THE ECLIPSE AND

RE-EMERGENCE OF THE
COMMUNIST MOVEMENT
'The workers' movement that existed in 1900,
or still in 1936, was neither crushed by fascist
repression nor bought of by transistors or
fidges: it destroyed itsel as a force of change
because it aimed at preserving the proletarian
condition, not superseding it. At best it got a
better lie for the toiling masses, at worst it
pushed them into world wars. It all belongs to
th t
"
e pas now ...
In this pamphlet:
pl ..... "Out of the Future"
by Gilles Dauve (1 997)
p7 ..... "Capitalism and Communism"
by Gilles Dauve (1 972)
p29 ... 'The Class Struggle and its Most Characteristic
Aspects in Recent Years: Re-Emergence of the
Communist Perspctive."
by Franrois Martin ( 1 972)
p47 ... "Leninism and the Ultra-Left"
by Gilles Dauve (1969)
prole.info
OUT OF THE FUTURE
by Gilles Dauve (1997)
The untaceable
One of the bst flms abut class confict is a 10 minute sharp and biting shot,
taken on June 10 19 outside the gates of the Wonder factor - a batter
maker - on the outskrts of Paris. Most of the workers were unskilled, low
paid, loked down on women, often handling dirty chemicals. They'd ben
on strike since May 13th and were just abut to go back in. What concessions
they'd snatched frm the bss were a lot in terms of btter work conditions,
and little compared to the energy put into te stggle. I the middle of the
arguing grup is a woman in her twentes, half shouting half cring, who
won't b talked into rturing:
"No, I'm not going back. I'll never set foot there again! Go and see
for yourself what a shithole it is ... what flth we work in ... "
In 19, a doumentary interiewed pople involved in that strike:
men and women workers, foremen, a totskyist tpist, shop stewards, union
actvist, the loca Communist Party leader who tried to convince the young
woma to resume work. She, however, is untraceable. Few remembr her
well. She left the factory son after the events and noby knows what
bcame o her, or even her full name, only the frt one: Joelyne.
We're left with one decisive question unanswered, the question
posed by Joelyne's reaction: in "noral" paceful life, habits and guidelines
weigh upn u, and it is prctcally inevitable to submit. But when millions
of stkers build up collective stngth, rnder the State helpless and media
words worhless, bring a whole count t the verge of overall chage, ad
riz they're given pay rises which will son b eaten up by infation, why
is it tat they step back into what they know amounts to dire or soft misery
for te next thiry years?
Some will reply that Joelyne and her workmates had not been
enightened, o had not met the tre ligt, se will assert workers sufered
from an absence o organistion, others that tey lacked spntaneity, while
wise guys will explain May 6 was bound to fail bcause capitalist evolution
had not yet crated the prerequisites o ...
Te following essys do not solve the problem - this is no maths
exercise or rddle where you have to fnd the rght clue - they merely ask this
frst and foremot queston.
In fact, one of the texts, The Class Strggle and Its Most
Charcteristc Aspct in Recent Yeas, was frst conceived not long after the
Wonder plant, like may oe, reted to wo. Lninism and the Ultra
Lf gos back to 199. Capitalism and Communism came out in 1972 at the
request of a numbr of workers who circulated it, at Renault for example.
2
Wall Strt v. Berlin Wall
All three essays aimed at reassering communism against an ideology named
"marxism" - offcial, academic, or leftst.
Why call ourselves communist?
The more a lexical item means, the mor likely it is to b put into
hard labour by the ruling order. Like "freedom", "autonomy", "human"
and a host of others, the word communism has ben twisted, ted upside
down, and is now currently a synonym of life under a bnevolentdictatoral
totalitaran State. Only a free, autonomous, human, communist awakening
will make tese words meaningul again.
Although common wisdom prolaims that rdical thought is
obsolete, the last 25 years ofer ample proof of its relevance.
What obsolescence?!
Class struggle? No need to read 20pages by Ma to realize that
those dispossessed of the means of prouction have fought (and usually ben
defeated by) those who control them.
Value defined by the averge soial time necessar to maufacture
goods? It's plain our civilization has an obsession with shorening tme!
Computeriztion, electronic highways and cell phones on ever steet comer
sped up circulation. Work, shopping ad leisur alike teat ever act of life
as though it has to b ted into an ever faster fow. Paul Virlio describs
how economy dos not prouce just objects but sped, ad indeed objects
only as far a they prouce sped. Though Virilio dos not claim to be a
marist, he points at a world that prides itself on reducing the tme needed to
achieve everything, i.e. a word rn by minimal time - by value.
Proft making as the drving force of this world? Anyone who has
lost his job in a fr he gave 20 years of his life to, can see tat a company
is accumulated value loking to cnstantly increase itself, ad crshing
whatever hinder it.
The decreasing numbrs of Wester factor workers, the coming
down of the Berlin Wall, and the witherng away of extme-left grups
mean the fnal downfall of communism to those who pryed blue collars
as the salt of the e, equated soialism with planned economy, and enjoyed
marching in the street under a Norh Vietnam fag.
The collapse of so-called soialist countries showed how economy
rles. Est and West have bth gone through accumulation crses. Trying to
regain profitability required a new system of proucton in Oeveland, a new
political regime in the Kemlin. State capitalism did not fail bcause people
got fed up with totalitaranism, but when it was no longer able to supprt
itself and give substance to its oppression.
Centrlized economic planning was just abut all rght for
developing capital gos industries; and bureaucrtc pwer rested on a
compromise with the pasant on the one hand, and te workers on the
other (job for life plus minimal social security, in exchange for political
submission: even prioic purges c"ntibuted to social promotion and thus
to workers' supprt for the bureaucrats). This may have ben OK for Russia
in 1930, but not in 1980, let alone for Est Germany o Czechoslovakia in
1980. Capitalism needs some forms of comptition between conficting poles
of accumulate value confronting each other, and therefore a cerain amount
of plitical ad economic comptition.
The brakng up of the USSR is not the definitive refutation of
Marx, but the verifcaton of D Kapital. The Politburo could fddle its
own inter maret but not evade world tade pressures. The same maket
foces that were laying of thousands in lverpol were busy smashing the
buraucratic dykes that bloked the stas o money and commoities in
Moscow. The spcte still haunts us, the Wall Steet Joural wrote in 191,
in reference to te 1848 Manifesto: "Marx's analysis can b applied to the
amazng disintegton of communist regmes built on the foundations of his
thought but uat to his prscrptons."
19 and all that
There had ben workers' uprisings bfore, opnly confronting both the
State ad the institutionaized labur movement, and many fa more violent,
after W I for exaple. But around 1970, the upheaVal had something
more global and deepr abut it. Cont to 1871, 1917-21 or 193637, in
industalized counties capital had pnetted the whole of life, tured more
and more everday acts and relationships into commoities, ad unifed
soiet under its dominion. Politics as opposed political progrms was on the
way out. In '6, French union ad labr pies were abe to stife a 4 or 5-
million 3-week stke, but could no longer put forard a patorm alteratve
t tat of the "burgeois" pares. Those who were to take part in the general
stke did not expct much mor from a pssible Lft goverment t a bit
more welfare. Mixed economy wa the order of the day, with an emphasis on
State interenton when the Lft wa in pwer, on market forces when votes
swung t the Rgt
Commoity rlatonships mediated the simplest huma needs. The
American dream is yours if you're rich enough to buy it. But even so, the
only atactve c is never the one you've just bught, but the next one on
the T commercial. Gos a always at their bst on psters. Just when a
Russian style workers' paradise was no longer valid, the consumer heaven
ap out of reach - by nature. So no futre could b found through the
facto, neither the nightmar the other side of the Iron Curtain, nor the
soft dreamlad this side of the screen. As a result, the workplace declined
as a place wher to star building a bter world. Although the Situationist
Intertonal's bok, Society of the Spctacle, had few reader at the time, its
publicaton in 197 was a forernner of crtques t come. Tre, that period
as meant uionizton for many downtroden po rly paid workers who
fnally got into te Xth centur, and only a minority of the working class
3
voiced a refusal of soiety, rbls wit a cu on the frnge of te labur
force, the young espcially. But the worldwide strike and rot wave remans
incomprehensible without its underlying characterstc: mas disafecton for
factor and offce life. "Who wants to work 1, Newsweek asked in the mid-
70s.
Still, nearly all sit-downs ocupied the workplace and went no
further. O all trnsgressing gestures (take over of gas and tanspor serices
by Polish strikers in 1971, Italian self-reduction, squatting, "soial" strkes
by bus drivers, hospital staf and suprmarket cashier providing tnspr,
health care and foo free of charge, electricity worer cutng of supplies to
bureaucrts or firms, and a thousand other instnces) hardly any tured into
a bginning of communization. The disrption of wor and the tspasing
of commoity did not merge into an attack on work-as-commoity, i.e. wage
labour as such. From prson to child education, everything came under f,
yet the assault remained mainly negative.
The lack of creative attempts to tr soiety gave the imptus
back to capitalism.
Historcal upheavals have no date of birth or death, but surely Fiat
was more than a symbol - a landmark. For years the Turin fr had ben
plagued by pranent stoppages of assembly lines, mass absenteeism and
meetings on the premises. However, organized disorder did not trnscend
negation into something psitive. Thus the management was able to break a
(fairy large) minority, with the passive help of a weary majorty fearng for
their jobs. Radicals had disrpted a soial logic, not shifted into a new one.
Violent (even ared) actions gradually disconnected frm te shop for.
In 1980, the company laid of 23,0 out of 14,0: the factor went on
strike for 35 days, at the end of whch 4,0Fiat worker tok to te stets
against the stike. Then the unions signed a compromise wherby the 23,0
got State compensation money, and later many mor thou wer sacked
through rationalization. On such tng pints was the soia surge of the
60s-70s reversed.
Working man's blues
Since then, the defeats of the working class have ben due to its defensive
position against a constantly mobile oppnent. However deeply entrnched
in mines or workshops, workers' militancy could not resist rstctng.
Lbur is strng as long as it's necessary to cpital. Oterise, it can delay
redundancy, sometimes for years with suppor from te rest of the workng
community, but it can't stay on for ever as an unproftable labur force. In
the 70s and 80s workers had numbr ad organization, but they lost bcause
the economy deprived them of their function, which is their soial weapn.
Nothing will force capital to hir labur that is not useful to it.
At the sme tme, thos autonomous "action committees", "b
4 groups", etc., which had ben the organs of rank-and-fle activity within
the workplace and outside, faded away. When fresh cordinatng bies
emerge, a in te ralway (1986) ad nures' (1988) strikes in France, they
did not suive teir functon, ad dissolved, (ver few transfued their
energy into newly fored, "rnk-and-filist" breakaway unions and were thus
integrted into capital).
For ye, asembly line worker had rejected bing treated like
robts, while a minority ted away from work and the consumer soiety.
Capit replied by installing real robts, suppressing millions of jobs and
revamping, intensifying, densifing what was left of unsklled labr. At the
se tme, a widespred desire for fredom was converted into freedom to
buy. In 190, who imagined that one day a 12 year old could get cah out of a
dispnser with her own plastic cad? Her money - her freedom ... The famous
slogans o 6: Never work! and Ask for te impssible! were moked when
pple were forced out of secure jobs and ofered ever more plentiful ad
frstting gos to buy.
May compare the sitation toay to t 20 and 30s - fascist threat
included. But unlike the insur ections and ared counter-revoluton that tok
place btween 1917 and W I, the present proletaran setback has ben a
prtracted ad grdual absorption of vast sections of the working class into
joblessness and casualizton. I there's hop, it's in the proles, Winston says
in 1984. It's as though a lot of the proles o the real 1984 had rsen a few
year bfore that date, taken the world into their hands and refused either to
accept or change it Dcades earlier, their grandfathers had loked temselves
bhind factor gates (Itly, 1920) often with guns; they had fought ad died,
but the prmises always ended up again with the boss. This time only a
handfu got their g (and even less with the advent of unemployment: one
dos not shot at a closing plat). So, more a failure than a defeat, actually.
Lke a player stepping aside from a fixed gae: he can't or won't smash the
place, a lets the fxers win.
lt gae's lost, there's no use denying it. Capitalism triumphs,
more fuid ad immateral than 25 years ago, universalizing everthng but in
a abstract, passive, screenwise, negative way. A 60s commercial pictured an
auto worer loking at a photo of a new car and wondering: "Who makes this
moel?" Forcibly par-time or fexible, the year 20car worer will watch
Crsh on T while his kid plays a video gae that uses chips which could
one day "downsize" his father or himself. Never bfore has humankind ben
so unife ad divided. Billions watch the same pictures and live ever more
ste lives. Go are at the same tme mass prouced and unavailable.
In 1930, million were out of work bcaue of a huge economic breakdown.
Now they'r on the dole at a tme o growth, bcause even a recoverng
economy c't make profts out of them as it did 30 years ago. In may
ways, we're out of the proftability crsis of the 70s, and most of the business
commuty is btter of tha bfore. The paradox is, labour productivity has
risn s much tat capital often dos not need to hire more labur to valorize
itlf.
