Why a Communist Program Should be Militant

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I was looking on SE and found an essay by Valdart. It is long.

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This is an essay I wrote to describe why I think a militant program is still absolutely necessary in today's world. It's long, so if you like just skip to the conclusions at the end which summarize the essay.

Edit: Feel free to continue and debate the subject; just regard this essay as my take on the subject. Don’t forget, correct ideas are formed in the process of debate.

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PREFACE

In this work we will examine the faults associated with supposing that Capitalism is synonymous with a democratic process, that those with democratic process provide real progress and benefit for the population as a whole and that a Communist movement can coexist with a Bourgeois democratic process. The arguments to the contrary, often in the spirit of pacifism or bourgeois reformism, have persisted constantly over the years in favor of the idea that in order for a Communist movement to put an end to the negative symptoms of the Capitalist means of production, that it must be initiated into power by democratic means. This, in essence, supposes that the bourgeois electoral system will properly facilitate a Communist movement, if elected, with the means to ultimately bring the country in question on the path towards Socialism and finally, towards Communism.

This has been supposed many times over the course of history by everything from Semi-Socialist Social Democrats, reform minded Eurocommunists, Khrushchev apologists and many other bourgeois reformists since the days of the Second International and has been reiterated all the way up through today’s historical epoch of the Information Age were seemingly everyone residing in a Capitalist country blindly reiterates the objectivist theory of ‘human nature’. But it is not the purpose here to rebut the latter, but to deal with these innumerable reform minded individuals who claim to be supporters of the workers movement. Indeed, this has been dealt with at length by Lenin, thus this work may be regarded as a mere supplementation to previously established Marxist-Leninist theories in order to continue the criticism of those who claim a reform minded program of ‘Communism’ is compatible with the bourgeois electoral system into the modern day epoch.


It must be established here to remind self-proclaimed Communists of the fundamental theory of Marxism-Leninism is on this issue, that the state apparatus of elections, in its current form, serves the interests of the bourgeoisie and is an institution of the bourgeoisie that serves its interests and has over the course of time, maintained the dominance of the ruling class over the exploited classes. This is the duty of this work, to isolate and crystallize this fact that has been previously established by Marxists-Leninist theoreticians, but has been continuously cast aside in similar fashion by countless bourgeois reformists throughout the years. Facts and examples must be exhibited to establish this, including quotations, and the conclusion must be shown that this means that revolution is a necessity as the solution to solving the current irreconcilable class antagonisms perpetrated by the state.

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CHAPTER I: The Current Electoral Process as an Institution of the Bourgeois

We must start our inquiry by establishing it as fact that the current ‘Democratic election process’ is indeed an institution of the bourgeoisie that continues to perpetrate the current status quo, and continues the existence of the bourgeoisie as the ruling class. Let it also be noted that this is a criticism of the bourgeois ‘democratic system’ and not all democratic systems so as to recognize the possibility of a revolutionary proletarian democracy.

It should be well acquainted with the reader already the fact that throughout the early part of the history of the bourgeois republic, the right to take part in the electoral process was restricted to property owners, thus the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois were ensured that they alone hold a monopoly over the decisions of the Republican government. This further exhibits the fact that the state is in fact the means of property owners to secure their ownership of that property, as shown by Friedrich Engels in The Origin of the Family: Private Property and the State. But enough being said on that; we then see that over the course of the years, these laws have subsequently changed. The right to vote had first been extended to allow for universal male suffrage and many years later was extended to provide for women’s suffrage (another peculiarity of inequality, which was also not overlooked by Engels). This has, in effect, led a large majority of people to believe that this supposes that the conditions surrounding the electoral process have indeed truly changed and that it provides for the population the means of a truly representative state apparatus for all the various social strata. However, to believe this is to fall into the trap of bourgeois misconception, and is to overlook the underlying framework of the so-called “democratic process” and the resulting nature of the apparatus it truly presents to the masses.

Such underlying framework includes not just the technicalities of how the process works externally, but works internally as whether or not this internal functioning lives up to the appearance perpetrated by the external characteristic of universal franchise, or if the results are actually quite different. The electoral process relies on the ability of the elected representatives to represent the “will of the people”. But who in fact are these representatives? Do they come from various social strata, representing all classes, or do they merely come from the bourgeois minority? Facts show the latter is true. Edward Pessen examined the social-class backgrounds of United States presidents through Ronald Reagan and found that 40% come from the upper calls, 15% between upper and upper middle class, and 25% from the solid upper-middle-class. This leaves just 15% (6 presidents) for the middle and lower middle classes and only 1 (Andrew Johnson, who his contemporaries tried to impeach) to represent any segment of the lower class. Of course, these figures refer to “class” on the basis of income, but nevertheless it shows that the bourgeois does indeed dominate the federal government.

