Prachanda's Own Party Accuses Him of Selling Out Completely

There are many people out there, including those who claim to be communists and "Maoists" today, who are fakes. Leading Lights have called out these fakes for years. Among those fakes is the leadership of the so-called Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) that is led by Prachanda (informally Pushpa Dahal) which, after a decade of fighting an authentic people's war and liberating some 70 to 80% of that country, in late 2006 reached a peace agreement with the reactionary parties wherein they agreed to shut down the popular governments of the liberated areas and dismantle the People's Liberation Army in exchange for the opportunity to gain representation in a new capitalist republic. Leading Lights were the first to call out this sell out as such. We have been leading the way in highlighting what real communism is and what it is not. Accordingly, I have decided to re-print a relevant article from My Republica that came out recently. Therein, Senior UCPN(M) Vice Chairman Kiran (informally Mohan Baidya) sharply criticizes the revisionist line of the party chairman. I will bold certain sections to highlight the sharpness of the criticism and also the fundamental deviations from basic Marxist principles that the UCPN(M) party leadership is indeed undertaking. The reader should note that re-printing this article does not imply absolute agreement with all its contents or with Kiran's political line. Kiran has certain shortcomings as well. In particular, Kiran's view of the principal enemy, which he names squarely as India, is limited and does not truly account for global class analysis. But they are not nearly so problematic as those of party leader Prachanda. This is, in other words, food for thought:

18 'deviations' of Chairman Dahal
	POST B BASNET KATHMANDU, June 11: In a clear manifestation of the widening intra-party rifts, the hard-line faction of the UCPN (Maoist) has accused Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal of serious ideological and moral “deviations” and launched a campaign against him inside the party. The hard-line faction, led by Senior Vice-chairman Mohan Baidya, has recently circulated a document among the party rank and file, which outlines 18 “deviations” of Dahal. The document, a copy of which has been obtained by Republica, is being circulated among the cadres of the party´s hard-line faction down to district level committees and also the party´s chapters in various countries. “On the political front, [Dahal] is seen moving toward rightist reformism and national capitulationism from his centrist oppertunitism,” states the second point of the document. The relations between Baidya and Dahal have soured after the latter defected to the line of peace and constitution last June, deferring the official line of revolt and state capture. The document, entitled “Problems of deviations in chairman comrade”, has charged Dahal with financial irregularities and misuse of resources. “On the issue of financial discipline, [Dahal] is seen tilted toward corruption. [Dahal] is seen having the tendency of doing anything -- both moral and immoral -- for the sake of power, money and prestige.[Dahal] has deliberately left the party without an accounting system and misused financial means and resources in an individualistic way,” states point no 18 of the document. [i.e. Prachanda is enriching himself at the expense of the masses, demonstrating capitalist mentality. -- Monkey Queen] On the front of party organization, the party hard-line faction has accused Dahal of “self-centric individualistic tendency”, intolerance toward those holding dissent and using his power to silence their voices. The document alleges that the chairman has developed a “fascist tendency” The party hard-line faction has also accused Dahal of extending relations with the Indian intelligence agencies. On the peace process, the hard-line faction has launched lacerating criticism against Dahal for bringing the PLA under the control of the Special Committee and accused him of disarming the PLA and emptying the cantonments in the name of “regrouping” without forging a national security policy, controlling the open border and setting up a border security force. The circular states Dahal deviated from the party´s ideological goals by not launching appropriate programs to counter the party´s “principal enemy” -- India -- and accused Dahal of extending relations with the sympathizers of “Indian expansionism and its comprador class”. The Baidya faction has also come down heavily on Dahal´s moves on the constitution drafting front as well. “Despite being said that we would go for a federal system with autonomy to ethnicities, [Dahal] has emphasized unitary and centralized system,” states the document. According to the document, Dahal has agreed to go for bicameral legislature succumbing to the “bourgeois theory of separation of power, and to minimize the participation of people in the judiciary under the pretext of judicial independence, instead of empowering the People´s Assembly. The document also criticizes Dahal for agreeing to make appointments of judges by a commission, not by the federal assembly as demanded by the party. The document also expresses dissatisfaction over the party´s move to go for “federal democratic republic” instead of the party´s line of “People´s Federal Democratic Republic.” [i.e. The party is accepting a bourgeois republic rather than fighting for a people's republic; for New Power. -- Monkey Queen] The Baidya faction has lately launched vitriolic polemics against Dahal and has been registering a series of notes of dissent against the party´s decision. The relations between the hard-line faction and the moderators have strained further after the party establishment decided to end security being provided by PLA personnel to the senior party leaders. Over two dozen PLA guards deployed for the security of the leaders from the hard-line faction have not yet submitted their weapons and returned to the cantonments, despite the party´s official decision to this effect. The faction is currently holding a series of meetings and working to strengthen its position in the party.
Published on 2011-06-11 00:00:01 Source: http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=32221