5
6
High hop ...
The workers' movement that existed in 19, or still in 1936, wa neither
crshed by facist repression nor bught of by trsistors or fridges: it
destroyed itself as a force of chage bcause it aimed at presring the
proletarian condition, not suprseding it. At bst it got a btter life for the
toiling masses, at worst it pushed them into world war. It all blongs to
the past now, and the ppularty of flms abut worker' cultu is a sure
sign of its passing from reality into memories and museums. Stalinists t
social-democrt and soial-demorcy gos centr-left. Everby shifts to
the rght and son trotskyists will name themslves radical demots. Wat
once was a rvolutionar milieu is flled with helplessness and nostalgia. As
for us, we won't feel sorry for a time when Brezhnev was called a communist
and thousads of young people paraded the streets singing the Interationa
when they were in fact supprting groups trying to b the extme-left of the
left.
The purpose of the old labour movement was to take over the same
world and maage it in a new way: putting the idle to work, deVeloping
prouction, introucing worer' demoracy (in prnciple, at lest). Only a
tiny minority, "anarchist" as well a "marxist", held that a diferent soiety
meant the destrction of State, commoity and wage labour, although it
rarely defned this as a proess, rather as a programme to put into practice
ater the seizur of pwer, often after a fairly long transiton pro. Thes
revolutionaries failed to grasp communism as a soial movement whose
action would underine the foundations of class and State pwer, and
misundersto the subverive ptental of frter, opn, communistc
relationships that kept re-emerging in ever deep insur tion (Russia 1917-
19, Catalonia 1936-37 . . . ).
There is no need to create the capitalist preconditions of communism
any more. Capitalism is everwhere, yet much less visible tan 10 or 50
years ago when class distinctions ostensibly showed up. The maul worer
identifed the factor owner at one glance, knew or thOUght he kew his
enemy, and felt he'd b better of the day he and his mates got rid of the
bss. Toay classes still exist, but manifested through infnte degrees in
consumption, and no one expcts a btter world from public ownership of
industry. The "enemy" is an impalpable soial relationship, abstct yet ral,
all-prvading yet no monster byond our reach: bcause the proletarians
are the ones that prouce and rprouce the world, they c disrpt and
revolutionize it. The aim is immediate communizton, not fully completed
before a genertion or more, but to be started from the bginning. Capital
has invaded life, and determines how we feed our cat, how we visit o bur
frends, to such an extent that our objective c only b the soial fabrc,
invisible, all-encompassing, imprsonal. (Although capital is quite go at
hiring personnel to defend it, soial inertia is a greater conserative force t
media or plice.) A human community is at hand: its basis is present, a lot
more so t a centur ago. Passivity prevents its emergence. Ou most vital
need: oters, seems so close and so far at the same time. Mercantile ties are
bt stong ad fragile.
The 191 Ls Angeles rots went furher than those of Watts in
195. T succession of riots on estates shows a signifcant fraction of
youth c o b integrted. Here and there, in spite of mass unemployment,
workers won't b blackmailed into accepting lower wages as barer against
job craton. Koreans have prved the "World Company" spreads factor
retlessness at te same tme as profts, and "backward" Albnia gave birth
to a moem rsing. When a sizeable minorty fed up with virtua1 reality starts
making pssibilites real, revolution will rise again, terble and anonymous.
Tis is dedicated to Joelyne, the unknown worker.
CAPITALISM AND COMMUNISM
by Gilles Dauve (192)
Communism is not a progamme one puts into prctice or makes others
put into prctce, but a soial movement. Those who deVelop and defend
theoretcal communism do not have any advantages over others except a
cleer understading ad a more rigorous expression; like all others who
a not espcially concered by theo, they feel the prctical need for
communism. They have no prvilege whatsver; they do not cr the
kowledge that will set the revolution in motion; but, on the other hand.
they have no fe of bcoming "leader" by explaining their psitons. The
cm uist rvoluton, like every other rvoluton, is the puct of rel
needs and living conditions. The prblem is to shed light on a existng
historical movement.
Communism is not a ideal to b ralized: it already exists, not as a
soiety, but a a efor, a tak to prepae for. It is the movement which tres to
ablish the conditons of life detenined by wage-labur, and it will ablish
them by revoluton. The discussion of communism is not academic. It is not
a debte abut what will b doe tomorw. It is an integral part of a whole
seres of immediate ad distant tasks, among which discussion is only one
aspct, an attempt to achieve theoretical understanding. Inversely, the tasks
c b care out mor easily and effciently if one c answer the question:
wher a we going?
We will not refute the CPs, the various brnds of socialists, the
exteme-left, etc., whose programmes merely moerze and demoratize all
existng feturs o te present world. The pint isn't that these programmes
a not comunst, but that they ae capitlist.
Te explaatons in this text do not originate in a desire to explain.
They would not exist in this fon, and a numbr of pople would not have
7
gater t elate and pubish them, i te contdictions and the prctca
soial strggles which tear contemp soiety ap dd not show te new
soiety taking form in the womb of the old, forcing people to b conscious of
it.
Wage-Labour a a Social Relation
If one loks at moem soiety, it is obvious that in order t live, the grat
majority of pople are forced to sell their labour pwer. All the physical and
intellectual capacities existing in human beings, in their ver prsonalities,
which must b set in motion to prouce useful things, c ony b used if they
are sold in exchange for wages. Lbur pwer is a commoity like all other
goods. The existence of exchange and wage-labur seems noral, inevitable.
Yet the introuction of wage-labur required violence ad wa accompanied
by soial conficts. The separation of the worker frm the means of
production, which has bcome a fact of life, accepted a such, was actally
the result of a long evolution, and could only b accomplished by force.
In England, in the Netherands, in Frnce, from the 16th centur
on, economic and political violence exproprated crtsmen and pasants,
repressed indigence and vagrancy, imposed wage-labur on the por. In
the 20th centur, between 1930 ad 1950, Russia had to decre a labur
coe which included capita punishment in order to organiz the passage of
millions of peasants to industal wage-labour in a few decades. Seemingly
nora facts: that a individual ha nothing but his labur pwer, tat he must
sell it to an enterprise to b able to live, that everthing is a commoity, tat
social relatons revolve around exchange, are the result of a long and violent
proess.
By mens of its schol system and its ideologica ad plitcal
life, contemprar soiety hides the past and present violence on which tis
situation rests. It hides both its origin and the mechanism which enables it
to function. Everthing appars to b the result of a free contact in which
the individual, as a seller of labour power, encounters the factory, the shop,
or the offce. The existence of the commoity seems to b an obvious and
natural phenomenon. Yet it causes proic major and minor disaster:
gos a destroyed to maintain their prces, existing capcites a not used,
while elementar needs a not fulflled. The two pillars of moem soiety,
exchange and wage-labur, a Dot only the source o prioc ad constt
dissters, but have also crated the conditons which make aoter siety
pssible. Most importantly, they compl a large secton of the present world
to revolt against them, and to reize this pssibility: communism.
By defnition, all human activity is soial. Human life only exists in
groups, thugh numerous fors of associaton. The reproucton of living
conditions is a collective activity frm the star: bth the reproucton of the
human beings themselves and the rprouction of their me of existence.
Indeed, what charcterzes human soiety is the fact tat it pruces and
8
reprouces the material conditons of its existence. Some animals use
tols, but only ma maes his tols. Between the individual or group and
te fulflment of needs comes the mediation of proucton, of work, which
continually moifes the ways to act in ad tsfor the environment. Other
forms of life - bes, for example - make their own materal conditions, but, at
least as far as man c study them, their evoluton seems at a standstll. Work,
by contrast, is a continually changing appropriation and assimilation of man's
envirent. The rlation of men to "nature" is also a rlation among men
and depnds on their relations of prouction, just as the ideas they prouce,
the way they conceive the world, depnd on their production relations.
The toraton of activit accompanies the tnsoration of
the soial context in which it takes place, i.e., the rlatons among pople.
Proucton relaton into which pople enter are independent of their will:
each generaton confronts technical and soial conditons left by previous
genertons. But it c ater them, up to te limits alowed by the level of
the material prouctive forces. What pople call "history" dos not achieve
anything: histor is made by pople, but only to the extent that given
psibilites allow. This is not to say that ech impt change in prouctive
fores is automatcally ad immediately accompanied by a corresponding
change in proucton relations. If this were te, there would b no revolutions.
The new soiety b by the old c only appar and triumph through a
revoluton, by destroying the entre plitical and ideological strcture which
until then allowed the surival of obsolete prouction relations.
Wage-labur was once a for of development, but it no longer is;
fo a long tme it has ben nothing but a hindrance, even a threat to the ver
existence of manknd.
What mut b expsed, behind the material objects, the machines,
the factories, te laburers who work there every day, the things they prouce,
is the soial relation that regulates them, as well as its necessary and possible
evoluto.
Commonit ad the Destruction of Community
Manknd first lived in rlatvely autonomous and scattered grups, in families
(in the broadest sense: the family grouping all those of the same blo), in
tb. Pucton consisted essentially of hunting, fishing, and gathering.
Go were no pruced to b consumed after exchange, after bing
placed on a market. Pouction was directly soial, without the mediation of
exchange. The community distrbuted what it prouced according to simple
rles, ad everone directly got what it gave him. Ther was no individual
prouction, i.e., no separaton aong individuals who are re-united only
ater proucton by an intermediate link, exchange, namely by comparing
the various gos pruced individualy. Actvities wer decided (actually
impsed on t group by necessity) and achieved in common, and their
result were shaed in common.
Many a "prmitve" community could have accumulated suluses
9
and simply did not bther. As M. Salins pinted out, t age o sit
often meant abundance, with lot of idle time - though that "tme" has little
relevance to ours. Explorer and anthroplogists obsered that fo seach
and storing tok a rther small pron of the day. "Puctve" actvity wa
p of a global relationship to the grup and its environment.
Most of humankind, as we kow. moved from huntng-gathering
into agriculture and ended up developing surpluses, which communities
stared swapping.
This circulation could only b achieved by exchange. i.e . by tang
into account. not in the mind. but in relity. what is common to te various
goods which are to be trnsferred from one place to another. The prducts of
human activity have one thing in common: they are all the result of a certin
amount of energy. bth individual ad soial. This is the abstract charcter
of labur. which not only prouces a useful thing. but also consumes enery.
soial energy. The value of a prouct, indepndently of its use. is the quantty
of abstract labour it contains, i.e., the quatity of soial energy necessary to
reprouce it. Since this quantity c only b measured in tens of time, the
value of a prouct is the time soially necessar to prouce it, naely the
averge for a given soiety at a given moment in its histor.
Wth the growth of its activities and needs. the commuity prouces
not only gos, but also commoities, goods which have a use value as
well as an exchange value. Commerce frst appars btween communities,
then pnetrtes inside communities, giving rise to spcialized activities,
trades, socially divided labur. The ver nature of labur changes. Wth
the exchange relation. labour bcomes double labur, proucing both use
value and exchange value. Work is no longer integrted into the totality of
soial activity but bcomes a spcialized field, septed frm the rest of the
individual's life. What the individual makes for himself and for the grup is
separate from what he makes for the purse of exchange with goos frm
other communities. The second par of his activity means sacrfice, constrint,
waste of time. Soiety bcomes diversified, it separates into varous membrs
engaged in diferent trdes. and into workers and non-worker. At this stage
the community no longer exists.
The community needs the exchange relation to develop and to
satisfy its growing needs. But the exchange relation destoys the community.
It makes pople see each other. and themselves, only a suppliers of gos.
The use of the prouct I make for exchage no longer interests me; I am only
interested in the u of the prouct I will get in exchange. But for the ma
who sells it to me, this second u dos not matter. for he is only interested
in the use value of what I produced. What is use value for te one is only
exchange value for the other, and vice versa. The community disapp
on the day when its (forer) membrs bcame intersted in each other only
to the extent that tey had a materal interst in each other. Not that altism
10
was the drving force of the primitve community. or should b the drving
force of communism. But in one case the movement of interests drives
individuals together and makes lhem act in common, whereas in the other
it individualizes tem and forces them to fght against one another. With the
birth of exchage in the community, labur is no longer the realization of
neds by te collectivity, but the means to obtain frm others the satisfaction
of one's needs.
While it developd exchage, the community tried to restrain it. II
attempted to control or desty surpluses or to establish strict rles to control
the circulation of gos. But exchage trumphed in the end. Wherever it
did not, the soiet c to b active, and wa eventually crshed by the
invasion of merchant soiety.
As long as gos are not prouced separately, as long as there
is no division of labur, one cannot compare the respective values of two
gos, since they ae prouced and distributed in common. The moment of
exchage, during which the labur times of two proucts are measured ad
the pructs a then exchanged accodingly, dos not yet exist. The abstract
character of labur appars only when social relations require it. This ca
only happn when, with technical progress, it bcomes necessary for the
development of pouctve forces that men spcialize in tades and exchange
their proucts with each other ad also with other grups, who have bcome
States. With these two prerequisites value, averge labur time, bcomes the
instrument of measure. At the rot of this phenomenon are practical relations
among pople whose real needs are developing.