What, however, of the local governments, who are more prone to choosing a proper representative? This makes only a miniscule difference in the end, since State and local governments merely regulate what hasn’t already been legislated by the Federal Government. But with more than this we can indeed further demonstrate that, like most annals of bourgeois society, the electoral process is big business for the bourgeoisie. Politicians depend heavily on campaigning to get elected, and for this campaigning they require a large quantity of money to pay the expenses. To secure this requisite amount of money, they need the backing of private enterprises, which give the politician (or so-called “representative for the will of the people”) the money he or she needs for their campaigning. In return, once in office the private enterprise expects to gain two things from their investment: that legislation which favors business is passed and that no legislation will pass that hurts the business of the company in question. To ensure thoroughness, the bourgeoisie commissions innumerable lobbyists to further enforce these demands to the “representative” government in general.

In addition to this fact, which has resulted in a general two party monopoly of the Democrats and Republicans over the government, a new postulate has emerged from bourgeois ideology; that it is “wasting” one’s vote to cast a ballot for a party that has “no chance of winning”! This is effect, shows the complete dominance of bourgeois ideology and of the bourgeoisie in general, that it has reached the point were it is considered “wasting one’s vote” to not vote for one of the dominating corporate parties. The result has been the continuing monopoly of two bourgeois parties of the electoral process and makes it extremely difficult for significant gains to be achieved by a third party. This shows why indeed why the electoral process can be correctly described as, in its current form an institution of the bourgeois. Lenin expressed quite clearly the nature of such Democracy in the following excerpt:


“Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere in the “petty” – supposedly petty – details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles in the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc., -- we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and 9 out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune [referring to the Paris Commune of 1871] he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!” (V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Chapter 5, Section 2)

May the reader forgive us for citing such an overtly long passage, but the message exhibited here is readily apparent indeed. Let it not be forgotten the true nature of the representative organisms present in today’s democratic countries. This symptom, that of bourgeois parliamentarianism, creates a talking body of inaction among active representatives. Instead of being actively responsible for its laws and pronouncements by being required to bear the burden of carrying them into effect, parliamentary (and congressional) organizations remain disillusioned with the general public. The result of this talking body is one of inaction and grand pronouncements. We need go no further than to cite acts with high sounding names that lack real content such as the “Clean Skies Act” for the environment (after which pollutants worsened) and the “No Child Left Behind” Program (belittled by many actual educators as being a morass of excessive protocol and bureaucratic red tape). Lenin has stated this quite clearly and the above quote demonstrates the nature of members elected to this talking body most undoubtedly. They are merely a selected by the oppressed once every few years to decide which members of the oppressing class will represent and repress them in one of these parliamentary talking houses.

So despite the positive outward appearance of the Democratic Process in today’s capitalist countries, the internal mechanisms are far from achieving the kind of equality the bourgeois so profoundly impresses the electoral process as upon the population as a whole. In fact, this kind of electoral system is, as Lenin said, the perfect vehicle of control for the bourgeois to operate out of. They are indeed, deeply rooted into the current system. While we may again remind the reader that we are by no means opposed to all forms of democracy (i.e. proletarian democracy is entirely desirable for early phases of socialism), but democracy in its current form is firmly caught up in the yoke of capitalist control, that the bourgeois dominate the electoral system in such a way that it does not properly represent all classes of society, that it is indeed an institution of the bourgeoisie in its present form.

Now suppose that a third party does manage to crack the stranglehold of the powerful bourgeois Democratic and Republican parties on the democratic system. In the early nineties’ this was nearly achieved by Ross Perot. The catch is that Ross Perot was a billionaire, whose primary idea for the Federal Government was that it should be run “like a business”! Clearly if a third party was to gain ground it would be just like any other party, requiring for its support project funding to partake in campaigning and thus fall into the grasp of bourgeois influence. The yoke of capitalist influence would indeed act to assimilate any would be challengers in the electorate to the current dominate parties. A third party with the money or backing to make a real challenge to the Democrats and Republicans would likely be yet another bourgeois party.

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To continue the investigation, the bourgeois have also enacted numerous fail safes to ensure the sanctity of bourgeois control over the democratic process. The framers of the United States Constitution did indeed not see the masses fit to make a competent decision on choosing their own leaders. So, the Electoral Collage was set up, so that voters merely chose which electors will cast the final votes for their state. Electors are require in only 38 out of the 50 states to vote for a the popular choice of that state and since the popular vote winner in that state takes all the electoral votes, elections become skewed. More than once the popular vote winner did not coincide with the ultimate winner of the election. This is just merely the most visible and confirmed example of bourgeois fail safes, more than once there have been complaints about electronic voting machine miscounts (they are after all, supplied by large companies often in alliance with a large political party), intimidation, disenfranchisement etc., used to make the outcome “more favorable”. Passive acceptance for governmental activities is also put forth by “history education”, which inquiries have shown omit historical information on the affect of popular agitation on government decisions, thus showing the government as a genuinely benevolent institution that is self correcting. As Lenin said, the sum total of these restrictions do add up and with that we begin to see the true scope of how rooted the bourgeois are in the electoral system.