What is Maoism?

Earlier I sought to lay out some basics of Marxism and Leninism, and I have already, in many posts, begun introducing the reader to the fourth stage of the communist science, Leading Light Communism. But it occurs to me that I never completed my previously-announced task fully. I have not yet introduced the reader to the basics of classical Maoism. This post will be dedicated to that subject. I will break its distinctive aspects down.

THE TWO "ROOTS" OF MAOIST THEORY:

1. Continual Revolution. Maoists rejected the concept of the "negation of the negation", thus embracing the reality of endless contradictions. Even communist society features contradictions, just not antagonistic ones. Getting from here to a communist world means making revolution, both immediately and at every stage between here and there. It does not mean something else.

2. The Mass Line. This entails two principles that operate simultaneously in a back-and-forth relationship: leading the people in revolution and learning from the people. Communists bring to the oppressed and exploited masses of the world the scientific perspective of communism (authentic communism, that is) in order to give their progressive struggles against oppression and exploitation a radical direction. But it is also not simply a matter of bringing the masses 'our views' from without. It is also a matter of being among the masses in their struggles against oppression and exploitation, listening to their demands, and orienting our strategies to meet their needs. The important thing of the mass line is the understanding that the people are the principal revolutionary weapon in your arsenal. You must depend on the masses to make their revolution. You cannot make it for them or simply wield them as instruments. You instead must guide the masses in their struggles in an overall sense, while learning their needs and genuinely listening to their perspectives. You synthesize the resultant lessons in an ongoing way, thereby continually refining the communist science itself. This orientation, if applied correctly, yields continual advances in both communist theory and revolutionary practice. The purpose of communist revolution is to service the needs of the world's oppressed and exploited masses. (Leading Light Communists understand that this means the Third World masses, not the exploiter First World populations.)

These two principles are the most elementary to Maoism. All other aspects of Maoist theory are built on the above two foundations: the foundations of ongoing revolutionary struggle through mass mobilization for the purpose of meeting the needs of the oppressed and exploited. These two principles are concentrated in many other Maoist formulations, such as "people's war", "cultural revolution", etc.

THE MAOIST PATH TO COMMUNISM BROADLY:

Mao described the path to communism as the process of abolishing the 4 Alls: 1) all class distinctions, 2) all exploitative economic relations, 3) all oppressive social relations, and 4) all corresponding ideas. The Maoist principle of continual revolution holds that these are all actionable principles (as in not just the natural result of economic development), and the mass line concept contends that the masses must be mobilized to accomplish all these objectives for themselves.