Value dos not appar bcause it is a convenient meaure. When
the soial rlatons of the prmitive community are rplaced by enlarged
and more diversified relatons, value appars as an indispnsable mediation
of human actvities. It is not surrising tat the average soially necessary
labur tme should b u as a measur since at this stage labur is the
essental element in the pruction of weat: it is the one element diferent
tk have in cmon: they all have the prory o consuming a cerain
quantty of huma labur pwer, regadless of the partcular way in which
this pwer is u. Corespnding to te abstct character of labur, value
reprsent its abtcton, it general ad soial character, apar from all
diferences in nt btween the objects the labur c prouce.
Commoditie
Eonomic ad sia pgs improves the efficiency of huma organiztion
and its cpacit t a iate the compnents of the labur press - first of
all labur pwer. Ten appars the difernce (and the oppsition) btween
workers ad non-workers, between those who organize work and those who
work. The frst towns and gt irgation projects are br out of this increase
o pructve efciency. Commerce app a a spcial actvit: now tr
a men who do not make a living by proucing, but by mediating btween
the varous actvities of the septe units of pruction. A large proprtion
of go is notng but commoites. To b used, to put into practce their 11
use value, their ability to fulfl a need, they must b bught, they must fufl
their exchange vaue. Otherise, although they exist as materal and concrete
objects, they do not exist frm the pint of view of soiety. One ha no rght
to use them. This fact proves that the commoity is not just a thing, but frst
and formost a soial relation rled by a defnite logic, the logic of exchange,
and not of the fulflment of needs. Use value is now just the suppr of value.
Puction bcomes a sphere distinct from consumption: work bcomes a
sphere distinct from non-work. Ownership is the legal frmework of the
separtion btween activites, btween men, btween units of proucton. The
slave is a commoity for his owner, who buys a man to make him wor.
The existence of a mediaton on the level of the ozton of
production (exchange) is accompaied by the existence of a mediaton
on the level of the organizaton of people: the State is indispnsble as a
force gathering the elements of soiety, in the interests of the ring class.
Unifcation is made necessar by the destction of the cohernce of the
primitve community. Soiety is forced to maintain its cohesion by cratng
an institution which is nourished by it.
Exchange bcomes visible and concrete with the birh of money.
The abstraction, value, is materialized in money, bcomes a commoity,
and shows its tendency to bcome indepndent, to detach itself frm what
it comes from and represents: use values, real goos. Compared to simple
exchange: x quantity of prouct A against y quantity of prouct B. money
prits a universalization, wher anything c b obtained for a quantty of
abstract labour-time crstallized in money. Money is labur-tme abstacted
frm labour and solidifed in a durable. measurble. transprble for.
Money is the visible. even tangible, manifestation of the common element
in all commoites - not two or several commoites. but all pssible
commoities. Money allows its owner to commad the wor of other, at any
time and anywhere in the world. Wth money it is pssible to escap from the
limits of time and space. A tendency towards a univers economy is at work
arund some great centes from ancient tmes to the Middle Ages. but it fals
to reach its aim. The retreats of the empirs, ad their destcton, illustte
this succession of falures. Only capitalism creates, from the 16th cent on,
but mainly in the 19 and 20th centuries, the necessar basis for a durble
universal economy.
Capital
Capital is a proucton relation which establishes a completely new and
extremely effcient bnd btween living labur and past labu (accumulated
by previous genertions). But as with the birh of exchange, the rise of cpital
is not the result of a decision or a pla, but a consequence of real soial
relations which lead to a qualitatvely new development in certain Wester
Europan countes after the Middle Ages.
12
Merchants had accumulated large sums of money, in various fors,
and prected systems o banking and credit. It was possible to use these
sums: the frst machines (textile) were invented, and thousnds of por pople
(former pts or craftsmen) had lost their instruments of prouction
and were force to accept the new prouction relation: wage-labur. The
prerequisite was accumulated, stored-up labur in the fonn of machines (and
later. factores). This past labur wa t b set in motion by the living labu of
those who had not ben able to realize such a accumulation of raw materials
and mens of pructon. Until then, exchage was neither the motive nor the
regulator of proucton. Commerce alone, simple commodity prouction (as
oppsed to capitalist commoity pructon) could not provide the stability,
the durbility required by te soiaiztion and unificton of the world. This
wa accomplished by capitalist commoity prouction, and the means with
which it accomplished this consisted of the prouction which it took over.
The slave did not sell his labur pwer: his owner bught the slave
himself, and put him to wor. In cpitism, living labur is bught by the
mens of proucton which it sets into moton. The role of the capitalist is not
negligible, but quite secondar: "the capitalist a such is only a function of
capital." the leader of soial prouction. What is imprtat is the development
of pst labur by living labur. To invest, to accumulate - these are the monos
of cpitl (the prority given to hevy industry in all the socalled soialist
countes is nothing other than the sign of the development of capitalism).
But the aim of capit is not to accumulate use values. Capital only multiplies
factoies. railways, etc., to accumulate value. Capitl is frt of all a sum of
value, of abstract labur crystallized in the form of money, fnance capital.
shares. bnds. etc., which tes to increase. A sum x of value must give x +
prft at te end of the cycle. To valorz itself, value buys labur power.
This commoity is quite spcial, a its consumption furishes work,
hene new value; wherea meas of prouction yield no more tha their own
value. Therefore the use of labur power fishes a supplementary value.
The orgn of burgeois wealt is to b found in this surplus value, in this
difernce btween the vaue created by the wage-laburer in his work, ad
the value neess for the reprouction of his labur-pwer. Wages only
cover the expnses of that reproducton (the means of subsistence o the
worker and his faily).
It is easy to see from this anaysis that the essential fact is not the
appropraton o surlus-value by the capitalist as an individual. Communism
has nothing to do with the idea that workers have to partially or totally rcover
the surplus value for themselves. for a simpk ad obvious reason: some of
the rss must b u for the renewal of equipment. for new proucton,
etc. The pint is not that a handul of pople take a disproprionately large
shae of the surlus-value. I these pople were eliminated. while the rest of
the system rmained the sme, par of the surlus-value would b given to the
woers ad te rest would b invested in collectve and soial equipment,
welfae. etc.: this is in fact the progmme o t lef. including the offcial 13
Cs. Actually the logc of the system of value would always result in the
development of proucton for a maximal valorztion. As long a te bs of
soiety is a mechanism mingling two prosses, a proess of r wor, and
a press of valoriztion, value dominates soiety. The change brught abut
by cpital is to have conquered pructon, and thus to have soiaized the
world since the 19 centur, wit industrial plats, means of transprtton,
storge, and quick tansmission of inforation. But in the capitalist cycle
the fulflment of needs is only a by-prouct, and not the drving force of the
mechanism. Valorization is the aim: fulflment of needs is at bst a means,
since what has ben prouced must b sold.
The enterrise is the loation and the centr of capitalist proucton;
each industrial or agrcultural enterrse works as a rallying pint for a sum
of value loking for a increae. The enterprse must make profts. Here again
the law of proft has nothing to do with the action of a few "big" capitalists,
and communism dos not mean gettng rid of fat ci gar smokers wearng
top hats at horse shows. Wat matters is not the individual profts made by
capitalists, but the constint, the orientaton imposed upn proucton and
soiety by this system which dictates how to work and what to consume. The
whole demagogy about the rich and the por confuses the issue. Communism
dos not mean taking money from the rich, nor revolutionaries distrbuting it
to the pr.
Comptition
Comptition takes place among the varous enterprises: each fghts against
the others on the market, each fghts to corer the market We have shown
how the various aspcts of huma activity got separted. Te exchage
relation increaes the division of soiety into tades, which in tum helps
the development of the commoity system. However, as c stll b seen
nowadays, even in advaced countes, in the countside for instance, there
is no real comptiton among activites which are separate but stably divided
among the baker, the shomaker, e. Capitalism is not only a division of
society into various trades, but abve all a permanent struggle btween the
various components of industry. Ech sum of value exists only against the
others. What ideology calls selfshness and the struggle of all against all, is
the indispensable complement of a world where one has t fght to b able
to sell. Thus economic violence, and aned violence as its consequence, ae
integral pars of the capitlist system.
Comptition had psitive efects in the pst: it brke the limits
of feudal rgulations ad corrative constrnts, ad allowed capital to
invade the world. It has now bcome a source of waste, leading bth to the
development of useless or destrctive prouction the valorzton of whch
is quicker, or to hinder imprant prouction, if supply ad demand confict
with each other.
Comptition is the separation of pructive systems into
1 4 autonomous cents which a rval ples (punkte), ech seeking to incr
its rspctve sum of value. Neithe - " organization" nor "planning" nor any
sor of contl ca bring this to an end: Stte pwer and "pople's power" are
equally i ncpable of solving this problem. The motive force of comptition is
not the freedo of individuals, nor even of the cpitalists, but the freedom of
cpital. It c ony live by devourng itself. The fonn destoys its content to
suive a a fon. It destroys its material compnents (living labur ad past
labur) to surive a a sum of vaue valorizing itself.
Ech of the varous compting capitals has a particular profit rte.
But cpits move frm one brach to another, loking for the highest pssible
rate of proft They move to the most proftable brnch and neglect the others.
Wen this brch is saturated with capital, its prfitability decrases and
capitals move to another brach (this dynaic is modifed, but not ablished,
by the establishment of monopolies). This constant proess results in the
stabilisation of the proft rte around a average rate, in a given society at
a defnite moment. Ech capit tends to b rewarded, not according to the
profit rate it realizes i n its own enterprise, but according to the average social
rte, in proprton to the sum of value invested in the enterrse. So each
capital dos not exploit its own workers, but the whole capit exploits the
whole working cas. In the movement of capitals, capital acts and reveals
itself as a soial pwer, dominating a soiety, and thus acquires coherence in
spite of the comptiton which oppses it to itself. It gets ufe ad bcomes
a soial force. It is a rlatively homogeneous totality in its conficts with the
proletariat or with other capitalist (national) units. It organzes the relations
and needs of the whole soiety according to its interests. This mechanism
exists in ever count: capital constitutes the State and the nation against
oter natonal cpitals, but also against the prletariat. The oppsition of
cpitalist sttes t war into the ultmate means of rsolving problems of
comptton aong natona capitals.
Nothing changes so long as there are producton units trying
to incre their respctve amounts of value. What happns if the State
("democrtc," "workers' ," "proletan," etc.) takes all enterprses under its
contol, while keeping them as enterrises? Ether State enterrises obey the
law of proft and value, and nothing changes. Or they do not obey it without
destroying it, and then everything goes wrong.
Inside the enterrse, organization is rational: capital imposes its
despsm on the workers. Outside, on the market, where each enterrise
meets the others, order exists only a the pnanent and proical suppression
of disorder, accompied by crses and destcton. Only communism can
desty this oanized anarchy, by suppressing the enterrse as a separate
entt.
Crisis
On the one band cpit has soialized the world. All prouction tends to b
te rsult o t actvit o al mannd. On te oter hand, the word remans 1
5
divided into compting enterrises, which t to prouce what is poftble,
and prouce to sell as much as pssible. Ech enterprise tries to valorize its
capital in the bst pssible conditions. Ech tends to prouce more tha the
market can absor, intends to sell all of it, and hops that only it comptitors
will sufer frm overpruction.
What rsults is the development of actvities devoted to te
promotion of sales. Unprouctive workers, manual or intellectual, who
cirulate value, increase in rlaton to manual or intellectua worker who
produce value. The circulation in queston is not the physical movement of
gos. The transporaton industry prouces real value, since the simple fact
of moving gos from one place to another adds value to them, corspnds
to a real change of their usc value: the result is that gos are available in
a diferent place frm the one where they were manuacturd. which of
course increases their utility. Cirulation rfer to value. not t physical
displacement. A thing dos not actually move, for instance. if its owner
changes While it remans in the same warhousc. By this oprtion. it h
ben bught and sold. but its use value has not ben chaged. incrased. It i s
diferent in the case of transpr.
The problems caused by buyi ng and selling. by the realization of the
value of the prouct on the market. create a complex mechanism. including
credit. banking. insurnce ad adverisement. Capital bcomes a sor of
parasite absorbing a huge ad growing part of soiety's total rsources i n
the costs of the management of value. Bokkeeping. which is a necessar
function in any develop soial organization, has now bcome a rinous
and bureaucratic machine overwhelming soiety and real needs instead of
helping to fulfl them. At the same time capital grws mor concentted
and centrlized: monoplies lessen overproucton prblems while furer
aggravating them. Capita c only get out of this situaton thrugh prioic
crses, which temporly solve the problem by re-adjustng supply to demad
(only solvent demand. since capitaism only kows one way of cirulatng
proucts: buying and seIling; it dos not c if real demad (ne) is not
fulflled; in fact, capital genertes underpruction in relaton to the real
needs it dos not flfl).