This shows, in fact, how blind it is to suppose that the bourgeois would allow their own institution, the electoral system, to supply a revolutionary party with means to overthrow the bourgeoisie themselves. One cannot simply expect the bourgeoisie to be so benign as to allow their own electoral system to eventually overthrow them. We can only wonder what the reformist Eurocommunists were thinking when they propose that real change can come from a system with the bourgeois so deeply rooted into it. To think this to deny the importance of modern Marxist-Leninist theory, to think that the ready made state machine will supply a revolutionary movement with the means to bring real change, is to repudiate the theory that the proletariat needs to smash the ready made state machine and replace it with a new one that serves the oppressed rather than the oppressors. To do as such is to disregard and forget the experience of the Paris Commune and the Russian and Chinese revolutions.

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CHAPTER II: Comparative Success and Failure of Communist Movements

We have exposed the true nature of the electoral process in democratic capitalist countries and by doing so, have examined some of the underlying facets to demonstrate in practice, how the results of communist movements have varied upon attempting to take power for the oppressed classes away from the oppressor class. In doing so, we help to shed light on why efforts attempting to utilize the aforementioned electoral process have typically ended in failure, cut off and deprived of their goal by reactionary forces and unable to muster the forces to suppress reaction themselves and safeguard the revolution from the well armed forces of the bourgeoisie.

Time and time again movements wishing to utilize the electoral process, hoping to win an election or carry out a reform movement ignore this and push aside the writings of Marxist-Leninist thinkers. When doing so they do one of two things; either they fall prey to the superior forces of reaction, or they renounce the struggle to overthrow the oppressors, they become forces of reaction themselves and hinder the movement of liberation for the oppressed masses. Both trends tend to fear revolution and deny the necessity to, as Lenin said, smash the ready made state machine that serves the oppressors as a means to exploit the oppressed and replace it with a new state, one responsible to the majority of the people and is used as a means to forestall forces of reaction and thereby safeguard the revolution against the forces of reaction.

Initiatives that have spared no effort to adhere to this philosophy of revolutionary action have typically met with at least temporary success, provided that other conditions are met in order to ensure success. These other conditions are many and deserve to be addressed in full. However, we shall only discuss these briefly, as further investigation on this subject has already been undertaken by previous Marxist-Leninist theoreticians and we recommend that take not of their writings. But concisely, conditions that must be met include disillusionment of the masses with bourgeois and opportunist factions, the failure of the current system, the winning of the proletariat/peasantry and reserve forces to the side of the revolutionaries as well as resolute guidance and sufficient competence for a professional revolutionary party, among others. The existence of these innumerable circumstances alone makes the situation complicated, and often the reformist and democratic communist movements fail to take into account any of these aspects. This further compounds the likelihood of failure met by the non-revolutionary communist movements.

Nevertheless, there is no shortage of movements that have not adhered to the Marxist-Leninist or even Maoist revolutionary theories and tactics and have continued to adhere to a reformist or democratic party line. More often then not they fail to draw any measure of popular support, exhausting their time and energy when committing to winning influence in the bourgeois state machine. Often they become more and more reformist, less revolutionary and increasingly opportunist in nature, absorbed into the yoke of bourgeois influence until they are dead to the oppressed masses as a party that serves their needs, the become superfluous, a mere dead-letter. When a movement does succeed in obtaining reforms, they merely placate the masses, make them less revolutionary in nature, often winning only political goals in the economic fields but failing to identify the state itself as a perpetration of class antagonisms. Furthermore these reforms often become more bureaucratic red tape in the form of restrictions within the bourgeois system. They fail ultimately to address the whole problem and in doing so, do a disservice to the movement.

We have already stated that when the democratic communist movement gains ground in the country in question, i.e. wins the presidential elections, they are crushed by the bourgeois elements, the forces of reaction they failed to sweep away by engaging in revolution. But to further demonstrate this there are examples in practice to demonstrate this to be readily apparent. Let’s take for example, Chile. Here Salvador Allende did indeed succeed in getting himself elected as president. However, reactionary forces never showed Allende any mercy in their opposition and never gave him a chance. The United States, the largest Capitalist opponent to Communist movements did indeed try to oppose Allende in the elections. Though Allende was still elected, the U.S. was undaunted by this temporary “failure”. The U.S. did everything possible to paralyze the Chilean economy; they denied Chile loans, subsidized opposition parties, fomented strikes and denied industry spare parts. To top it all off they financed and trained a military element under General Pinochet that staged a coup in which Allende was killed in 1973. This is quite an extensive operation indeed, one indicative of a country determined to enforce its policy with no concern for bloodshed. Indeed, the U.S. CIA had implicated, as CIA Director William Colby testified, “a secret high-level intelligence committee led by Kissinger himself had authorized CIA expenditures of over $8,000,000 during the period of 1970-73 to ‘destabilize’ the government of Pres. Allende”. So here we see that the capitalists have no shame in admitting their attempts to crush a socialist movement. For how did U.S. Secretary of State, Kissinger, explain himself for these actions? With no remorse whatsoever, saying quite bluntly “I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible.”

