extent, but are, at the same time and in the main, unwilling to support democratic transformation in society? How are you to treat those kinds of forces? After all, they oppose even the very first step that communist revolutionaries insist on: anti-imperialist revolution that is of a democratic quality. That is the essence of what the two outmodeds theory seeks to get at.

While my comrades have made it clear to me that many of the forces BA lumps together in his clumsy theory are, in fact, patriotic bourgeois forces -- forces essentially both against imperialism and for democracy, that is -- such as the government of Iran, as well as Hezbullah, Hamas, and some others...I still tend to see forces like the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a qualitatively different way. Let's get down to the nitty gritty: what is the most basic aspect of democratic revolution? It is the economic dimension, of course. That is, kicking out the foreign capitalists and democratically redistributing agricultural land to tillers. Forces like the Taliban and Al Qaeda tend to support the former key task while opposing the latter. By contrast, the Iranian government, Hezbullah, Hamas, etc. all support these democratic tasks broadly. The likes of the Taliban and Al Qaeda simply oppose imperialism because they see it as an impediment to retrograde national and regional traditions and/or to the spreading of those traditions worldwide. With the patriotic bourgeoisie of the Third World the international proletariat at least has in common the objective of national development. That is the basis for their inclusion as part of the block of four progressive classes. But the likes of the Taliban and Al Qaeda broadly oppose national development. So do they still qualify as part of the block of four progressive classes with whom you can unite? Is not the whole point of our revolution to advance, not to retreat, through the historical modes of production up to communism? What has the proletariat in common with monstrous feudal oppression, even if it is motivated in part by a sense of patriotism or broader Third World unity? There is only one thing I can think of and that is a circumstantially common enemy in imperialism. (And, as I have sought to highlight above, we do not even consistently have that in common in reality.) But that is only the basis for a purely tactical, low-level, temporary united front, not for their inclusion as part of the permanent four-class alliance of progressive classes. I simply cannot imagine non-antagonistically reconciling forces like the Taliban and Al Qaeda to socialism. They are viscerally hostile toward it and toward everything it stands for.

What I am saying is that we should treat Islamic (and other Third World patriotic) forces with nuance rather than adopting these overly generalizing stances toward them, whether they be complete opposition or complete support. Some are qualitatively more progressive than others. Some are essentially bourgeois. Others are essentially feudal. This is grounds for differentiation in our orientation. Some we can ultimately form a grand alliance with. Others we can only ally with on a purely tactical, temporary basis. I hope the reader gets my point.

The Periods of the Cold War

This post is just an addition to what I wrote here yesterday, March 31, 2011.

Although yesterday I indicated general agreement with the Workers' World article with the exception of the portion under the heading "Working class enters anti-war movement", my position on one other part should be clarified as well:

During the first half of the 20th century, imperialist war was driven by inter-imperialist rivalry and struggles over which country would be able to loot the colonial peoples. During the latter part of the 20th century, war and the threat of war were driven by the struggle of imperialism against the socialist camp and the national liberation movements — the Cold War.

Now the permanent tendency of imperialism toward war and militarism is driven by the drive for reconquest of the territories lost in that period.

This part of the article is obviously key, as it addresses the historical record of the imperialist era of capitalism in very broad strokes. As indicated yesterday, I largely agree with the above quote, but my take on some aspects of the historical record might merit some clarification.

Following their correct summation of the period up through World War 2, Workers' World proceeds to lay out two distinctive periods that corresponded to actual U.S. government policies respectively called the Plan for the American Century (1947-1997) and the Plan for the New American Century (1997-present), which literally laid out/lay out (as applicable) strategies for world conquest. In the first of these post-WW2 periods, the U.S. won the basic victory, establishing itself as the sole surviving superpower. The second, current period is characterized by a drive to consolidate that victory by eliminating the phenomenon of "rogue states". All of this is correct. And yes, in the current period, all the imperialists are essentially united under American leadership against the remaining "rogue states" and those who seek to establish "rogue states".