Capitalist crises are more than crises of commoities. They ae crses
which link proucton to value in such a way that prouction is govered by
value. One can understand this by comparing them with some pr-capitlist
crsis, bfore the 19 century. A decrease of agricultural pructon resulted
frm bad harests. The pasants bught fewer industial gos such as
clothes. and indust, which was still ver weak. was in touble. These crses
were baed on a naturl (climactic) phenomenon. But merhats spculated
on com and kept it in storage to drve its prce up. Evently tere were
famines here and there. The ver existence o commoities ad money is the
condition for crises: there is a separation (materialized in time) btween the
two operations of buying and selling. Frm the stadpoint of the merchat
16
and of the money trying to increase its volume, buying and selling com are
two distnct maters: the prio of tinle between them is deterined only by
the amount and rte of the expcted proft. People died during the prio that
separates proucton ad consumption. But in this case the mercantile system
only ated as an aggavating factor in a crsis caused by natural conditions. In
such cases, the soial context is pre-capitlist. or that of a weak capitalism, as
in countres like present-day China ad Russia where bad haests still have
a strong infuence on te eonomy.
The ctist crsis, on the other had, is the prouct of te forced
union of value and production. Take a ca maker. Compttion forces him to
raise prouctivity and get a maximum value output through a minimal input.
A crisis ases when accumulaton dos not go with a suffcient decrease in
the cots of proucton. Thousands of cars may come of the assembly lines
ever dy, and even fnd buyer, but manufactuing and selling them dos not
valorize this capit enough compd to others. So the company streamlines
proucton, invests more, makes up prt loss with the numbr of cars sold,
rr t credit, mergers, goverment interenton, etc., eventually prouces
a i demand was t expand for ever, and loses more and more. Crises lie
neither in the exhauston of makets, nor in overgenerous pay rises, but in
falling profts (to which workers' militancy contibute): as a sum of value,
capital fnds it increasingly hard to valorize itself at the averge rate.
Crises do not only show how the link btween use value and
exchange valu, btween the utility and the exchangeability of a prouct,
bursts into pieces. They do not only prove that the logic of this world is the
need of enterprises to increase the aount of value, ad not the fulflment
of pople's ne - nor the enrichment of capitalist, a the vulgar critics
of capitalism say. The imprant thing is the diference wit pre-capitlist
crses. These orginated frm an unavoidable necessity (a bad haest, for
instnce) which mercantile relations only aggravated. Moem crises show
tht they have no unavoidable ratonal basis. Their cause is no longer naturl;
it is soia. All te elements of industral actvit are prsent: rw materals,
machine, worker, but they are not used - or only partally u. They ae
not just things, materal ojects, but a soial rlationship. Actually they only
exist in this soiety i value unites them. This phenomenon is not "industrial";
it dos not come frm the technical requirements of producton. It is a soial
relaton, thrugh which the whole prouctive complex, and in fact the entire
soia strcture (in so far as production h conquered soiety) are ruled
by mercantile logc. Communism's only goal is to destroy this commodity
relaton, and thus to reorganize and transfor the entire soiety (see below).
The network of enterrses - as centres ad instments of value
- bcomes a pwer abve soiety. People's needs of all kinds (loging, fod,
"cult") only exist ater bing subjected to ths system, ad even shaped
by it Pructo is not deterined by needs, but needs a deterined by
pruction - for valorizaton. Offices a built more radily tha needed
logings. And many houses as well as thousands of fats remain empty for 1 7
10 months out of 12 because the owners or tenants who bought the dwelling
or paid the rent a the only ones who c ocupy them. Agculture i s
largely neglected by capital, on a worldwide scale, and only developd
where it allows valorization, while hundreds of mill ions of pople stare.
The automobile industr is a branch developd byond pople's neds i n
advanccd countries, bcause its proftability keeps it growing in spite of all
its incoherencc. Porly developd countries can only build factories which
will yield an averge rte of prfit. The tendency to over-prouction rquires
a prmanent war economy in neay al advanced countries; these destctve
forces are made oprtive when necessar, as was a stll another means of
countercting the tendency to crsis.
Wage-labur itself has ben an absurdity for several decades.
It forces one part of the workers to engage in exhausting factor work;
another part, which is ver numerous in countres like the US, works in the
unprouctive sector; the function of this sector is to make sales eaier, and to
absorb workers rejected by mechanisaton ad automaton, thus providing a
mass of consumers, and bing another aspct of "crisis maagement". Capit
takes pssession of all the sciences and techniques: in the prouctve feld, it
orients research toward the study of what will bring a maximum profi t; in the
unproductive feld, it develops management and marketing. Thus mankind
tends to be divided into thre groups:
-pructive workers, often physically destoyed by their work;
-unproductive workers, the vast majority of whom are only a source of
waste;
-and the mass of non-wage earers, some of them in the develop countes,
but most of them in p r countries: capital cannot integrate them in any way,
and hundreds of thousands of them a proically destoyed in wa dircty
or indirectly caused by the capitali st-imperalist organizton of the world
economy.
The development of some backward countres, like Bril, is quite r, but
can only b achieved thugh the partia or total destructon of forer ways of
life. The introuction of the commoity economy deprves po r pts of
their means of subsistence and drives them to the miser of the overcrowded
towns. Only a minority of the populaton is "lucky" enough to b able to work
in factores and offces; the rst is under-employed or unemployed.
Prletariat and Revolution
Capital creates a network of enterprises which exist only for and though
proft and are protected by States which are no more than anti-communist
organizations, and simultaneously creates the mass of individuals who a
forced to rise against capital itself. This mass is not homogeneous, but it will
18
forge its unity in the communist revol ution, although its compnents will not
play the same role.
A rvoluton is the n > ul l . If real needs; it orginates in material
living conditons which have bcl: ne unbble. This also applies to the
prletariat, which is brought into existence by capital. A lage par of the
world's ppulaton must sell its labur pwer in order to live, since it has no
means of pructon. Some sell their labur and ae prouctive. Others sell
it and a unprouctve. Still other cannot sell it: capital only buys living
labur i it c hop to valorze itself at a rasonable rte (the averge rte of
prft); tey a excluded from proucton.
I one ident tes proletan with factor worker (or even worse: wi th
manual laburr), or with the p r, then one cannot see what is subversive
in t proletan conditon. The proletat is the negation of this soiety. It
is not te collecton of the poor, but of those who are desperate, those who
have no reseres (Ies sans-reseres in French, or senz riserve in ltalian),who
have nohing to lose but their chains; those who are nothing, have nothing,
and cn librate temselves without destying the whole soial order.
Te pretat is te dssoluton of prsent soiety, bcause this soiety
deprves it o nearly all its psitve apcts. Thus the proletarat is also its
own destruction. Al theories (either burgeois, fascist, stalinist, left-wing or
"gauchistes") which in any way glorify and praise the proletariat as it is and
claim for it the positive role of defending values and regenerting soiety, are
counter-revolutionary. Worship of the prletariat has bcome one of the most
effcient and dangerous weapns of capital. Most prles are low paid, and
a lot work in pruction, yet their emergence as the proletariat derives not
from bing low paid proucers, but frm bing "cut of, alienated, with no
control either over their lives or the meaing of what they have to do to ca
a living.
Dfning the proletarat has litte to do with soiology. Without the
pssibility of communism, teories of "the proletariat" would b tantmount
to metphysics. Our only vindicaton is tat whenever it autonomously
interered wit te running of soiety, the prletariat has rpatedly acte as
negaton o te existng order of things, h ofered it no psitive values or
role, ad h g for seting else.
Being what prouces value and can do away with a world based
on value, the proletarat includes for instance the unemployed and many
housewives, since capitlism hires and fres the foner, and utilizes the
labur of te later to increase the tot mass of extracted value.
Te breoisie, on te oter hand, ar rling class not bcause
tey'r rch ad the rest of the ppulation aren't. Being burgeois brngs
them rches, not te other way round. They are rling clas bcause they
contol the economy - employees as well a machnes. Ownership stcty
sping is only a fon o class pwer that appas in particula varats of
capitism.
Te prletat is not the workng class, rther the clas of the
crtque of wo It is te ever-present destcton of the old world, but 1 9
only ptentaly; it bcomes real only in a moment of soial tension ad
upheaval, when it is complle by cpital to b te agent of communsm.
It only bcomes the subversion of estblished soiety when it unifes itself,
and organizes itself, not in order to make itself the dominat class, like the
bourgeoisie in its time, but in order to destroy the soiety of classes; at that
point there is only one soial agent: manknd. But apar from such a pro
of confict and the priod which precedes it, the proletarat is rduced to the
status of an element of capita, a wheel within a mechanism (and of course
this is prcisely the aspect glorifed by capita, which worship the worker
only a a par of the existing soial system).
Although not devoid of "ouvrerisme" and laburism (the other side
of intellectualism), rdical thinking did not eulogize the working class nor
regard manual work as infnite bliss. It gave pructve workers a decisive
(but not exclusive) part bcause their place in proucton puts them in a btter
situation to revolutionize it. Only in this sense dos the blue collar (often
wearng white overalls, and possibly a tie) keep a central role, in so far as his!
her soial function enables himlher to carry out diferent tasks from other.
Yet with the spread of unemployment, casual labour, longer schooling,
training periods at any time of life, temp and part-tme jobs, forced early
retirement, and the odd mixture of welfare ad workar wherby pople
move out of misery into work and then again into poverty and monlightng,
when dole money sometimes equals low pay, it is getting harder to tell work
from non-wor.
We may well son b entering a phase similar to te dissoluton
Marx's early writings refer to. In every pro of strong historcal distces
(the 18s as after 1 91 7), the proletariat refects the losening of soial
boundaries (sections of bth working and middle classes slip down the soial
ladder or fear they might) and the weakening of taditional values (culture
is no longer a unifer). The conditions of life of the old soiety ar alredy
negated in those of the proles. Not hippies or punks, but moem capitalism
makes a sham of the work ethic. Pprty, family, naton, morls, plitics in
the bourgeois sense, tend to decay within the proletaran conditon.
Formation of the Human Communit
The primitive community is to p r and weak to take advantage of the
ptentialities of labur. It only kows work in its immedate fon. Lbur
is not crstallized, accumulated in instrments; little past labur is stored.
When this bcomes more common, exchange is necessar: prouction c
be measured only by abstrct labur, by averge labur tme, in orer to
circulate. Living labour is the essential element of activity, and labur time
is the necessar measure. Lbour time is materialized in money. Hence
the exploitation of classes by other classes, the aggrvation of natural
catastrophes (see abve, on pre-capitalist crises). Hence the rise and fal l of
States and sometimes empires which can grow only by fghting against one
20 another. Sometimes exchange rlatons come to an end btwen the various
p of the civilized (i.e., mer!llie) world, after the death o one or severl
empires. Such an interption in the development may last for centuries,
durng which te economy sems to go backwads, towards a subsistence
econoy.
In this prio manknd dos not have a prouctive apparatus capable
of making the exploitation of human labur useless and even rinous. The
role of capitalism is precisely to accumulate past labour. The existence of
the entre industal complex, of all fxed capital, proves that the social
charcter of human actvity has fnally ben materialized in an instrment
capable of cretng, not a new pradise on e, but a development making
the bst psble u o available resources to fulfil needs, ad prucing new
resu in rn to needs. H this industal complex has ted into the
esental element o proucton, then the role o value as a regulato, a role
which cr spded to the stage when living labur was the main pructve
facto, is deprived o all meaning; value bcomes unnecessar to proucton.
Its surival is now catatphic. Value, concrtized in money in all its fors,
from the simplest to the most elaborate, results from the general character of
labur, frm the energy (both individual and social) which is produced and
consumed by labur. Value remains the necessar mediator as long as that
energy has not crated a unifed prouctive system throughout the world: it
then bcomes a hindrnce.
Communism means the end of a series of mediations which were
prviously nee (in spite o the miser they entailed) to accumulate
enough pst labur to enable men to do without these mediations. Value
is such a mediaton: it is now useless to have an element exteral to soial
actvities to connect ad stimulate them. The accumulated prouctive
infrtctur only needs to b tsfored ad developd. Communism
compres use values to decide to deVelop a given prouction rather than
aother one. It dos not reduce the compnents of soial life to a common
denominator (the average labour tme contned in them). Communism
organizes its materal life on the basis of the confrontaton and interlay of
needs - which dos no exclude conflicts ad even some for o violence.
Men will not t into angels: why should they?
Communism is also the end o any element necessar for the
unficaton o soiety: it is the end of plitics. It is neither demortic nor
dictatoria. O c it is "demortic" if this word means that everone will
b in charge o all soia actvites. This will not b so bcause of pople's
will to manage soiety, or because of a demortc prnciple, but bcause the
organizaton of actvities can only be carried out by those taking part in them.