I ask the reformists and those who have so much faith in the bourgeois electoral process to ponder over these words. According to Kissinger the people were “irresponsible” for voting in Allende and he sees no reason why he should respect the decision of the electoral process. This means that the bourgeois will not hesitate if the outcomes of an election produce an unfavorable candidate to intervene in order to ensure capitalist hegemony, and these forces of reaction have plenty of elements within the country in question in which to operate in cohesion with. For when the electoral process is utilized for a socialist/communist movement, it fails to destroy the existing state machine, one which serves the bourgeoisie and as a result bourgeois elements remain intact and ready to suppress the socialist. This clearly evident in the case of Chile, as it was not the U.S. intervention in which directly overthrew Allende, but Pinochet and his men already in Chile. Marx and Lenin clearly recognized this, and the main reason they advocated a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, in alliance with other factions of society (peasantry, petty-bourgeoisie, students, intelligentsia, etc.), was to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie. It is not a choice between options to muse over, it is necessity that Communists use revolution to smash the bourgeois state machine and after the revolution to continue to guard against reaction. For these bourgeois elements are exceedingly powerful. They have money, well-equipped armies, and when threatened with overthrow, allies in the bourgeoisie of other nations (as occurred with NATO, the alliance against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War, etc.). This is so much so that one of the main causes for immediate success in the Russian and Chinese revolutions preoccupancy of the bourgeois forces, preventing them from partaking in devastating intervention.

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Revolution is necessary for a Communist movement precisely because of the fact that the current state machine is a shell for which the bourgeois operate out of; it is the means for the bourgeois minority to exploit the broad masses. This in effect means that the bourgeois are entrenched in this state that serves their needs, and that insofar that the current state exists it will continue to be a bourgeois apparatus, on which the proletariat cannot lay hold of and one that will continue the existence of the bourgeoisie. This is the irreconcilability of class antagonisms that the state perpetrates. So then it follows that the bourgeois will continue to be fostered out of the state elements; the electoral process, the exceedingly powerful executive branch, the parliamentary talking-houses, and the courts which safeguard the bourgeois constitution. Revolution must be created in order to sweep away these state mechanisms and replace it with ones that serve the proletariat and other oppressed masses rather than the bourgeois minority. This revolution can also not succeed if other aforementioned conditions are not met. And it is precisely these conditions and these goals that a revolution must address that the democratic and reform movements do not address and therefore leads to their failure.

Practice will again demonstrate the ability for this revolutionary theory to succeed. Whereas democratic and reformists movements end in failure (i.e. Chile) or disillusionment with the masses (i.e. the Eurocommunists), we have seen how revolutionary movements have succeeded in at least temporarily overthrowing the bourgeoisie in several countries, such as Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. It is true that many of these were later hijacked by reactionaries and opportunists, but it is not the purpose here to discuss these facets, the fact remains that these revolutions provided a proper beginning to developing socialism whereas democratic and reformist movements have not. The exact features of these revolutions are different, but they do present several common features, such as, 1) a strong revolutionary group or party leading the movement, 2) the formation of a broad coalition of oppressed masses, 3) disillusionment of the masses with the bourgeois, reactionaries and opportunists, 4) the occurrence of revolution in the place were the chain of imperialism is weakest due to the uneven development of capitalism. There are many other conditions, but these basics again stem back to we have already addressed, and these movements do indeed fit this basic blueprint.

These are not new theories; they are merely reiteration of Marxist-Leninist theories that have been either vulgarized or dismissed completely by the opportunists and reactionaries. Revolution is a complicated subject, one in which many contradictions must be considered in order for success to be ensured. But once the reformist and democratic movement repudiate the theory of revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois, they deplete their chances for success entirely from the point of the initiation of that program. It ignores the Marxist-Leninist theories and tactics entirely while renouncing the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. When a movement aims for revolution, conversely, they are taking a step in the proper direction. But only a step, for the revolutionary struggle is an arduous one, but only by taking this proper and necessary step will success become possible.