However, this statement from the above quote..."During the latter part of the 20th century, war and the threat of war were driven by the struggle of imperialism against the socialist camp and the national liberation movements — the Cold War"....is somewhat a mischaracterization stemming from the WWP's persistent refusal to recognize that, for the most of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was not a socialist country, but a mighty imperialist power in its own right. The Cold War had a number of periods:

In the first period, which lasted roughly one decade (1945-55ish), the Soviet Union was still a socialist country and at the head of the socialist and anti-imperialist camp. For most of this period, tensions between the U.S. and the USSR were especially high and even spilled over into actual combat with each other in the Korean War. Tensions gradually cooled from 1951 on, as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin started considering the Korean War a stalemate and spent the next couple years negotiated a cease-fire. Then, after Stalin died and the Korean War ended in 1953, new Soviet leadership emerged at the top that was qualitatively more amenable to re-establishing diplomatic ties with the imperialists.

The second period began in 1956, when a new Soviet leader by the name of Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a "criminal" and jettisoned the previous view that an atomic/nuclear showdown between the socialist and capitalist camps was ultimately inevitable due to the belligerence of the latter, embracing instead a theory and policy of permanent "peaceful co-existence" with the imperialists. To rationalize this collaborative, anti-antagonistic policy, Khrushchev also put forward the theory of the "peaceful transition" into socialism, i.e. of the possibility of proletarian revolution without warfare. This policy shift on the USSR's part yielded a major split in the global anti-U.S. camp, led generally by socialist China. The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong's leadership argued that the Soviet leadership was now pointing that country away from the objective of world revolution and in the direction of rapprochement with the imperialists and that the accomplishment of said feat would be impossible unless they abandoned socialism. The abandonment of socialism, they contended, would be a precondition for diplomatic rapprochement with the imperialists under U.S. leadership. Thus, it was argued, Khrushchev was a revisionist: someone who, while claiming to be a Marxist and perhaps even believing themself one, takes up politics that are fundamentally irreconcilable with Marxism. In 1963, Khrushchev did indeed reorganize the Soviet economy along profit lines, thus effectively restoring capitalism under a system of broad state ownership. But try as he did, Khrushchev was never able to establish a close diplomatic relationship with the U.S., and the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev saw an opening through which to make imperialist inroads of the country's own against U.S. imperialism in the Vietnam War and other national liberation struggles. Thus began the third period of the Cold War in the mid-1960s.

Under Brezhnev's leadership, the USSR undertook an aggressive foreign policy, literally taking a large number of semi-colonies and conquering those states under its influence that sought to challenge that influence. Meanwhile, from the start of the second period, China had been seeking to establish its leadership of the Cold War against the imperialist camp led by the United States, recognizing that the Soviet Union wasn't seriously looking to finish the world proletarian revolution. China's Cultural Revolution period (1966-69) marked the height of this effort. But the Chinese Maoists had not initially fully recognized the distinction between the compromising yet still ultimately socialist state of affairs on the USSR's part during the second period of the Cold War and that of the country's aggressive, social-imperialist policies that began in earnest in this new, third period of the Cold War. By the time of the Cultural Revolution, there had been some recognition that the Soviet Union was now basically capitalist, but no clear-cut recognition as yet that it was actually a highly aggressive imperialist power. That recognition came in 1968 and '69, when the USSR invaded and subjugated Czechoslovakia and repeatedly attacked China. It also came out in 1969 that the Soviet Union had developed more extensive plans for a nuclear confrontation with China than it had for one with the United States. Now it was clear: the imperialist camp now definitely included the Soviet Union, and as an aggressive superpower in its own right. From that point on, China wrongly took up an opportunistic policy of establishing a united front with the USA against Soviet social-imperialism. The latter was of much closer proximity to China and thus was viewed as the more imminent danger...to China. Had they thought more about what the greater danger to the world overall was, they might have acted differently and in a more principled way. Anyhow, America happily obliged, thus, over the course of the 1970s and early '80s, wiping out the socialist camp (which, during this period, consisted of China, Albania, North Vietnam, and Democratic Kampuchea) indirectly by bringing the leader of the remaining socialist camp, China, on a certain level, into its camp. By 1986, there were no remaining socialist states on Earth and the U.S. had clearly regained the upper hand in the Cold War against its bourgeois rival, the USSR. Now began the fourth and final period of the Cold War: the capitulation of the Soviet Union to the United States.