However, as oppsed to what the demorats say, this will b possible only
through communism, where all the elements of life ae par of the community,
when all separate actvity and all isolated prouction are ablished. This
c only b achieved through the destruction of value. Exchage among
enters excludes all pssibilites for the collectivity to b in charge of its
21
life (ad f o al it matera life). The am of exchange and value is rdically
22
oppsed to that of pople - Generl Motor, Wolworth's o nucler pwer
stations will never be demortcally rn. The enterprse tres to valorze
itself and accepts no leadership but that which allows it to reach its aim (this
is why capitalists ar only the offcials of capital). The enterrs manages
its managers. The elimination o the limits of the enterrse, te destucton
of the commoity relation which compls ever individu to regard ad
treat all others as means to e his living, ar the only conditons for self
organi zation. Management problems a secondary, and it is absurd to want
everyone to have a tum managing soiety. Bokkeeping and administtve
work will bcome activities similar to a other, without privilege; anyone
can take p in them or not take part in them.
"Dmoracy is a contadiction in ters, a lie and indeed sheer
hypcrisy . . . In my opinion, this applies to all forms of goverent. Political
freedom is a faree and the worst pssible slaver; such a fcttious freedom
is the worst enslavement. So is plitcal equality: this is why demorcy
must be tom to pieces as well a any other for of goverent Such a
hypritical for cnnot go on. Its inhernt cotadicton must b expsed in
broad daylight: either it means tre slavery, which implies opn desptism;
or it means real fredom and real equality, which implies comunism."
In communism, an exteral force which unifes individuals is
useless. Utopian socialists never understoo this. Nearly all their imaginar
soieties, whatever their merits or their visionar pwer, need ver stct
planning and quasi totalitarian organization. Tese sialists sught to crate
a link which is created in prctce whenever pple assoiate in groups. In
order to avoid exploi tation and anarchy at the same time, Utopia soialists
organi zed soial life in advance. Others, from the anachst standpint,
refuse such authoritaranism and want soiety to b a pranent craton.
But the problem lies elsewhere: only deterined soia rlatons bed on
a given level of development of materal pructon make harmony among
individuals bth pssible and necessar (which includes conflict). Then
individuals c fulfl their needs, but only through automatc pcipation
in the functioning of the group, without being mere tols of the group.
Communism has no need to unif what used to b septe but no longer is.
This is also tre on a world and even univer se. Sttes ad
nations, which were necessary instments of development, a now purely
reactionar organizations, ad te divisions they maintain a an obstcle to
development: the only possible dimension is that of mankind.
The opposition between manual and intellectual, btween nature
and culture, used to make sense. Separation btween the one who worked
and the one who organized work increased the effciency of labur. The
curent level of development no longer needs this, and this division is nothing
but a hindrnce which exhibits its absurdity in all aspcts of professiona,
"cultural," and schol life. Communism destroys the division btween
workers crippled by manual labur and workers made useless in offces.
This also applies to the oppsition btween man and his environment.
In forer tmes man could onl soialize the world by fighting against the
dominaton o "nature." Nowadays he is a threat to nature. Communism is the
reconciliation of ma and nature.
Communism is the end of the economy as a separte and privileged
feld on which everthing else depnds while despising and fearng it.
Ma prouces and reprouces his conditions of existence: ever since the
disintegrton of the primitive community, but in the purest for under
capitalism, work, i.e., the activity through which man appropriates his
environment, h bcome a compulsion, oppsed to relaxation, to leisure,
to "r" life. This stage was historically necessary to create the past labour
which makes psible the elimination of this enslavement With capital,
prouction (= prouction for valoriztion) bcomes the ruler of the world.
It is a dictatoship of prouction relations over soiety. When one prouces,
one sacrfces one's life-time in order to enjoy life afterwards; this enjoyment
is usually disconnected from the nature of the work, which is just a meas
of supprtng one's life. Communism dissolves prouction relations and
combines tem with soial relatons. It dos not know any separate activity,
ay work oppsed to play. The obligaton of doing the same work for a
lifetime, of being a manual or an intellectual worker, disappars. The fact
that accumulated labour includes and integrates all science and technique
maes it pssible for research and work, refection and action, teaching and
workng, to bcome a single activity. Some tk can b taken in chage
by everyone, ad the generlisation of automation profoundly transfors
prouctve actvity. Communism supprs neither play against work, nor
non-work aganst wor. These limited and partial notons are still capitalist
realites. Actvity as the production-reprouction of the conditions of life
(matera, a ective, cultural, etc.) is the very nature of humanity.
Ma collectvely creates the means of his existence, ad transfors
them. He cannot rceive them from machines: in that case mankind would b
reduced to the situation of a child, who rceives toys without knowing where
they orginate. Their origin dos not even exist for him: the toys ae simply
there. lkewise communism dos not t work into something perpetually
plet and joyous. Human life is efor ad pleasure. Even the activity
of the pt inclues painful moments. Communism can only ablish the
spton btween efor ad enjoyment, creaton and recretion, work and
play.
Communiztion
Communism is mankind's appropnauon of its wealth, and implies an
inevitable and complete tansforaton of this wealth. This requires the
destrcton of enterses a separte units and therefore of the law of value:
not in order to soialize prft, but to circulate gos btween industral
centes without the mediation of value. Tis dos not mean that communism
will make u o the pructve system as it is left by capitalism. The problem 23
is not to get rid of the "bad" side o cpital (valorzton) while keeping the
"god" side (prouction). As we have seen, value and the logic of profit
impse a certin typ of prouction, develop some branches ad neglect
others, and praise of prductivity and growth is singing hymns to the glor
of capital.
On the other hand, to revolutionize proucton, to destroy enterprses
as such, the communist revoluton is bund to make u of pucton. Tis
is its essential "lever," at least durng one phase. The aim is not to take over
the factories only to remain there to manage them, but to get out of them,
to connect them to each other without exchange, which destys them as
enterprses. Such a movement almost automatically bgns by reducing
and then suppressing the oppsition between town and county and the
dissoiation btween industy and other activities. Toay industry is stfed
within its own limits while it stifes other sectors.
Capital lives to accumulate value: it fxes this value in the for of
stored labur, past labur. Accumulaton and prouction bcome ends in
themselves. Everything is subrdinated to them: capital feeds its investents
with human labour. At the same time it develops unprouctve labour, as ha
been shown. The communist revolution is a rebllion against this absurdity.
It is also a dis-accumulaton, not so as to rt to forms of life which a
now gone forver, but to put things right up to now man h ben sacrficed
to investment; nowadays the reverse is pssible. Communism is oppsed
to proucti vism, and equal ly to the illusion of ecologicl development
within the exi sting economic frmework. "Zro growth" is stll growth.
The offcial spkesprsons of ecology never voice a critique of economy a
value-measurng, they just want to wisely keep money-led qunttes under
control .
Communism is not a continuation of capitalism in a mor rtonal,
more effcient, more moem, and less unequal, less anarchic for. It dos not
take the old material bases a it finds them: it overhrows them.
Communism is not a set of measures to b put into practce after
the seizure of pwer. It is a movement which already exists, not a a moe of
production (there can b no communist island within capitalist soiety), but as
a tendency which originates in real needs. Communism dos not even know
what value is. The pint is not that one fne day a large numbr of pople
str to destroy value and prft. All past revolutionar movements wer able
to brng soiety to a standstill, and waited for something to come out o this
universal stoppage. Communization, on the contrar, will cirulate gos
without money, opn the gate isolatng a factor from its neighbo,
close down another factor where the work proess is to alienatng to b
technically improved, do away with schol as a spcialized place which cuts
of learing from doing for 1 5 odd years, pull down walls that force people to
imprison themselves in 3-rom family units - in short, it will tend to break all
separtions.
2
4
The mechanism of the communist revoluton is a prouct of
stggles. Their development leads to a time when soiety forces all
individuls whom it leaves with no other prspctive to establish new soial
relations. I a nubr of soial strggles now sem to come to nothing, it
is bu teir only pssible contnuaton would b communism, whatever
those who take part in them may now think. Even when workers are just
making demands they often come to a pint when there is no other solution
but a violent clash with the State and its assistants, the unions. In that case,
aed strggle and insurrction imply the application of a soial programme,
and the u of the economy as a weapn (see abve, on the proletarat). The
military apct, as impt as it may b, depnds on the soial content of the
stggle. To b abe to defeat its enemie on a militar level, the proletarat
- whatever its consciousness - tnsfors soiety in a communist way.
"Moem sttegy means the emancipation of the burgeoisie
ad the pasant: it is the militar expression of that emancipation. The
emacipton of te proletariat will also have a particular military expression
and a new spifc waa. That is clear. We c even anayse such a strategy
frm te matral conditons of the proletarat"
Up to now stggles have not reached the stage when their military
development would have made necessa the appce of the new soiety.
In the most imprant soial conficts, in Geray btween 1 91 9 and 1 921 ,
the proletaat. i n spite of te violence of the civil war, did not reach this stage.
Yet the communist prspctve was present undereath these encounters,
whch are meningless if one dos not take it into accout. The burgeoisie
was able to u the weapn of the economy in its own intersts by dividing
te workng class thrugh unemployment, for instnce. The prletariat was
unable t use the economy in its own interests, ad strggled mainly by
military meas; it went so far a to create a Red Ary in the Ruhr in 190,
yet never ud te weapn which its own soial function gives it.
In a diferent context. some rot in the US bgan a soial
tsoation, but only on the level of te commoty, ad not of capital
itslf. These pople were only one pat of the proletiat. and often had no
pssibility of using the "lever" of proucton bcause they were excluded
from it. They were outside the factories. However, the communist revolution
implies an acton from the enterprise, to destroy it as such. The rebllions in
the US remained on te level of consumption and distribution. Communism
cnno develo without attacking the hert of the maner, the cente where
smlus-vaue is prouced: proucton. But it only uses this lever to destroy it.
Tos who have no resres make the revolution: they are forced
to establish te soial relations which jut out of the existing soiety. This
break implies a crsis, which c b ver diferent from that of 1929, when
a large p of the economy came to a stndstill. If the varous elements
reblling agat wage labur ae to b unifed, soiety will have to b in
such tble tat it will not b able to isolate each struggle from the others.
Te cmunst revoluton is neither the sum of the present day movements,
nor teir toto tugh te interenton of a "vangud." O course
2
5
26
such a mechanism c only take place on a world-wide scale, ad frst of al
in severl advanced countres.
The main question is not the seizure of pwer by the worker. It
is absurd to advoate the dictatorship of the working class as it is now. The
workers as they are now a incapable of managing anything: they a just
a p of the valoriztion mechanism, and a subjected to the dictatorship
of capital. The dictatorship of the existng working class cannot b anything
but the dictatorship of its representatives, i.e., the leader of the unions ad
workers' parties. This is the state of a air in the "soialist" countres, and it
is the progrmme of the demortic left in the rest of the world.
Revolution has, but is not a problem of organization. All theores
of "workers' goverent" or "workers' pwer" only propse altertve
solutions to the crisis of capital. Revolution is frst of all a transforation of
soiety, i.e., of what constitutes relations among pople, and btwen pople
and their means oflife. Organiztonal problems and "leader" a secondar:
they depnd on what the revolution achieves. Tis applies a much to the start
of the communist revolution as to the functoning of the soiet which as
out of it. Revolution will not happn on the day when 51 % of the workers
become revolutionary; and it will not begin by setting up a decision-makng
apparatus. It is precisely capitalism that prtually deas with problems
of management and leadership. The organizatonal for of the commUnist
revolution, as of any social movement, depnds on its content The way the
party, the organization of the revolution, constitutes itself and acts, depnds
on the tasks to b realized.
In the 1 9th centur, and even at the time of the frst world war, the
material conditions of communism were still to b created, at least in some
countries (Frnce, Italy, Russia, etc.). A communist revoluton would frst
have had to develop productive fores, to put the ptite burgeoisie to work,
to generalize industrial labur, with the rule: no work, no fo (of course
this only applied to those able to work). But the revoluton did not come,
and its Geran stronghold was crshed. Its tk have since ben flflled by
capitalist economic growth. The materal basis of communism now exists.
There is no longer any need to send unprouctve workers to the factor; the
problem is to create the basis of another "industy," totally diferent frm the
present one. Many factories will have to b closed and compulsor labur is
now out of the question: what we want is the abolition of wor a an actvity
separte from the rest of' life. It would b pintless to put an end to garbage
collection as a job some have to do for years, if the whole press and logic
of garbage creation ad dispsal did not change at the same tme.
Underdevelopd countres - to use a dated but not inadequate phrse
- will not have to go thrugh industrializaton. In many p o Asia, Afrca
and Ltin America, cpital oppresses labur but h not SUbjugated it to
"real" domination. Old fors of social communal life still exist. Communism
would regenerate a lot of them - as Marx thought of the Russian pt
commune - with the help of some "wester" technology applied in a difernt
way. In many respcts, such areas may prove easier to communize than the
huge motorcar-adapted and screen-addicted "civilized" conurbations. In
other words, a worldwide press of dis-accumulation.