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CHAPTER III: Conclusions and Criticism on Reactionary Philosophy

There are many schools of thought that demand for the deviation from revolutionary struggle, and instead to focus exclusively on a reformist, democratic or non-violent struggle. These schools of thought often claim to be Communist, or of Marxist origin. But they are not, they are repudiations of the theories of Marx and Lenin, ones which gave them cause to write some of their own criticisms in their own time. In response to this, the reactionaries would typically proclaim that the presence of these writings, theories and arguments represents a “slip of the pen” by their writers, or they have become outdate and can no longer be considered applicable in the present day epoch. These are mere pious ploys to conceal the fact that these schools of thought are inherently reactionary and vulgarizations of Marxism-Leninism. In this chapter we shall address these “philosophies” and draw conclusions to this text, to leave the reader with no doubt about the content expressed.

1. The Movement must be Democratic to Produce a Democratic System

This supposition in italics utilized in support of the use of the democratic system to install socialism, and must be done in order to result in a system that in not “dictatorial” is both historically ignorant and reiteration of bourgeois slander. When this argument is used, in support of the utilization of the bourgeois electoral process, it is claiming that the current bourgeois system is truly democratic and that it will allow for a truly accurate popular representation. This is simply not true, as it ignores the restrictions on democracy and the extent to which the bourgeois control and operate out of this “democratic” system. But pretending that this is the case, what did this current democratic system grow out of; from which system was it produced? It was most surely not another democratic system; the current system was the successor of monarchy and feudalism. Often times the transformation from feudal to bourgeois society was marked by violent revolution. If it is claimed that the resulting system is democratic, then we clearly have a prime example of violent social overturns producing democracy. How then can it be claimed that future revolution will never create democracy? Exactly, it cannot be claimed.

This is also usually argued by people who often vulgarize the Marxist-Leninist theory on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. For those who argue in this matter the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is supposed as a virtual dictatorship of the party, or a minority over the majority and thus an alternate means must be found to produce a more democratic system. This is simply reiteration of bourgeois slander to discredit the revolutionary movement, nothing more. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is designed as the rule of a broad alliance of the masses subordinated to the vanguard party and the two are irrevocably linked to each other. What has been failed to realize by those who reiterate bourgeois slander is that Marxism-Leninism considers the current capitalist democracy a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, because, in reality it is the rule of a minority over the majority. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, conversely, is a proletarian democracy, and in its comparison with the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, it is the rule of the majority over the minority, i.e. the rule of the broad masses over the former exploiters.

The italicized postulate has often been posed by Eurocommunists in response to soviet policy in the attempt to remove revisionists, those who wanted to remove the responsibility of the party to the broad masses, from the party. Both sides in this case pose fundamental flaws in thinking, soviet policy treated the revisionists as external threat (i.e. foreign agents) rather an internal affair that was removing the responsibility of the vanguard to the broad masses, and in doing so treated the deviation as a police affair rather than a situation when the broad masses should have been rallied to keep the situation in check and insure the subordination of the party to the will of the masses. This is merely a case of being presented with an original scenario and not knowing the proper response, it is easily correctable by analyzing this example and realizing the value of the mobilization of the broad masses. This postulate is actually part of original Marxist-Leninist philosophy and has been rejuvenated by the Maoists in their theory on Cultural Revolution. The Eurocommunists take an entirely irrational stance to try and find a solution, they renounce the revolutionary struggle entirely and focus on the social democratic struggle, repudiating Lenin’s theories and vulgarizing Marxism in order to justify these actions.

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2. The Pacifist Demand for Disarmament

Pacifists have continued to argue against all war and all violent struggles. These demands constantly call for disarmament and oppose ideas such as an armed nation or a militia of revolutionary masses. These pacifists genuinely fear revolutionary war; they fear the possibility of a bloody outcome. But a Communist cannot support this view; we cannot be opposed to all war, especially not wars for the liberation of oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialist exploitation. Pacifists in the exploiting nations, cannot, as Lenin said, “tell the oppressed peoples that it is “impossible” for them to wage war against “our” nations!”

In order to carry out the liberation of the oppressed masses, there must be revolution. As already stated, the bourgeois cannot be entirely removed from power with the destruction of the bourgeois state machine. Furthermore, there is the class struggle, armament of the oppressed masses in order to fight against the oppressors. For this there must be revolutionary fighting, there must be war.