So I just wanted to clarify that there were these complex twists and turns to the Cold War. China's rapprochement with the United States in the 1970s and '80s was likely the single most determining factor in the outcome. In that move, one-fourth of humanity lost the socialist system and went back to capitalism, in league with the world's top-dog oppressor: it's main purveyor of violence and exploitation. So I would tend to argue that the Cold War, as an anti-imperialist low-level war, was basically lost in 1971, when the decision was made by the Chinese government to meet with U.S. president Nixon and to oust the opponents of that meet from the People's Liberation Army, and thus from essential control of the state. We are only just now recovering ideologically from that disaster. With the (real) socialist camp out of the way, America found beating out its only significant imperialist rival, the Soviet Union, comparatively easy. As I think you might be able to see by now, my take on the nature of the Cold War differs quite a lot from the WWP's pro-Soviet account. My take is considerably more complex. But on the ultimate outcome of the Cold War, the defeat of the socialist camp generally (IMO completely) and the establishment of America as the sole remaining superpower, we agree.

A Great Basic Introduction to the Chinese Cultural Revolution!

There is just too much good stuff here to not link all my readers to it. What you'll find at the link is a superb article outlining the very most basic and crucial features of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It well worth reading, for those who are new to the communist science.

The Chance and Need to Boycott the Election Process

Note to Readers: The bulk of what follows is not my writing, but rather is that of my friend Dustin Slagle, who runs a blog called The Hong Se Sun. I have made substantial edits, removing contents I disagree with and adding some general thoughts in place of them, to more closely reflect my own perspective. This is part of a collaborative project we are doing. The original piece can be found here. Okay, here goes:

This blog post and general idea [in Dustin's case -- MQ] was pulled/inspired from a blog posted by a supporter of the RCP-PCR here.

If someone really wants to know why there is no (progressive) revolutionary consciousness in the US to speak of, one factor they might consider, in addition to decisive objective factors like the virtual non-existence of an American proletariat, is the political nature of the majority of the "socialist" groups in the US. How are even the few more progressive-minded Americans suppose to develop a revolutionary mindset when all these groups who claim to be revolutionary support nothing but reformist tactics and attack any groups directly calling for revolution as ultra-leftist? How is directly advocating revolution ultra-leftist? How is calling for revolution while denouncing revolution and participating in imperialist elections anything but reformist and social-democrat-esque?

Nearly all "left wing" groups in the America are fakes and paper tigers. They use the call "revolution" for opportunist reasons only. In reality they support this capitalist-imperialist system by organizing people around the demands of exploiters and on the terms of the imperialist enemy. One of the ways these groups help this system is by legitimizing it in people's minds; by trying to reform it from within rather than destroy it from without. I would argue that even just by participating in bourgeois elections, they accomplish this feat. Their participation legitimizes the bourgeois electoral process in people's minds. This obviously sends the wrong message to an important group coming into progressive circles, and that is the young people. The number of young people who say things like "we are real revolutionary socialists" followed directly by "wanna buy our paper or a book or some stickers or pins, how about a donation, vote for this person" makes me so sick to my stomach. That's especially true when you see these hypocrites wearing Mao shirts and hear them quoting the likes of Marx, Lenin, and Mao, yet then tell you how narrow and dogmatic you are for directly advocating proletarian revolution. Here's a good and relevant quote by Marx such people seem to have missed: "The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution." (That's from The Communist Manifesto.)

I think it obvious that communists should not be participating in elections in which the only possible outcome is more of the same: more imperialism, more plundering, more exploitation, more oppression, more misery for the world's vast majority. We need to be providing an alternative ideology to this fake democracy that is bourgeois democracy: democracy for the world's oppressing and exploiting minority, not for its oppressed and exploited majority. There is no good reason to give the illusion that these elections give those who would work on behalf of the international proletariat any real chance at creating positive change. Boycotting an election may not be in itself revolutionary, but it is, I believe, a correct tactic for any group claiming the world needs a new and much better system.

Just think for a moment about the whole history of all those communist parties and groups that went astray and strove to lead a proletarian transformation of society through electoral avenues. It is nothing but the history of failure, revisionism, betrayal, right wing coups, and horrific bloodbaths. Indonesia. Chile. Columbia. Nicaragua. Nepal. I don't even have to explain. You know to what I refer when I bring up those countries in connection to "communist" reliance on electoral avenues. And these are but a few of the examples that could be cited in this connection. Joining capitalist elections leads to nothing but betrayal at best (either on our own part or on the part of our enemy) and unfathomable disaster at worst. Never has this strategy succeeded. Never has it even gotten anywhere as a tactic that I can think of. The more you try to change the system from within, the more instead it changes you. Or finds an opening to destroy you.