State and How to Get Rid of Them
Te State was b out of human bings' inability to manage their lives. It is
the unity - symblic and materal - of the disunited. As son as proletarians
appropriate their meas of existence, this mediation bgins to lose its
functon, but destoying it is not an automatic proess. It will not disappear
litte by little as the non-mercantle sphere gets bigger and bigger. Actually,
such a spher would b frgile if it let the central goverental machiner go
on, as in Spain 193637. No State stcture will wither away on its own.
Communizing is therefore more than a additon of direct piecemea
actons. Capit will b sppd by generl subverion through which pople
take their relatonships with the word into their own hands. But nothing
decisive will b achieved a long as the State retains some pwer. Soiety
is not just a capillar network: relationships are centralized in a force which
concentates the pwer to presere this soiety. Capitalism would b too
happy to see us change our lives loally while it carries on on a global scale.
As a cental force, the State has to b destroyed by central action, as well as
it pwer dissolved everwhere. The communist movement is anti-plitical,
not a-plitcal .
Communism a a Psent Soial Movement
Communism is not only a soial system, a moe of pruction, which
will exist in the future, after "the revolution." This revolution is in fact an
encounter btween two worlds:
1) on the one hand, all those who are rejected, excluded from all real
enjoyment, whoe very existence is sometimes threatened, who are
neverheles unit by the nes ity of coming into contact with one another,
to act, to live, to survive;
2) on the other hand, a soialized economy on a world-wide scale, unifed on
a technical level. but divided into units forced to oppose each other to obey
the logic of value which unifes them and which will destroy anything to
surive a such.
The word of cmoites and value. which is the present framework of
prouctve fores, is actvated by a life of its own; it has constituted itself
into a autonoou force, and the world of rel needs submits to its laws.
The communist rvoluton is the destcton of this submission. Communism
is the stggle againt this submission ad has oppsed it since the early days
of capitism, ad even bfore, with no chance of success.
Mand frt attbuted t it ideas, it conceptons of the world, an
27
2
8
origin exteral to itself, and thought te nat of man was to b found, not i n
his soial relations, but in hi s link with an element outside o the real world
(go), of which man wa only the prouct Lkewise mankind, in its efort to
appropriate and adapt to the surounding world, frst had to crate a material
world, a network of prouctive forces, a economy, a world of objects which
crshes and dominates it, bfore it could approprate this word, adapting ad
trnsfoning it according to its needs.
The communist rvoluton is the contnuaton a well as the
surpassing of present soial movements. Discussions of commuism usuly
start from an eroneous standpint: they deal with the queston of what
people will do after the revolution. They never connect communism wit
what is going on at the moment when the discussion is going on. There is a
complete rpture: frst one makes the revolution, then communism. In fact
communism is the contnuation of real needs which a now alrady at work,
but which cannot lead anywhere, which cannot b satsfed, bcause the
present situation forbids it. Toay there are numerou communist gestures ad
attitudes which express not only a rfusal of the present world, but most of all
an efor to build a new one. In so fa as these do not succeed. one seonly
their limits, only the tendency and not its pssible continution (te function
of "extremist" groups is precisely to prsent these limits as the aims of the
movement, and to strengthen them). In the refusal of assembly-line work, in
the struggles of squatters, the communi st prspctive is present as an efor
to create "something else," not on the basis of a mer rjecton of the moem
world (hippy), but through the use and transfonation of what is prouced
and wasted. In such conficts pople spntaneously tr to approprate gos
without obying the logic of exchange; therefore they treat tese go as
use vaues. Their relations to these things, and the relatons they establish
among themselves to prfon such acts, a subverive. People even change
themselves in such events The "something else" that these actons reach for
is present in the actions only potentially, whatever those who organize them
may think and want, and whatever the extremists who take pa in tem ad
theorize abut them may do and say. Such movements will b forced to
become conscious of their acts, to understand what they a doing, in order to
do it bller.
Those who already feel the need for communism, ad discuss it,
cannot interfere in these strggles to bring the communist gospl , to propose
to these limited actions that they direct themselves towards "r" communist
activity. What is needed is not slogans, but an explaaton o the bckground
and mechanism of these struggles. One must only show what they will b
forced to do.
TH CLASS STRUGGLE AND
ITS MOST CHARACTERISTIC
ASPECTS IN RCENT YEARS:
RE-EMERGENCE OF THE
COMUNIST PERSPECTIVE
by Frnois Martin
Tis essa was strted soon afer Ma 68 a comleted in 72 by a fiend
who'd worked years before in an Algerian shoe-making factor under(State
controlled) "sel-management", where he experienced how a spontaneous
dsire to get a grip on one s fate could end in institutionalized sel
orgaization ofwage lbour
I thi tet was written tody, historical data would be di erent.
Tough it still retins stronghols, the French CP h declined, partly
through de-instrialization of traditional working clas areas. Besides,
a in other countries, one can no longer speak of'stalinism". CPs were
stlinist not out of love for Russia, but because State caitalism was a
possibl solution for caitl ... usually with Red Army troops around a help
fom "socilist" brther countries. Wth the dwnfall ofthe USSR, there is no
use for this backward form ofcaitalism. a CPs are evolving into social
dmocratic paties. Te adtable Italian one h alread gone this way for
quie a whie. Afer long resistance, the die-hard French CP is now following
suit. T 6-yea ol sinister stalinist farce h been sent to the dstbins of
histor, not b th proletariat, but b the overhelming drive ofcomdites.
T credit card i mightier than the jackboot.
(1997 note, G.D.)
The original p of this text was to t to show the fundamental reasons
why the revoutona movement o the first half of the century tok various
fos (partes, tde and industia unions, workers' councils) which now not
only blong to the past, but also hinder the r-fonnation of the revolutionary
movement. But only part of the project was carred out. This task still has
to b reizd. But it would b a mistake to wait for a complete theoretical
consncton bfor moving on. The following text gives cerain elements
which a uf for an understnding of new fonns of the communist
"p". Recent events (mainly strikes in the U.S. , in Britain, in France, ad
Italy) clearly show that we ae enterng a new historical pro. For example,
te Frnch Comunist Party (P.c.F) still dominates the working class, but
it is under strng attack. While for a long prio of tme the revolutionary
movement's oppiton to cpital was defected by the P.c.F, today this 29
mediation tends to disappar: the oppsiton btween worer and capitalism
is going to assert itself more and more dircdy, and on the level of ral facl
and actions, as oppsed to the situation when the ideology of the PCF was
prominent among workers and the revolutionar movement had to fght
against the PCF mainly on a theoretical level.
Toay revolutionaes will b forced to oppsc capital prctically.
This is why new theoretical tasks ar necessary. It is not enough to agree on
the level of ides; one must take psitive action, and frst o al interene in
present strggles to supprt one's views. CommunislS do not have to build
a sepaate pary from the one which asscr ilelf in prctce in o soiety;
yet they will increasingly have to suppr their psitions s that the r
movement dos not waste its time in useless and false strggles. Orgaic links
(theoretical work for practical activity) will have to b established among
those who think we are moving towards a confict btween the proletariat ad
capital. The present text tres to detennine how the communist movement is
going to reappar, and to define the tasks of the communists.
May, 196, in France
The general strke of May, 1 9, was one of the biggest stikes in capitalist
histor. Yet it is probably the frst time in contemprar soiety that such a
pwerul woring class movement did not crate for itself organs cpable
of expressing it. More than four years of workers' strggles prve this fact.
Nowhere can we see organizations going byond a lo and temprary
contact. Unions and parti es have been able to step into this void ad negotiate
with the bosses and the State. In 19 a numbr of short-lived Action
Committees were the only form of workers' organizaton which acted outside
the unions and the paies; the Action Committees oppsed what tey felt to
be treason on the part of the unions.
Ether at te bginning of the stike. or in the press of the
sit-downs, or later, in the struggle against the resumption of work, may
thousnds of worers organized themselves in one way or aoter outide and
against the will of the unions. But in ever case these workers' organizations
fzzled out with the end of the movement and did not tm into a new type of
organiztion.
The only exception was the "Inter-Eterprise" Commitee, which
had existed since the bginning of the stke at the Censier building of te
"Faculte des Lttrcs" in Paris. It gathered together workers - individuals
and groups - from scveral dozen factories in the Pars a It functon was
to cordinate actions against the undennining of the strke by the P.CF.
controlled union, the CG.T. It was in fact the only workers' organ which in
practice went beyond the narow limits of the factor by putng into prctce
the solidarity btween workers from diferent frs. As is t c with all
revolutionar actvites of the proletarat, this Committee did not publicize its
30 action. I
The Committee contnu(u t organize meetngs after the stke
and disappare after its membrs realized its uselessness. Of course the
hundreds of workers who had taken part in its actvity soon stoppd coming
to its metngs. May of tem contnued seeing each other. But while the
purse of the Committee during the strike h ben to strengthen the fght
against union ad party maouvres, it later ted into a discussion group
studying the rsults of the stike and tying to le it lessons for the future.
These discussions ofen dealt with communism and it imprance.
This Committee gathered a minorty. Yet its daily "general
assemblies" at Censier, as well as its smaller meetings, allowed several
thousd worers to meet. It remained limited to the Pars area. We have
herd of no suh experment in other regions, orgaized outside al unions
(including "left wing" unions: the town of Nantes, in the west of France, was
more or less taken over by the unions during the strike).
One must add that a hd of pople sharing communist ideas
(a dozen at mot) were deeply involved in it action and functioning. The
result of this was to limit the infuence of the c.G.T., the Trotskyists, and
the Maoists, to a minimum. The fact that the Committee wa outside all
traditonal union ad pay organiztions, including the extemist ones, and
that it tried t go byond the limit of the factory, foreshadowed what has
ben happning since 19. Its disappeance after the fulflment of its tasks
also foreshadowed the fading away of orgaiztions that have appeared since
then, in the mot characteristic stggles o rcent yeas.
Tis shows the grat diference btween the present situation and
what happned in the 1930's. In 1936, in France, the workng class fought
bhind the "worer' " organizatons and for the refors they professed.
So the fory-hor wek and two weeks of pid vacaton were regarded as
a rea victor o te workers, whose essntal demand was to get the same
conditons and psiton as salaried groups. These demands were imposed on
te rling clas. Toay the worng class is not asking for the improvement
of it conditons of life. Te refor prgrammes presented by unions and
pares closely rsemble those put forard by the State. It was DGaulie who
propsed "partcipation" as a rmedy for what he called the "mechanical"
soiety.
It sems that only a fraction of the rling class realized the extent of
te crsis, which it called a "crisis of civilization" (A. Malraux). Since then
all organizatons, all unions ad parties, without any exceptions, rallied to
the grat rfor programme in one way or another. The P.C.E itself includes
"r paricipaton" in it goverental prgramme. The other large uion,
the C.EO.T., advoates self-management, which is also supprted by ultra
left goups who a in favour of "workers' councils." The Trotskyists propse
"worer' contol" as a minimum prgramme for a "worers' goverment".
What l ies at the hear of all ts concer is an attempt to end
the separation btween the worker and te pruct of his work. This is
an expression o a "utoia" view of capital , and h nothing to do with
3
1
32
communism. The capitalist "utopia" ties to do away wi t te bad side of
exploitation. The communist movement cannot express itself in a fonal
crticism of capital. h dos not aim to change the conditons of work, but
the function of work: it want to replace te pructon of exchange values
with the proucton of use values. Whereas unions ad pares c on teir
debates within the context of one and the same programme, the progrme
of capital, the prletariat has a non-constructive attitude. Ap from its
practical pli tical activities, it dos not "participate" in the debate oranized
abut its case. It dos not try to do theoretical reseach abut its own tk.
This is the time of the grat silence of te prletarat. Te pardox is tat
the rling class tres to express the aspiratons of the worer, in its own
way. A fraction of the rling class understands that the prsent conditons of
appropriation of surlus-value are a hindrnce to the total functoning of the
economy. Its perspective is to share the cake, hoping that a working clas
"profting" from capital and "parcipating" in it will prouce more surplus
value. We are reaching the stage when capital dreams of its own surival. 2
To achieve this surival , it would have to get rid of its own paritcal sectors,
i .e. , the fractions of capital which no longer pruce enough surlus-value.
Whereas in 1936 the workers tied to reach the sae level as other
sectors of soiety, nowadays capital itself impses on the privileged salaried
sectors the same generl conditions of life as those of the workers. The
concept of paricipation implies equality in the face of exploitaton impsed
by the needs of value formation. Thus paricipation is a "soialism" of miser.
Capitalism must reduce the enorous cost of the sectors which a necessary
to its survival but which do not directly prouce vaue.
In the course of their strggles workers reaize that the pssibility
of improving their materal conditions is limited and on the whole alrdy
planned by capital. The worki ng class c no longer interene on the basis of
a programme which would really alter its living conditions witin capitalism.