What, also, of defensive wars? Should not the masses be allowed to arm themselves in defence of invasion from reactionary forces? History proves quite clearly that the bourgeois will intervene against a communist movement; only in situations where the armed masses are ready to take up the struggle to resist the bourgeois forces can success be ensured. By all means we must be able to resist the reactionary forces by the use of arms, for by consigning arms to the scrap heap we consign the masses to the of the reactionary forces, and as the cases of Chile or Spain have shown these forces may very often impose Fascism and strict repression to keep things “in check.” It would be sheer failure on the part of the communists to allow this to happen, to leave the masses unarmed and immobilized in the face of such opposition. Lenin was quite clear on defensive wars:

“…the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeois of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases, a war on our part would be legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the bourgeoisie. Engels was perfectly right when, in his letter to Kautsky of September 12, 1882, he clearly stated that it was possible for already victorious socialism to wage “defensive wars”. What he had in mind was defence of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other countries” (V.I. Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution, Section 1)

We need to look no further than the examples of the Russian Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, the Vietnam War, the Chilean Coup, the Bay of Pigs, etc. to prove the correctness of this quote. It furthermore follows that capitalism creates wars, wars of reaction against the communist movements, wars for the further exploitation of the oppressed nations and wars against other capitalists for the division and re-division of the global markets. It is precisely because of this that capitalism been called horror without end. So how is the war for the liberation of oppressed peoples, for the destruction of the capitalists who create this horror, not justified in the long run? When faced with the facts presented, it is clearly seen that war can, at times, be a necessity. For how else can the oppressed peoples eliminate the oppression of the bourgeois? Again, Lenin was correct in saying:

“A bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat is one of the biggest fundamental and cardinal facts of modern capitalist society. And in face of this fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats are urged to “demand” “disarmament”! That is tantamount of complete abandonment of the class-struggle point of view, to renunciation of all thought of revolution. Our slogan must be: arming of the proletariat to defeat, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie. These are the only tactics possible for a revolutionary class, tactics that follow logically from, and are dictated by, the whole objective development of capitalist militarism. Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its world-historic mission, to consign all armaments to the scrap-heap. And the proletariat will undoubtedly do this, but only when this condition has been fulfilled, certainly not before.” (V.I. Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution, Section 2)

It then follows therefore, that at this moment; we cannot demand disarmament or take a pacifist stand. The program must be militant; it must be ready to fight against capitalist exploitation. It must be carried out unrelenting until capitalists have been disarmed and when they are no longer a threat to the revolutionary movement. Only then can we speak of disarmament, but, as Lenin said, not before this necessary condition has been fulfilled.

3. The Eurocommunist Repudiation of Revolution and the ‘Scientific-Technological Revolution’

We have dealt already with the fundamental failure of repudiating the revolutionary struggle, the basis for the faults that lie in adopting a reformist social democratic movement over a revolutionary one. However, we have not yet addressed the basis of what the Eurocommunists reason was for making a break with what they call ‘the soviet model of socialism’, but in reality was a total schism with the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism.

When speaking of their historical development, the Eurocommunists cite a “gradual exposure of repression in the Soviet Union”. They date their schism from the time of Khrushchev’s address at the 20th Congress of the CPSU “exposing Stalin’s criminal repression and deformations of Marxist theory” and culminate it in the events of Paris of a 1968 showing “discontent with post-war-neo-capitalism” and the events of the Prague Spring. But the Eurocommunists treat the issue as black and white, on one side they see nothing but repression and on the other they see a genuine “calling out for a democratic movement”. What they fail to take into account is the developments behind all of these events, and as a result the conclusions drawn very often reiterate the bourgeois line of “struggle between democratic good and repressive soviet evil”.

The mistakes of Stalin have already been addressed, mistakes that have been grossly over exaggerated both in severity of the mistakes and in the theoretical adjusting required to correct the mistake. The Eurocommunists have drawn entirely wrong conclusions in their attempts to find a solution, whereas it was merely a mistake of treating revisionism as a police task instead of one requiring activity on the part of the masses, the Eurocommunists use this as reason to denounce all revolution, something the situation wasn’t even immediately connected with (rather, it was connected with the contradictions inherent in the socialist system, something which all communists need to recognize and take into consideration).

They then in analyzing the events in Czechoslovakia fail to take into account the essence of this occurrence. When looking at the Khrushchev speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, what must be taken into account is that this is, in effect, a landmark event in the Soviet Union, one signifying a complete transition between eras. Whereas previously the Soviet Union had followed Marxist-Leninist theory and its struggles were for strengthening and safeguarding the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the Khrushchev era onwards marks a complete disbandment of Marxist-Leninist theory, one which Khrushchev completely renounced the class struggle and instead of guarding the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, he safeguarded the hegemony of the Soviet State over its spear of influence while ignoring the masses. This is the event that signified the incorrectness of the Soviet Union, this is the very thing that Stalin used police action to try and prevent. And it is precisely this event that should have signified the need of new methods (or actually, the revival of old ones) in order to combat bourgeois ideology, to prevent the restoration of capitalism. But the Eurocommunists fail to recognize any of this; they see problems from a bourgeois point of view and likewise draw bourgeois conclusions, analyzing the situation metaphysically rather than dialectically. With this analysis of the situation, it is hardly surprising that the Eurocommunists fell into the trap of bourgeois ideology, by taking their point of view they likewise drew their conclusions on the so-called “failure of the soviet model” and the “worthiness of the bourgeois electoral process”.