Written by: Dustin Slagle
Edited by: Monkey Queen

(1) http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html (their source is the turnout for elections sided with population of people 18 and older)

Dear Wisconsin Morons: This Land WASN'T "Made For You and Me"!

What follows is my reply to this commentary on recent developments in Wisconsin and where they're headed:

"...what is most important is that we support the union in their struggle..."

I thoroughly disagree!

Here, sharply posed, is the reality of the matter:

The "workers" in question make EXPONENTIALLY more than you do, and probably even two or three times what I do, as things are. They are NOT, as you portray them, desperately poor and just trying to eek out a living on the verge of starvation. They are so wealthy that a very large percentage of them probably even own businesses of their own on the side, as well as stock portfolios, real estate, etc.! 5.8% of $35,000-$70,000+ a year isn't going to kill anyone, or even close.

The hard and painful truth for the American "left" to accept is that these "workers" would actually lose more under AUTHENTIC socialism than is being demanded of them right now by "the Mubarak of the Midwest"! That they compare themselves to the Egyptian masses is an insult to the latter. Their conditions are not remotely similar and their demands are for the retention of their existing privileges OVER the Egyptian and other Third world masses. And moreover there isn't going to be any imperialist bourgeoisie or imperialist government with which to bargain/collaborate under socialism if it can at all be helped.

Even the Tea Party racists can spout out anti-corporate dribble when it is opportunistically convenient. They complain of the bank bailouts, of executive bonuses, of powerful bureaucrats, even sometimes of the Iraq War. Does this make them progressive? That'll be a cold day in hell!

The problem with the union movement in Wisconsin isn't that it's doomed to fail, it's that their objectives are reactionary! There is no "good" or "progressive" side to the debacle in Wisconsin. The situation instead reminds me of a lecture my law professor gave us in college one time. She described to us a case wherein a member of a pair of bank robbers decided he had been cheated by his partner and thus decided to sue for "his share" of the loot. Naturally, the court frowned on the case itself and found that neither of them had the right to stake a claim in the first place, given the means by which they had acquired the money in question.

In that connection, one of the various particularly disgusting features of the Wisconsin action has been the celebration of American patriotism, which is inevitably the celebration of American colonialism and imperialism. Check out Tom Morello's little number. News flash to spoiled Wisconsin morons: this land AIN'T your land! And it ain't my land either. This land WASN'T "made for you and me"! This is stolen land and the debacle in question is over stolen loot! What we are witnessing in that video thus amounts to a celebration of genocide and plundering. And no, throwing in a verse about relief lines does not change that overarching essence.

We shouldn't just "be the best protesters we can be". We need to ask these hard questions about the political contents of protests. We should not support ANY section of American exploiters in fighting for the retention, let alone extension, of their privileges. No one has a right to plunder, no matter how employed or waged they are. The proletariat is more essentially defined by the property-less condition than by the employed status anyway. The property-less condition is what gives the proletariat its class interest in bringing all property under common ownership. That's the only way the proletariat AS A CLASS can acquire property. The former First World proletariat, on the other hand, has acquired it by way of the de facto exploitation of the Third World masses, thereby rendering the latter the place where the international proletariat is overwhelmingly concentrated today. There is no First World proletariat to speak of. And even the 30% of these Wisconsin protesters you describe who allegedly have sympathies with socialism are, in fact, coming from a social-imperialist understanding of that, given the nature of their demands, as explained above.

Does all this mean that real communists, Maoist Third Worldists, have no role to play in this situation? Are we to just sit at home and lament from afar? Of course not! We have a role. Real communists, leading light communists, need to be in really any given "mass" action that arises in America, be it one of these unionist actions or even a Tea Party rally, precisely in order to undermine them and actively attract as many people as will be interested to the genuine communist pole. We are looking for the few First Worlders, for the few Americans, who are willing to betray their own class interests and their country and fight on the side of the world's oppressed and exploited majority in the Third World. We are working behind enemy lines. Genuinely progressive mobilization in this country is bound up with opposing American imperialism and supporting revolution in the Third World.

A New Breakthrough on the Topic of People's War!

Not a long post today. I just couldn't resist linking my readers up to this article because it has truly historic implications! Check it out.