The great workers' struggles of the first half of the centur, stggles for the
eight-hour day, the forty-hour week, paid holidays, i ndustial unionism, job
securty, showed that the relationship btween the workng class and capital
allowed the workers a certain range of "capitalist" acton. Nowadays capital
itself imposes the reforms and generizes the equlity of all in the face of
wage-labur Therefore no important section of the working clas is willing to
fght for interediate objectives a was the case at the bgnnng of te century
or in the 1 930's. But it should also b obvious that a long as te communst
perspective is not clear there can b no foration of worer' orgaizatons
on a communist basis. This is not to say that the communist objectives will
suddenly become clear to everbdy. The fact that the workng class is te
only class which prouces surplus-value is what places it at the centre of te
crsis of value, i.e., at the ver hear of the crisis of capitalism, a forces it to
desty al other classes as such, and to form te organs of its self-destcton
as a part of capit, as a class within capitlism. The communst orgaizton
will only appear in the prctical press of destcton of the bourgeois
econoy, and in the creaton ot a human community without exchange.
The communist movement has assered itself continually since
the very bginning of capitalism. This is why capital is forced to maintain
constant sureillance and continual violence over everything dangerus
to its noral functoning. Ever since the secret conspircy of Babuf in
1 795, the worker' movement has exprienced increasingly violent and
longer stggles, which have shown capitalism to b, not the culmination of
humanity, but its negaton.
Although the May 6 strike had hadly any immediate positive
rsult, its real stength was that it did not give birh to durble illusions. The
May "flure" is te failure of reforism, and the end of reforism breeds
a stggle on a totally diferent level, a struggle against capital itself, not
against its efects. In 1 9 everone was thinking of some "other" soiety.
What pople said rarely went byond the noton of general self-management.
Apart frm the communist struggle which c develop only if the centre, the
clas which prouces surplus-value, leads it. other classes c only act and
think within the capitalist sphere, and their expression c only b that of
capital - even o capital reforing itself. Yet bhind these partal criticisms
and alienated expressions we c see the bginning of the crisis of value
which is characteristic of the historical prio we are now entering.
These ideas do not come from nowhere; they always appar bcause
the symptoms of a real human communty exist emotionally in ever one
o u. Wheneyer the false community of wage-labur is questioned, there
apps a tendency towards a form of soial life in which rlatonships are no
longer mediated by the needs of capita.
Since May 6, the activity of the communist movement has tended
t b increasingly concrete.
Strike ad Workers' Strugle Since 19
Wereas in the yea after World Wa n stkes - even imprtant ones - were
kept uder contr and were not followed by constant political and monetar
crises, the past few years have seen a rnewal of industrial riots and even
insurections in Frce, Italy, Brtain, Belgium, West Gerany, Sweden,
Dnmark, Spin, Portugal , Switzerland. In Poland the workers attacked the
headquarers o the c.P while singing the Interational . The proess was
the sme in nealy ever c. A minorit sts a movement with its own
objectves; soon the movement spreads to other categories of worers in the
same fr; pople get organized (strke pickets, workers' committees in the
shops, on the assembly lines); the unions maage to b the only ones capable
of negotatng with the management; they fly get the workers to resume
wo, ar prpsing unitary slogans which no one likes but everone accepts
bu of the inability to forulate anything else. The only movement
which went byond the stage of the strke as it now exists was the movement
of rot and stkes in Poland in Dcembr 197O-Januar 1971 . 33
expressing itself and maintain it as a class within capitalism. "Demoracy"
cannot be anything but a dictatorhip. This is visible in every strike: the form
of its destrction is preci sely "demorcy." As son as there is a separtion
btween a decision-making organ and an action organ, the movement
is no longer in the ofensive phase. It is bing diverted to the ground of
capital . Opposing workers' "demoracy" to the union's "bureaucracy"
means attacking a superfi cial aspect and hiding the real content of workers'
strggles, which have a totally diferent basis. Dmorcy is now the slogan
of capi tal: it propses the self-management of one's own negaton. All those
who accept this programme spread the illusion that soiety c be changed
by a generl discussion foll owed by a vote (foral or i nforal) which would
decide what is to be done. By maintaining the separation btween decision
and action, capital tres to maintain the existence of classes. I one criticizes
such a separation only from a foral point of. view, without going to its roots,
one merely pretuates the division. It is hard to imagine a revolution which
begins when voters raise their hads. Revolution is an act of violence, a
process through which social relations a tnsfored. 3
We will not try to give a descri ption of the strikes which have taken
place since 1968. We lack to much inforation, and a large number of books
and pamphlets have been written about them. We would only l i ke to see what
they have in common, and in what way they are the sign of a period in which
communist prospcts will appear more and more concretely.
We do not divide industrial soiety into difernt sectors -
"developing" and "backward" sectors. It is te that some diferences can be
observed, but these can no longer hide from us the nature of the strikes, in
which one cannot see real differences btween "vanguard" and "rearguard"
struggles. The process of the strikes is less and less determined by local
factors, and more and more by the interational conditons of capitalism.
Thus the Pol ish strikes and rots were the prouct of an interational context;
the relationship between Est and West was at the rot of these events
where pople sang the Interational and not the national anthem. Wester
and easter capital have a common i nterest in securing the exploitation of
their respective workers. And the relatively under-developd "socialist"
capitalisms must maintain a strict capitalist effciency to be able to compte
with their more modem wester neighbUrs.
The communist struggle stars in a given place. but its existence
does not depend on purely local factors. It dos not act according to the limits
of its original birthplace. Local factors bcome secondar to the objectives
of the movement. As soon as a strggle limits i tself to l ocl conditions, it
is i mmediately swallowed up by capitalism. The level reached by workers'
struggles is not determined by loal factors. but by the global situation of
capitalism. As son as the class which concentrates i n itself the revolutionaI'
interests of soiety rises, it immediately fnds, in its si tuation. and without
any mediation, the content and object of its revolutionary activity: to crsh
its enemies and take the decisions impsed by the needs of the strggl e; the
3
5
consequences of its own actions force it to move further.
We shall not deal with all strikes here. There is sti ll a capitalist
soiety in which the working class is just a class of capitalism, a par of
capital, when it is not revolutionar. Party and union machines stil l manage
to control and lead considerble sections of the working class for the sake
of capitalist objectives (such a the right to retire at 6 in France). General
elections and many strikes a organized by unions for limited demands.
However, it is increasingly obvious that in most l arge strkes the initiative
dos not come frm the unions, and these are the strikes we are tal king abut
here. Industrial soiety has not ben divided into sectors, nor has the working
class ben divided up into the young, the old, the natives, the immigrants, the
foreigners, the skilled and the unskilled. We do not oppose all sociological
descriptions; these can be useful, but they are not our aim here.
We shall try to study how the proletariat breaks away from capitalist
soiety. Such a proess has a defnite centre. We do not accept the sociological
view of the working class bcause we do not analyse the working class from a
statc point of view, but in ters of its opposition to value. The rupture from
capital abolishes exchange value, i. e. , the existence of labur as a commoity.
The centre of this movement, and therefore its l eadership, must b the par of
soiety which prouces value. Otherwise it would mean that exchange value
no longer exists, and that we are already beyond the capitalist stage. Actually
the profound meaning of the essental movement is partialy hidden by the
struggles on the priphery, on the outskirts of the prouction of value. This
was the case in May 19, when students masked the real strggle, which
took place elsewhere.
In fact the strggles on the outskirs (the new middle classes) are
only a sign of a much deepr crisis which apparnces still hide from us. The
renewal of the crsis of value implies, for capital, the need to rationalize, and
therefore to attack, the backward sectors which are least capable of protecting
themselves; this increases unemployment and the numbr of those who have
no reseres. But their interention must not mae one forget the essential role
played by production workers in destying exchange value.
The To Most Characteristic Aspects of the Strikes
On one hand, the initiative of the strike comes from self-organized workers;
on the other, the initiative to end the strike comes from the fraction of the
worker organized in unions. These initiatives are contradictory since they
express two movements which a oppsed to one another. Nothing is more
alien to a strke than its end. The end of a strike is a moment of endless
talks when the notion of reality is overcome by illusions; many meetings
are organi zed where union offcias have a monoply of speech; general
assemblies attract fewer and fewer pople and fnally vote to resume work. The
end of a strike is a time when the working class again fal ls under the control
36 of capitl , is again reduced to atoms, individual components, destroyed as a
class capable of opposing capital. The end of a strike means negotiation, the
control of the movement, or what is left of it, by "responsible" organizations,
the unions. The bginning of a strike means just the oppsite: then the action
of the worki ng class has nothing to do with foralism. Al l those who do
not support the movement are pushed aside, whether they are executives,
foremen, workers. managers, shop-stewards or union offi cials. Managers
are loked up, union buildings attacked by thousands of workers, depnding
on local conditions. During the strike in lmburg (Belgium, Winter 190),
the union headquarters were stormed by the workers. Everthing acting as
a hi ndrance to the movement tends to b destryed. Ther is no place for
"demoracy": on the contrary, everything is obvious, and all enemies must
be defeated without wasting time on discussions. A considerable amount of
energy appears durng the offensive phase, and i t seems that nothing is able
to stop it.
At this stage we cannot avoid stating an obvious fact: the energy
at the beginning of the strike seems to disappar totaly by the time of the
negotiations. What is more important, this energy seems to have no relation
to the offcial reasons given for the strike. If several dozens of men bring
about a strike of thousands of workers on the basis of their own demands,
they do not succeed just because of some sort of solidarit, but bcause of
an immediate community in prctice. We must add the most important point,
that the movement dos not put fonvard any parcular demand. The queston
the proletarat will ask in practice is al rady present in its silence. In its own
movements the proletariat dos not put forard any particular demand: this
is why these movements ac the frst communist activities in our time.
What is imporant i n the proess of braking away from capitalism is
that the working class no longer asks for parial and paricula reforms. Thus
the working class ceases to be a class, since it dos not defend its partcular
class interests. This process is diferent according to the conditions. The
movement which went the farthest, in Polad, showed that the frst step of
the process is the disintegration of the capitist organs of repression within
the worki ng class (mainly the unions); the working class mut next organize
to protect i tself against the organs of repression outside the working class
(armed forces, pol ice, militia), and start destroying them.
The speci fc conditions in Poland, where the unions are part of the
State apparatus, forced the working class to make no distinction between
the unions and the State, since there was none. The fusion between unions
and State only made obvious an evolution which does not appar as clearly
in other countries, such as France and Italy. In many cases the unions stil l
play the role of a buffer between the worker and the State. But a radical
struggle will increasingly attack the unions and te sections of the working
class dominated by the unions. The time is gone when workers for unions
to defend their qualifcations and their rght to wor.
The conditions of moder soiety compel the working class not
to put fonvard any particular demand. The only community organized and
3
7
38
tolerated by capi tal is the community of wage-Iar .vur: capital tends t o forbid
everthing else. Capital now dominates the totality of the relations men
have with one another. It bcomes increasingly obvious that every partial
struggle which is li mited to a particular relation is forced to insert itself into a
general struggle against the entire system of relations among people: capital.
Otherwise it is integrated or destroyed.
In a stri ke of the Paris bus and subway workers (R.A.T. P.) at the
end of 1 91 . the resolute attitude of the subway drivers tured the strike into
a movement quite diferent from the strike of one category of workers. The
content of the movement does not depend on what people think. The attitude
of the drivers transfonned their relation to the management of the R.A.T.P.
and the unions. and clearly revealed the tre nature of the confict. The State
itself had to interene to force the drivers back under the pressure of the
unions. Whether the drivers believed it or not. the strike was no longer theirs;
it had tured into a public trial where the unions were offcially recognized
as necessary organs of coercion against the workers. organs charged with the
task of restoring the nonal order of things. It is impssible to understand the
imporance of the "silence" of the working class unless one first understands
the powerful development of capitalism until now. It is nowadays considered
normal that the end of strikes should be controlled by unions. This does
not imply any weakness on the part of the revolutionary movement. On
the contrary. in a situation which does not allow partial demands to be
achieved, it is nonal that no orga should b created to end the strike. Thus
we do not see the creation of worers' organizations gathering fractions of
the workng class outside the unions on a progrmme of speci fc demands.
Sometimes workers' groups are formed during the struggle. and they oppose
their demands to those of the unions. but their chances are destroyed by the
sitution itself. which dos not allow them to exist very long.
I these groups want to maintain their existence. they must act
outside the limits of the factor. or they will be destroyed by capital in one
way or another. The disappearance of these groups is one of the signs of the
radical nature of the movement. I they went on existing as organizations.
they would lose their radical charcter. So they will always disappear and
later come to life again in a more radical way. The idea that workers' groups
will finally succeed. after many experiments and failures. in fonning a
powerful organization capable O overthrowing capitalism, is similar to the
burgeois idea that a partial crtique will gradually tum into a radical one.