The second rationale the Eurocommunists take as reason to repudiate the revolutionary movement is the ‘scientific-technological revolution’, that is, the emergence of scientists, technicians, etc. that according to the Eurocommunists favor a democratic movement. Here are their words on the matter:

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“Today the objective conditions for a democratic advance towards Socialism are completely different from what they were in the first decades of this century. Eurocommunism duly reflects the conditions created in our society by the scientific-technological revolution, and the extraordinary growth of social forces which have an interest in ending capitalist exploitation. It is not only the working classes, exploited as they are by capitalism, that are interested in building Socialism; they are joined in this by broad strata of scientists and technicians, members of the professions and intellectuals-in a word, those sections of society which the Spanish Communists call the ‘forces of culture’. These people have come into conflict with capitalist domination, not only because more and more of them are, in fact, wage-earners, but because there is a contradiction between the mentality demanded by their scientific and cultural creativity, and the fact that they have to submit to decisions taken by capitalist, whose only law is the maximization of profits. This is a new factor with enormous potential for the democratic advance towards the Socialist transformation of society.

The case of the small and medium businessmen is similar. This stratum has undeniable ideological links with bourgeois society and is traditionally conservative and conformist in its attitude. And yet the members of this class often find themselves in deep conflict with the interests of monopoly-capital.” (M. Azcárte, What is Eurocommunism?)

The situation presented here does indeed need consideration. There has indeed been a rise in more skilled, professional working people. These people represent a large portion of the population in the more highly developed capitalist nations (but they remain small in less developed capitalist nations) and they most certainly have come into conflict with the ruling bourgeois. This much from the Eurocommunist supposition is correct, but this merely represents a correct identification of the new development at hand. Drawn form this development are entirely incorrect conclusions.

Insofar as this quoted passage acknowledges the emergence of the scientists as wage earners who have conflicted with the bourgeoisie, it is correct. It states that, “These people have come into conflict with capitalist domination, not only because more and more of them are, in fact, wage-earners, but because there is a contradiction between the mentality demanded by their scientific and cultural creativity, and the fact that they have to submit to decisions taken by capitalist, whose only law is the maximization of profits.” This is true, as wage earners these skilled workers sell their labour power, their ingenuity, creativity, ideas, etc. to the capitalists in return for a wage. Their achievements benefit their capitalist exploiters instead of society as a whole, and these workers do not directly profit from the accumulation of capital, but rather from the selling of their labour power in return for a wage, and insofar as this holds true, they are by definition proletarians. Albeit, they are the “upper crust of the proletariat”, as acknowledged by Lenin, but nevertheless they are proletarians, and with the rest of the proletariat they are a truly revolutionary class.

But then the Eurocommunists proceed to draw form this development the following, “This is a new factor with enormous potential for the democratic advance [my italics] towards the Socialist transformation of society.” What is this? Why, if the skilled workers are proletarians and thus part of a revolutionary class should the potential be limited to a “democratic advance”? Rather, this so-called ‘scientific-technological revolution’ merely was a creation of new proletarians (a broad array of scientists, technicians, etc.) that adds “enormous potential” for a revolutionary advance and their skills will be an enormous benefit in the process of post-revolution socialist construction.

Why did the Eurocommunists draw from this the conclusion of democratic advance rather than revolution? The answer comes when, in describing other potential revolutionary allies (small and medium businessmen) the Eurocommunists proclaim, “This stratum has undeniable ideological links with bourgeois society and is traditionally conservative and conformist in its attitude.” So the answer to the Eurocommunists conclusion is that this stratum of the population has “ideological links with bourgeois society.” This, in effect, means that these skilled workers are imbued with bourgeois ideology, and from this they take the necessity of a democratic advance as they believe that this is what the upper stratum of proletarian will be most accepting to. It is true that, currently, this upper-crust of the proletariat is inclined towards bourgeois ideology and thus more accepting of a democratic movement. Lenin recognized that the greater presence of bourgeois ideology makes the proletariat inclined towards adopting bourgeois view. However, he also said it was the duty of the Communist Party to change this, to combat bourgeois ideology with proletarian ideology through propaganda, agitation, etc. This is a cardinal principle for winning over the masses for the revolutionary struggle, but the Eurocommunists ignore it entirely. They do not combat bourgeois ideology, instead they acknowledge it, conform their program to it and in doing so openly embrace bourgeois ideology. With the presence of such inexcusable opportunism the vast prevalence of bourgeois ideology is hardly surprising. Bourgeois ideology must be combated, and it can clearly be done only by a communist movement that adopts the class struggle point of view, that openly supports and advances the revolutionary movement. And this ‘scientific-technological revolution’ is only an additional reason to advance the revolutionary program, as the added contradictions it incurs within the capitalist system of production is of vast potential value towards the revolutionaries that must be seized upon.