A Basic Introduction to Marxism

It occurs to me that, from time to time, some casual readers not versed in Marxism may conceivably find their way to this blog. I therefore think it prudent to provide some information on the basics of scientific socialism and some resources for (definitely recommended) further reading. I plan on writing a small handful of articles covering the most basic and fundamental elements of Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, and perhaps some others if I should feel so inclined: one article per theory, with a list of recommended further readings included. This will be the first of these said articles. It is dedicated to informing the reader on the very, very basics of classical Marxism: the first school of scientific socialism.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were German-born intellectuals who worked in various cities in Europe as teachers, journalists, and political activists. As writers, they developed a sweeping theory of society and history, premised on the philosophical perspective of dialectical materialism, which provided them the framework within which to examine history and society in a scientific manner. Dialectical materialism is the perspective that material things are in a constant process of change brought about by the tension between conflicting or interacting forces, elements, or ideas. Historical materialism is that part of the theory of dialectical materialism which holds that the development of social thought and institutions is based upon material, economic forces (the production and distribution of the material requirements of life being the most basic purpose of civilization); it is the factor that enables the scientific analysis of the course of history. The basic idea is that every economic order grows to a state of maximum efficiency, while, at the same time, developing internal contradictions (weaknesses) that contribute to its decay.

Marx and Engels asserted that the key to understanding human culture and history was the struggle between classes. They used the term class to refer to a group of people within society who share the same social and economic status. According to Marx and Engels, class struggles have occurred in every form of society, no matter what its economic structure, or mode of production: slavery, feudalism, or capitalism. In each of these kinds of societies, a minority of people own or control the means of production, such as land, raw materials, tools and machines, labor, and money. This minority constitutes the ruling class. The vast majority of people own and control very little. They mainly own their own capacity to work. The ruling class uses its economic power to exploit workers by appropriating their surplus labor. In other words, workers are compelled to labor not merely to meet their own needs, but also those of the exploiting ruling class. As a result, workers become alienated from the fruits of their labor.

Marx and Engels portrayed the grand sweep of Western history (most history that was well-known in their historical context was Western history) as a process of progressively evolving forms of society. The struggle between classes was the motor of social change, fueling revolutions and leading history from one epoch to the next. Just as primitive agrarian society had yielded centuries before to feudal society, and in Europe feudalism given way to industrial capitalism, so too would capitalism be overthrown. Analyzing 19th-century capitalistic society, Marx and Engels observed a class struggle raging between the bourgeoisie, or capitalists who controlled the means of production, and the proletariat, whom they described as the industrial workers of their time, whom they believed were rapidly falling into a proletarian condition; a condition of being property-less (that is, without capital of any kind) and thus rendered dependent upon the sale of their labor power for survival. In their view, the bourgeoisie appropriated wealth from the proletariat by paying low wages and keeping the profits from sales and technological innovation for themselves. Marx and Engels were confident that the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the increasingly large and impoverished proletariat was coming to a head in the foremost societies of the West. The inevitable outcome would be a revolution in which the proletariat, taking advantage of strikes, elections, and violence, would displace the bourgeoisie as the ruling class. A political revolution was essential, in Marx’s view, because the state, with its armed power of enforcement, is the central instrument of capitalist society.

According to the theory of Marx and Engels, labor is the source of all value: all machines and tools produced, all land cultivated, all productive work that contributes to the provision for society of the material requirements for life, originate from labor. Justice therefore requires that, for a time, labor must also become the destiny of value. This morality corresponds to socialism: the short-term objective of the proletariat. Ultimately, however, the most basic problem of capitalistic society is that under capitalism production occurs for exchange purposes rather than for use purposes. In other words, production under capitalism occurs for the purpose of accumulating capital rather than for the purpose of meeting human needs. Private appropriation of the means of production thus comes into conflict with their basically and ever increasingly social character. Marx formulated that the alternative, socially-concerned morality of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" corresponds to full-fledged communism: the long-term objective of the proletariat.

Being the first property-less class in history, the proletariat (created by the advent of industrial capitalism), in Marxist theory, is therefore the first class in history with a direct, material interest in the bringing of all property under common ownership (because the only way the proletariat as a class can acquire property is by bringing it under common ownership), and of thus abolishing all classes and all exploitation itself. In Marxist theory, the previous non-existence of the proletariat explains why all earlier experiments in collectivism failed and why there is now, for the first time in history, the real possibility of establishing civilized communism.

