Category: Marx

The Manifesto of the Communist Party is often considered to be one of the world’s most influential political works. The preamble of the text emphasizes the importance for the Communists to publish and express their views in aims of giving a voice to the Proletariat. Marx states that the spectre of communism is haunting Europe, giving an immediate impression or foreshadowing of the message to come: communism will replace capitalism, abolishing all forms of class struggles and conflicts. But could it really be possible?

The first line in chapter one depicts quite clearly the dominating thought throughout the manifesto: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Essentially, the main argument in the manifesto is that changes in society are motivated by the collective struggle of groups who are seeking similar economic goals and interests. This however creates a problem of power since the economic interests of the dominant classes are favored over the interests of the subordinate classes. The struggles of the dominant classes have historically, as Marx explains, taken precedent over all other subordinate classes and thus, created a significant division. It is precisely this imbalance in struggle that Marx condemns since he believes that such a capitalist system will continue to dominate the workings of contemporary society in a destructive way.

Marx provides us with a historical view of the Bourgeoisie’s journey to power and control, explaining how they managed to overthrow the dominance of the feudal nobility. He states: “We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.” The bourgeoisie’s personal struggle against the feudal aristocracy soon disappeared through its exploitation of the world market, its improvement of instruments of production and its facilitated means of communication. The bourgeoisie revolutionized the means of production and eventually established itself globally as the dominant class in the industrial world. In fact, it is through constant struggle and perseverance that the bourgeoisie succeeded in overthrowing the power of the feudal aristocracy and now, to a certain extent controls society based on its own personal interests. Ironically, despite this seemingly happy ending, the struggles and difficulties of the bourgeoisie have now been passed down to the proletariat. It is essentially another manifestation of dominant classes overpowering the subordinate classes, only the bourgeoisie no longer occupies the subordinate position. Class struggle has not at all been eliminated but simply replaced with another class, precisely the proletariat. It appears that this is what Marx strongly opposed as it produces a vicious cycle of class struggle where equality can never be achieved.

As a result, the bourgeoisie’s hunger for accumulation has allowed them to take over the modern industrial world, adopting a capitalist way of life. “The accumulation of wealth in private hands, the formation and increase in capital” creates a problematic situation for members of the working class who must compete against one another for meager wages. Since ownership of production is privatized and controlled by the bourgeoisie, members of the proletariat are essentially slaves who are being exploited by the bourgeoisie for profit and forced to work for cheap wages. What is quite disturbing about this situation is that the bourgeoisie is putting the proletariat through the same torture they went through with the feudal society. Marx thus believes, using the same logic before, that the proletariat will eventually rise to power through a revolution quite similar to that of the bourgeoisie. Nonetheless, this will simply initiate another class struggle, highlighting Marx’s point that it is only through communism that class equality can be achieved. However, could such a utopian ideal truly be achieved? Is communism as described by Marx truly what other countries such as China or Russia has tried implementing? Although I am not stating that capitalism is purely beneficial or that Marxist communism should be dismissed, but it appears to me that communism, as envisioned by Marx, has yet to be implemented.

Adam Smith – considered the father of Economics – introduced the idea of the invisible hand. He showed that if every individual in an economy is doing the best for himself, efficiency will result and no better resource allocation will be possible. That is the foundation of economic liberalism. If one was to follow Marx’s idea and to put all production in the government’s hands – this economy now being fully centralised, the same result would happen. How come then communism is against this economic freedom?

Without directly stating so, Marx saw the failures of the free market. To lead to efficiency, free markets must happen under perfect conditions ; conditions often not met in real life. One of this condition is perfect competition. Under perfect competition, there is a very large amount of economic agents on both sides – supply and demand. However, in the economies depicted by Marx, the numerous workers are under the control of fewer employers. Therefore, these employers can use their market power to impose work conditions to labourers who have no option but to accept if they want to survive. This situation is not acceptable for Marx.

Smith also introduced the idea of division of labour. He argued that more of a good can be produced if its production is divided in a series of steps each performed by a different worker, than if the same workers were doing all the steps by themselves. By dividing the the production process, each worker becomes more specialised, therefore more efficient ; this way, more can be produced. To Marx, such production process reduces the worker to a tool used to increase the bourgoisie’s wealth, takes away his humanity, enslaved him.

Free markets also do not take into consideration issues that are fondamental to Marx. One of this is child labour. The economic system supported by the bourgeoisie destroys the family. Parents have no choice but to put their children at work to survive, hence depriving them of an education and condemning them to live in the same conditions for the rest of their life (system in fact reciprocating the feodal system). Also, free markets are not concerned with wealth distribution. Marx defends a world in which the bourgeoisie is not poorer, but in which proletariat has the tools to develop his wealth.

Finally, I find that the reality described by Marx would give very interesting voices in novels as defined by Bakhtin. For him, conflictual situations are the source of double-voicedness, a condition necessary for literary novels.