The Eurocommunists proceed to argue that their conclusions are the results of a Marxist analysis towards new circumstances. But as the conclusions they draw fall into the trap of studying the democratic system at face value, taking only its form and not its essence, it takes the bourgeois façade as truth. In doing so, their analysis can only be described as metaphysical, one that is detrimentally opposed to Marxist theory of dialectic materialism. Here again they show their tendency to embrace bourgeois ideology, and in taking an anti-Marxist stance and an even more anti-Marxist-Leninist stance by repudiating the proletarian revolution, Eurocommunism can, as Enver Hoxha said, be described as anti-communism. And with that it is hardly surprising that so many revisionists extol the Eurocommunists.

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4. Conclusions on the Need for a Militant Program

When analyzing the final text, the main points on the need for a militant communist program over a democratic on can be easily summed up. Form the essence of the electoral process and the democratic system as a whole we can draw the following conclusions:

1) That the electoral process is dominated by the bourgeoisie, that the electoral process has become so intertwined with the capitalists and the leading bourgeoisie that it can be described as a bourgeois institution. That this electoral process assimilates the political parties taking part into the yoke of capitalist control.

2) As the bourgeoisie controls the electoral process and use it to operate effectively behind the façade of universal suffrage, the democratic system becomes the perfect shell for the bourgeois to operate out of.

3) Since the current democracy is the shell in which capitalism most effectively operates out of, it is comprised of a bourgeois state machine that maintains the bourgeois in their position as the ruling class and serves the needs of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat cannot lay hold to such a ready made sate machine which serves such interests, and therefore must smash it, and replace it with one that serves the wide strata of oppressed masses over the minority of exploiters.

The comparisons on the differentiating success in the Communist Movements can be summed up in the following:

1) That the democratic movement fails to organize an alliance of the broad masses for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and in doing so fails to mobilize the majority for the deposing of the minority.

2) As the democratic movement attempts to latch hold of the ready made state machine, one that serves the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie operate out of, there is continual existence of internal bourgeois elements that exist relatively unscathed to challenge the communists even after taking power for the oppressed masses.

3) Conversely, the revolutionary movement organizes a broad alliance of the masses, sweeps away the bourgeois state machine to replace it with one serving the masses, and provides the organization, mobilization and armament required to resist incursions from foreign bourgeoisie. All of these are voids the democratic movement does not and cannot fill, thus the revolutionary movement must be chose over a democratic one.

The criticism on reactionary philosophy is a broad, non-cohesive subject, but the basic points can still be put forth:

1) Historical experience has shown that if one considers the bourgeois democracy to indeed be democracy that a democracy can arise out of a revolutionary or violent movement. It then follows that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat can and is indeed a proletarian democracy whereas the bourgeois democracy is considered to be a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie from Marxist-Leninist standpoint, with the nature of the two differing.

2) The bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat is a cardinal fact of capitalism, and arms are needed to fight against imperialism, perpetrate revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie, and to provide defence against counter-revolutionary bourgeois incursion. Only once the bourgeoisie is defeated and disarmed (and this will not be for long after revolutionary victory) can disarmament be talked about, but not before.

3) Eurocommunism in its attempts to undergo Marxist analysis fail to take into account the essence of historical events and thus fall into metaphysics, opposing dialectic materialism and true Marxism. By falling into metaphysics, they bourgeois analysis and take bourgeois conclusions, thus resulting in an embrace of bourgeois ideology. Eurocommunism’s conclusions on the democratic system and the emergence of skilled workers from a metaphysical point of view repudiate the class struggle, proletarian revolution and dialectic materialism, thus Eurocommunism is anti-Marxist-Leninist and anti-communist.

Thus there is an abundance of reasons why a militant communist program is a necessity. The extent of the need by far exceeds the content expressed here. Though communists should ultimately strive for peace in the end, a revolutionary movement is required to fulfill this task. If a militant program was just bloodshed and party work foment consciousness was discarded (after all, the spontaneity will yield no more than a trade union struggle, the communists must foment conscious action and produce revolution) as critics often suppose, then talk of a militant program would indeed be foolish. But this is not so, and to suppose this is to take only the façade of a revolutionary situation and to fail in grasping the essence. When looking at the essence of revolution, the essence of bourgeois democracy and the capitalist mode of production, the need for a militant program becomes readily apparent. To defeat the bourgeoisie and institute rule of the broad masses, there is no alternative to a militant program, both in taking revolutionary action and guarding against counter-revolutionary action. And with this we see quite clearly why all true communists must follow a militant program and that this program is something no party and no communist can afford to deviate from.