THE THREE "BRANCHES" (i.e. SPECIFICS) OF MAOIST THEORY:

1. People's War and New Democratic Revolution. People's war is a revolutionary war led by a proletarian vanguard party that operates according to the principles of the mass line. Its objective is democratic revolution of a new sort; a revolution that establishes proletarian democracy, not capitalist democracy. Maoists have conceived of this as being concentrated in the objective of establishing a people's republic as the first objective in the struggle to get to a communist world. A people's republic is a coalition government consisting of parties corresponding to all the progressive sections of society (all the oppressed and exploited masses), led by the vanguard party of the proletariat: the most oppressed class in society. Accordingly, succeeding in people's war entails working in a nuanced way with a block of 4 progressive classes: 1) the proletariat, 2) the peasantry, 3) the various middle strata, and 4) the anti-imperialist Third World bourgeoisie. This block of classes unites around the common objective of achieving Third World development. The contradictions within this block of classes may be apparent, but they are also non-antagonistic ones that can be resolved in peaceful ways. Accordingly, the Maoist conception of the transition to socialism entails, for example, buying out the Third World anti-imperialist bourgeoisie and integrating them into the regular workforce rather than treating them in a hostile way, like by forcibly expropriating them and shipping them off to forced work camps. Traditionally, Maoists were in agreement that this path was appropriate at least for Third World nations, while some held that people's war was a universally applicable principle. Among the Chinese Maoists, Lin Biao went as far as to theorize that the world proletarian revolution should take the form of a single, worldwide people's war fought by the oppressed peoples of the Third World against the First World. Leading Light Communists embrace a strategy essentially similar to Lin Biao's. New democratic revolution opens the door to socialism by sweeping away imperialism and feudalism.

2. Collectivization of Life as the Path to Communism. Maoists do not embrace the Soviet model of socialist development, which centered on the state-ification of society and a developmental focus on heavy industry. Maoists instead embrace a balanced, all-around approach to economic development (i.e. simultaneous development of light and heavy industry, of city and countryside) achieved through the collectivization of life. Continual collectivization is understood as being compatible with the eventual abolition of the state altogether. It is the bridge between socialism and communism. The masses must come to run society for themselves directly, and this must be an actionable principle (not simply 'the natural result of economic development').

3. Cultural Revolution. The cultural life of society must be transformed through mass mobilization as well. This is particularly essential to prevent counterrevolution. A proletarian culture must flourish under socialism.

A New Vision of Communism

The Leading Lights are the leaders of a new communist movement. Leading Light Communism is a new understanding of communism, the science of human emancipation.

Like earlier communists, Leading Lights aim to establish a world without class distinctions, economic exploitation, social oppression, or corresponding backward ideas. They aim to establish a world without borders or states, without money or barter, without exclusive professions. A world without racism or sexism or gender oppression or heterosexism or any other form of discrimination. A world free of religious illusions and the patriarchal family unit. A world with a balanced population distribution; one without overcrowded urban sprawl or isolating rural countryside. A world in which all possessions are owned in common. A world in which things are produced by those with the ability to produce them and distributed according to need, rather than according to market laws of supply and demand. A world without antagonistic social tensions and thus without war. In short, like earlier communists, Leading Lights seek to establish not a "perfect" world, but a nonetheless much better kind of world characterized by equality. And Leading Lights, like earlier communists, recognize that the only path from here to there is that of a worldwide revolution led by the proletariat, the lowest and most oppressed class of today's world, against the capitalist system and its ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Communists (real ones anyway) are the political expression of the proletariat. In particular, Leading Lights borrow many ideas from such renowned historical communist leaders as Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Mao Zedong.