The socio-economic history of the world has been shaped by the existence of two main classes which have the role either of the oppressor or the oppressed.  With the Industrial Revolution and its consequential shift on the means of production the oppressor and oppressed received the names of bourgeoisie and proletariat. In this relationship the bourgeoisie owns the means of production and the proletariat works to produce capital that the bourgeoisie will keep and in turn will receive a wage that is no way proportional to the time and effort invested working nor with the capital that work has produced. This situation falls into the exploitation category and creates a condition of raging inequality within society.

The main idea of Marxist communism is to restore economic and social equality through the destruction of the bourgeoisie and the elimination of private property. This is supposed to occur when the “self-destructive” capitalist system comes to a point of inefficiency which allows for the proletariat to organize into unions and later into political parties that will start a revolution. Land and industries will then be expropriated and the power will be centralized in the hands of the State who will make sure to look after the wellbeing of its society in terms of equality. This is of course an over simplification of Communism that only serves as contextualization for this exercise’s purpose.

Communism and capitalism are of course much more than only economic systems, they are also ideologies that can be perpetuated through many different vehicles and that can be used as tools to theorize about artistic and cultural representations. In terms of literature I believe communist theory can be utilized to analyze content in terms of the ideologies denoted in a story or in terms of character development; is there an oppressor or an oppressed? What kinds of struggles are being fought socially? Is any character resisting or embracing the values representative of certain ideologies?

I believe some writers tend to bring upon themselves a social responsibility of giving a voice to the oppressed (probably because they consider themselves as part them). I can see how communism serves as the foundation for the creation of a kind of literature that has as a purpose to rebel against oppressive power structures, and as a consequence to help spread a certain ideology. Latin America has hundreds of examples because of its history of authoritarian governments.  Let us only think about all the literary creation that has come from the dictatorships in Chile or Nicaragua, for example.  Communism can also work in literature as a way of understanding the historical meaning of a certain novel or poem in relation to the discourses of power it presents.

As an ideology it is inevitable for communism not to permeate many aspects of representation within a society, literature is especially prone to reflect or criticize ideologies because of its “word spreading” nature.

In the nineteenth century–the epoch of the bourgeoisie, a newborn power–communism gradually expanded in Europe. 《Manifesto of the Communist Party》 was sketched to declare Communists’ views and missions, the Manifesto expounds the theory of historical class conflicts and struggles, the characters and aims of Proletariat, the principles of Communist Party and it criticizes spurious socialism and literature at that time and devises the struggle tactics of Communists.

In the history, every epoch had class struggles. The modern bourgeois society simplified class antagonisms and divided the society into two great hostile camps— Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

“The bourgeoisie set up an unconscionable freedom — Free Trade– for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions to substitute naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation in feudal society. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.” The bourgeois epoch is distinguished by constant disturbance of all social conditions and the ceaseless expanding market. To establish connections and its “civilization”, bourgeoisie compels all nations to adopt the bourgeois mode of production, to become bourgeois themselves. Bourgeoisie develops with a corresponding political advance of that class, and it has conquered the exclusive political sway. Political centralization was hence the consequence of concentration of the means of production and property in a few hands.

In addition to the periodical commercial crises– the objective law of the bourgeoisie—which is an irreversible result of too much means of subsistence and productive forces, the proletariat is also the product of the epoch. The proletarian has no property or national character, its number and strength grow very fast with the development of industry. To realize every person’s independence and individuality, it is destined to struggle with the bourgeoisie. This struggle between classes is also a political struggle. As the lowest stratum of society, the proletariat is in the interest of the immense majority. Their mission is to destroy individual property and to abolish the bourgeois property to become masters of the productive forces of society and to establish the sway of the proletariat. That’s the first step in the revolution. Theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. As a revolutionary class, the proletarian political party’s organization and development did not go without any difficulties.

“When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.” I doubt this argument, it’s a little idealistic, and I think the development and realization of communism will last long, there are distinguishing socialist systems conforming to different countries’ situations, it sounds a bit like “all men are equal”, not that easy to be attained.

“Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” This argument turns out to be incorrect, our society develops quite well under the bourgeoisie, and there is no indication of its fall or replacement by socialism and then communism.

Undeniably, as the symbol of the generation of Marxism, 《Manifesto of the Communist Party》 is one of the world’s most influential political manuscripts, it provides an important guiding ideology on the revolutionary road for many socialist states, like China, Viet Nam, the North Korea, Cuba and Mongolia, after socialist revolution and transformation, they have socialist market system, socialist democracy, socialist legal system and general line for socialist construction. Communists are atheists, they believe in science, not in God. I think this is a defect of communism, because religious beliefs are really important in our lives, faith impels us forward.

No matter socialist society or capitalist society, they all have their own mode of production and inherent laws of development. They can develop harmonious in this epoch, on the same globe.