Marx and Engels were almost silent about the particulars of what would happen after the proletarian revolution. They made provision for a brief transitional period during which workers would form a socialist society with the means of production owned in common. In this period, the proletarian majority of the population would need to enact a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat in order to seize the property of the bourgeois minority and stifle attempts to sabotage the popular government. Unlike previous ruling classes, in keeping with its class interests described above, the proletariat would not seek to install a new system of domination and exploitation; its goal would instead be a system of cooperation in which the immense majority, the proletariat, ruled for the benefit of all. Eventually, society would evolve into full communism, characterized by mutual affluence, the abolition of classes, and an end to the dehumanizing division of labor found in earlier forms of society. In this radically new condition, Marx and Engels wrote, abundance and social harmony would make it possible “for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.” Labor performed out of economic necessity would give way to truly voluntary activity such that "the free development of each [becomes] the condition for the free development of all". It would come to be the case that all people would freely share all the world.

I'll wrap up this brief sketch of classical Marxism with an excerpt from an article by the International Communist Current (located here: http://en.internationalism.org/wr/271_poc_01.html) because they've done what, in my view, is a good job therein of summing up the aspects of the classical Marxist understanding of history that remain to be discussed:

"...Each level of development of the productive forces of a particular society corresponds to a given type of productive relationship. The relations of production are the relations established between men and women in their activity of producing goods destined to satisfy their needs. In primitive societies the productivity of labour was so low that it scarcely satisfied the barest physical needs of the members of the community. Exploitation and economic inequality were impossible in such a situation: if certain individuals had appropriated to themselves or consumed goods in greater quantities than other members of this society, then the poorer off [majority --my addition] would not have been able to survive at all. Exploitation, generally in the form of slavery established as the result of the territorial conquest of one tribe by another, could not appear until the average level of human production had gone beyond the basic minimum needed for physical survival. But between the satisfaction of this basic minimum and the full satisfaction, not only of the material but also the intellectual needs of humanity, there exists an entire range of development in the productivity of labour. By means of such development, mankind steadily became the master of nature. In historical terms, it was this period which separated the dissolution of primitive communist society from the era when fully developed communism would be possible. Just as mankind wasn’t naturally ‘good’ in those ages when men and women weren’t exploited under the conditions of primitive communism, so it hasn’t been naturally ‘bad’ in the epochs of exploitation which have followed. The exploitation of man by man and the existence of economic privilege became possible when average human production exceeded the physical minimum needed for human life to reproduce itself. Both became necessary because the level of human production could not fully satisfy all the needs of all the members of society.

As long as that was the case, communism was impossible, whatever objections the anarchists may raise to the contrary. But it is exactly this situation which capitalism has itself radically modified, owing to the enormous increase in the productivity of labour which it has brought into being. Capitalism methodically exploited every scientific discovery, generalised associated labour, and put to use the natural and human riches of the entire world. But obviously the increase in the productivity of labour set in motion by capitalism was paid for by an intensification of exploitation on a scale unknown in human history. However, such a profound increase in human productivity does represent the material basis for a communist society. By making itself the master of nature, capitalism created the conditions by which humanity may become master of itself."

Marx and Engels described the proletariat as "the working class" of capitalist society because they saw it becoming the principal class that did the toiling under capitalism, providing the wealth of society which the capitalist would essentially and mostly steal for himself. Society, they believed, was thus rapidly polarizing into two great hostile camps: again, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. They believed that more than 90% of the world's population would soon consist of proletarians and this fact, together with the vast wealth created by industrial production and appropriated privately, pretty much guaranteed world proletarian revolution. Their essential strategy is summed up well in the slogan they advanced in The Communist Manifesto: "Workers of the world, unite!" By "workers", they basically meant proletarians, whom they believed either were already in many countries and/or would soon become everywhere the overwhelming majority. Middle classes of non-proletarian workers were a minor and rapidly disappearing factor in this worldview.

Strongly recommended further reading:

I'll recommend studying the selected works of Marx and Engels highlighted by Progress Publishers at the Marxist Internet Archive:

Volume 1: 1845-1859

Volume 2: 1860-1872

Volume 3: 1875-1895

Three of Vladimir Lenin's works are also valuable in coming to understand the basics of classical Marxism:

Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism

Frederick Engels

The Three Sources and Three Component-Parts of Marxism