Unlike earlier communists though, Leading Lights grasp that class distinctions have largely polarized along geographic (often national) lines in the current era, the era of capitalist imperialism. In today's world, the proletariat and other oppressed and exploited classes are overwhelmingly concentrated in the exploited countries, the Third World. The exploiter countries, the First World, consist overwhelmingly of parasites who live in luxury by sucking the resources out of the Third World, thus creating poverty and reinforcing backwardness. This overarching state of affairs is the main source of conflict in today's world. It is the main expression that class struggle takes in today's world. In answer to this problem, Leading Lights, the new vanguard of the proletariat, seek to lead a worldwide popular war from the Third World to overthrow imperialism and feudalism, thus preparing the ground for a revolutionary transition into socialism (a transitional state of affairs wherein the bourgeoisie at least largely no longer exist and wherein society owns the main means of production and primarily distributes the fruits of production according to need) and finally into communism. In keeping with this understanding of the shape of the contemporary world and with this strategy for the forcible overthrow of all existing conditions, Leading Lights can also be distinguished from earlier communists in their vision of what a communist world looks like. Leading Lights understand that it is not possible to generalize First World living standards, precisely because of the means by which those living standards have been achieved. First World living standards are so extravagant that they aren't even ecologically sustainable! Instead, Leading Light Communism is genuine global equality. It is sustainability. It evens out the wealth of the First World with that of the Third World. It balances the needs of humanity with those of the natural environment. In these ways, it represents a new understanding and a new level of equality: one grounded in the reality that our shared world has real limits that need to be respected, not disregarded. Leading Light Communism is shared abundance, not the impossible pipe dream of shared extravagance. The outdated vision of "communism" that advocates shared extravagance is what Leading Lights call First Worldism (or First World chauvinism) because it rationalizes the privileges of the exploiting First World populations; privileges which objectively cannot be generalized and thus made universal standards. All First Worldists in effect support the class enemies of the proletariat on one level or another because they insist on the retention, if not the further extension, of what objectively are their privileges over others.

I am a Leading Light. Leading Lights Communism is the future. All other schools of "communism" are today outmoded. Our understanding of the present shape of the world and corresponding vision of communism matches reality. It is a major, and vital, breakthrough for our science. Are you on board with the future or are you stuck in the past?

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)

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

People's War of the Future

As has occasionally been pointed out (example), the shape of the globe is changing significantly in terms of what proportion is rural and what proportion is urban, and the shape of people's war will have to change at least somewhat in the future to match these changing world conditions. I'd like to provide some general views on what type of shape this might tend to and need to take.

People often believe that people's war is necessarily a protracted effort. Not necessarily. In essence, a people's war is any communist-led revolutionary war that applies the guiding principles of the mass line: go to the masses (especially at the point of (net) production), learn what their conditions and demands are, learn from the masses, serve the masses, rely on the masses, and, while doing all these things, guide the masses to revolution, socialism, and communism. Protracted war is the expression this has taken thus far because thus far authentic proletarian revolutions basically have taken place in countries that were mostly rural, consisting primarily of peasants. As populations become more concentrated and more fully proletarian with the natural protracted urbanization that comes with the ongoing consolidation of capitalism worldwide, the necessity of protracted revolutionary efforts likely tends to diminish.

We should remember, at the same time, that while the majority of the world now lives in urban areas, a majority of the third world does not. Thus protracted guerilla wars basing themselves mainly in peasant masses will have to continue to be the rule for some time yet. But there will increasingly also need to be a complex mixture of this type of revolutionary struggle with more urban and possibly faster-paced forms. How do these forms mix in any given case? It's difficult to say and will have to be determined on a case-by-case basis by the peoples of the given nation, I believe. The mixture, however, must involve a people's army, warfare, and the full application of the mass line.

In today's China, for example, we can see that nearly half the population is urban, while a fairly slim and diminishing majority is still rural. How does a new communist revolution proceed under such conditions? Does it begin in the countryside or is it strategically initiated in the cities, where theoretically some quicker victories might be won? How does it proceed from the one to the other? Or are both of these things done simultaneously? These are some of the new and emerging types of questions to which I'm referring.

If the current trends continue, eventually the world will actually eventually be polarized into the two great hostile camps to which Marx originally referred: the proletariat (concentrated in the third world here in the era of imperialism) and the bourgeoisie (concentrated in the first world here in the era of imperialism). World revolution in a world of that shape could be theoretically much quicker than the protracted approach we have gotten used to. But that's a distant outlook. At present, most of the world is not yet even objectively proletarian in the sense to which Marx referred. It has the possibility of proletarian revolution already, however, as evidenced by the historical record. In any event, we should pay attention to the way in which the shape of the world is changing and accordingly not be terribly dogmatic in terms of how we understand people's war.