The activity of the working class does not proeed from expriences and ha
no other "memory" than the general conditions of capital which compel it to
act according to its nature. It dos not study its experiences; the fai lure of a
movement is itself a adequate demonstration of its limitations.
The communist organizton will grow out of the practical need
to transfon capitalism into communism. Communist organization is the
orgaiztion of the tsition towards communism. Here lies the fundamental
diference btween our time ad te foner prio. In the strggles which
took place between 1 91 7 and 1920 in Russia and Gerany, the objective
was to organize a pre-communist soiety. In Russia the radical sections
of the working class tred to win over other sections of workers, and even
the pr pasants. The i solation of the radical elements and the general
conditions of capitalism made it i mpossible for them to envi sage the practical
transformation of the entire society without a programme uniting all the
exploited classes. These rdical elements were eventual ly crshed.
The difference between our time and the past comes from the
vast development of the productive forces on nearly all continents, and the
quantitative and quali tative development of the proletariat. The working
class is now much more numerous 4 and uses highly developd means of
production. Today the conditions of communism have ben developd by
capital itself. The task of the proletariat is no longer to suppr progressive
sections of capitalists against reactionar ones. The need for a trnsitional
priod between the destrction of capi talist pwer and the triumph of
communism, during which the revolutionar power creates the conditions of
communism, has also vanished. Therefore ther i s no place for a communist
organization as a mediation btween the rdical and non-radical sectons of
the working class. The fact that an organiztion supporting the communist
programme fai ls to emerge during the perio btween major struggles is the
product of a new class relationship in capitalism.
For instance, i n France in 1 936, the resistance of capital was so
Slrong that a change of goverment was necessary bfore the workers
could get what they wanted. Toay goverments themselves i nitiate the
refors. Capital ist goverments try to create situations where the workers
organize themselves to achieve what are i n fact necessities of production
( paricipation, self-management). Contempra economy entails more and
more planning. Everthing outside the plan is a menace to soial harony.
Ever activity outside this planning is regarded as non-soial and must be
destroyed. We should keep this i n mind when analysing certain activities
of workers durng periods when there ae no mass struggles like strikes or
attempted i nsurections. The unions must (a) take advantage of workers'
struggles and control them, and (b) oppse a numbr of actions such as
sabotage ad "downtime" (stopping the l i ne), if they want to stay within the
li mi ts of the plan (productivity deals, wage agreements, etc. ).
Forms of Action Which Cannot Be Recuperted:
Sabotage and "Down timing"
Sabotage has been practised in the U.S. for many years and i s now
deVeloping in Italy and France. In 1 971 , during a rai lway strike in France, the
c.G.T officially denounced sabotage and "iresponsible" elements. Severl
engines had ben put out of order and a few damaged. Lter, in the Renault
strike in the Sprng of 1 971 . several acts of sabtage had damaged vehicles
which were being assembled. Sabotage i s becoming extrcmc1y widespread.
3
9
4
Stopping the l ine ("down-timing" ). which has always existed as a latent
phenomenon. is now becoming a common practice. It has been considerably
increased by the arrival of young workers to the labour market. and by
automation. It is accompanied by a rate of absenteeism which causes serious
touble to some frs.
These events are not new in the hi story of capi tal ism. What is
new is the context in which they take place. They are i ndeed the superfcial
symptoms of a profound social movement. the signs of a process of breaking
away from the existing soiety. At the bginning of the century. sabtage was
used as a means of exerting pressure on the bosses to force them to accept the
existence of unions. The French revolutionary unionist Pouget studied this i n
a pamphlet called Sabtage. He quotes the spech of a worker at a workers'
congress in 1 895:
'The bsses have no right to rely on our charity. If they refuse even
to discuss our demands. then we can just put into practice the ' Go Canny'
tactics, until they decide to listen to us."
Pouget adds: "Here is a clear defnition of 'Go Canny' tactics. of
' sabtage' : BAD PAY, BAD WORK."
"This line of action. used by our English frends. can be applied i n
Frnce. as our soial position is similar to that of our English brothers."
Sabotage was used by workers against the bss so that he would
admit their existence. It was a way of getting freedom of spech. Sabtage
tok place in a movement tring to tum the working class into a class which
had its place in capitalist society. "Dwntiming" was an attempt to improve
the conditions of work. Sabtage did not appear as a blunt and direct
refusal of soiety as a whole. "Downtiming" is a fght against the efects of
capitalism. Another study will b necessary to examine the limits of such
struggles and the conditions in which capital could absorb them. The social
imprtance of these strggles makes it pssible to regard them as the basis of
"moem reforism". The word "reformism" can b used to the extent that
these actions could in theory b completely absorbd by the capitalist system.
Whereas toay they are a nuisance to the noral activity of prouction.
tomorow they might well be linked to production. An "ideal" capitalism
could tolerte the self-management of the conditions of production: as long
as a noral proft is made by the frm. the organi zation of the work can b left
to the workers.
Capitalism has already carried out some concrete experiments
in this direction. particularly in Italy. in the U.S . . in Sweden (Volvo). 5 In
France. one may regard left-wing "liberl" organizations such as the PS.U .
the C.ED.T. and the left of the Soialist Party as the expression of this
capitlist tendency. For the tme bing. this movement can be defined neither
as exclusively reforist nor as anti-capitalist It should b noted that this
"'moem reforism" has often been directed against the unions. It is still
diffcult to describe its consequences on capitalist production. All we can see
so far is that these stggles attract groups of workers who feel the need to act
outside the traditional boundaries impsed by the unions.
Al though the "downti ming movement" can b defned as we have
just done, sabtage is diferent. There are two kinds of sabotage: (a) sabotage
which destroys the product of the work or the machine, (b) sabtage which
partially damages the product so that it can no longer be consumed. Sabtage
a it exists toay can in no way b kept in check by the unions, nor can
it be absorbd by production. Yet capital c prevent it by improving and
transforming its system of superision. For this reason sabtage cannot
become the form of struggle against capitl. On the other hand, sabotage
is a refex of the individual: he submits to it, as to a passion. Al though the
individual must sell his labour power, he goes "mad", i. e. , i rational compared
to what is "rational " (selling one's labur pwer and working accordi ngly).
This "madness" consists of the refusal to give up the labur pwer, to b a
commoity. The individual hates himself as an alienated creature split into
two; he tres, through destruction, through violence, to re-unify his bing,
which only exists through capital .
Since these acts are outside the bundaries of all economic planning,
they are also outside the boundaries of "reason". Newspapers have repeatedly
defned them as "anti-social" and "mad": the danger appears important
enough for society to tr to suppress it. 6 Christian ideology admitted the
suferng and soial inequality of the workers; toay capitalist ideology
impses equality in the face of wage-labour, but dos not tolerate anything
oppsed to wage-labur. The need felt by the isolated individual to oppose
physically his practical transforation into a bing totally subjected to
capital, shows that this submission is more and more intolerble. Dstrctive
acts are part of an attempt to destroy the mediation of wage labur as the only
for of social community. In the silence of te proletariat, sabotage appears
as the frst stammer of human speech.
Both activities: "downtiming" ad sabotage, require a certain
amount of agreement among the pople woring where these activities take
place. This shows that, although no foral o offcial organization appars,
there exists an underground network of relations with an anti-capitlist
basis. Such a network is more or less dense according to the importance of
the activi ty, and it disappears with the end of the anti-capitalist action. It is
noral that, apart from the "subversive" practical (and therefore theoretical)
action, the groups gathered around these subversive tasks should dissolve.
Often the need to maintain an illusion of "soial community" results in an
activity which is secondarily anti-capitalist but primarily illusor. In most
cases these groups end up by gathering around some plitical axis. In Frnce
nuclei of workers gather around such orgaiztions as "'Lutte Ouvrere," a
numbr of C. E D.T. union branches, or Maoist groups. This dos not mean that
some minorities with Trotskyist, Maoist or C.ED.T. ideas a gaining ground
among the workers, but simply that some workers' minori ties are trying to
break their isolation, which is quite noral . In all cases, the dissolution of the 41
anti-capitlist network and activity means the re-organization of the working
class by capital. as a part of capital.
In short, apart from its practcal activities, the communist movement
dos not exist. The dissolution of a soial di sorder with a communist content
is accompanied by the dissolution of the entire system of relations which it
organized. Dmocracy, divi sion of struggles into "economic" and "political"
struggles, formation of a vanguard with a socialist "consciousness", are
the illusions of days gone by. These illusions are no longer possi ble to the
extent that a new priod is bginning. The dissolution of the organizational
fors which are created by the movement, and which disappear when the
movement ends, dos not refect te weakness of the movement, but rather its
strength. The time of false battles is over. The only confict that appars real
is the one that l eads to the destruction of capitalism.
Activity of Parties and Unions
in the Face of the Communist Perspective
1 ) On the labur market, unions incrasingly bcome monopolies which buy
and sell labur pwer. When it unified i tself, capital unifed the conditions of
the sale of labour pwer. In moem conditions of production, the individual
owner of labour power is not only forced to sell it to be able to live, but
must also assoiate with other owners in order to be able to sell it. In retur
for soial pace, the unions got the right to control the hiring of labur. In
moem soiety workers ae increasingly complled to join the union if they
wat to sell their labur pwer.
At the bginning of this centur, unions were the prouct of
gatheri ngs of workers who formed coalitions to defend the average selling
prce of their commodity. The unions were not at all revolutionary, as was
shown by their atttude in World War I, when they supprted the war bth
directly and indirectly. In so far as the workers were fghting for their
existence as a class within capitist soiety, the unions had no revolutionar
functon. In Gerany, durng the revolutionar upheaval of 1 91 9- 1 920,
the union membrs went to orgaizations which defended their economic
rghts in the general context of the struggle against capitalism. 7 Outside of
a revolutionary prio, the working clas is nothing but a fraction of capital
represented by the unions. While oter fractions of capital (industral and
fnancial capital) were foring monoplies, the working class as variable
capital also formed a monoply, of which the unions are the trustees.
2) The unions developd at the end of the 1 9th and the bginning of the
20th century as organizations defending qualifed labour power. This was
paricularly clear with the rise of the A.F of L. in the US. Until World War
II (or until the birh of the C.I.O. in the 1 930's in the U.S.) unions grew by
supprting the relatively privi leged sections of the working class. This is not
to say that they had no infuence on the most exploited strata, but this infuence
4
2 wa only possible if it was consistent with the interests of the qualifed strta.
With the development of moem and automated indust, highly qualifed
workers tend to be replaced by technicians. These technicians also have
the function of controll i ng and supervising masses of unqualifed workers.
Therefore the unions, while losing imporant sections of workers whose
qualifcations fade away, tr to recrit this new stratum of technicians.
3) The unions represent labour pwer which has bcome capital. This forces
them to appear as institutions capable of valorizing capital . The unions have
to assoiate their own development prgrmme with that of i ndustrial and
fnance capitl if they want to keep "their" labur pwer under control. The
representatives of variable capital , of capital in the form of labur power,
sooner or l ater have to associate with the representatives of fractions of
capi tal who are now in power. Goverment coalitions consisting of liberal
burgeoisie, technocrats, l eft plitical groups, and unions, appear as a
necessity in the evolution of capitalism. Capita itself requires strong unions
capable of propsing economic measures which can valorize variable capitl.
The unions are not "traitors" in the sense that they btray the programe of
the working class: they are quite consistent with themselves, and with the
working class when it accepts its capitalist nature.
4) This is how we can understand the relationship between the working class
and the unions. When the proess of breaking away from capitalist society
bgins, the unions are immediately seen through and teated in ters of what
they are; but as son as the process ends, the working class cannot help bing
re-organized by capital, namely by the unions. One may say that there are no
"unionist" illusions in the worki ng class. There is only a capitalist, namely
"unionist", organization of the working class.
5) The deVelopment of the curent relationships between unions and bsses
in Italy i l lustrates what has ben said. The evolution of Italian unions should
be closely watched. It is normal that in relatively backward areas (from an
economic pint of view) such as France and Italy (compared to the U.S.), the
efects of the moerization of the economy are accompanied by the most
modem tendencies of capital . What happns in Italy is in many ways a sign
of what is maturing in other countries.
The Italian situation helps us understand the French one. In France
the e.G.T. and the P. e.F put up a ractionar resistance in the face of worker'
struggles, whereas in Italy the e.G.I.L. and the Pe.1. have ben able to re
shape themselves in terms of the new si tuation. This is one of the reasons for
the difference between the French "May" and the Italian "May". In Frnce,
May 1 968 happened suddenly and could b easi ly misunderstod. The Italian
si tuation proceeds more slowly and ultimately reveals its tendencies.
The first phase lasted from 1 968 to the winter of 1 971 . The main
element was the birth of workers' struggles independent of the infuence of
unions ad political organizations. Workers' action committees were fored
as in France, with one essential diference: the French ones were quickly 43
4
driven out of lbe factories by lbe pwer of lbe unions, which in prctice
compelled lbem to have no illusions abut the boundaries of the factory.
In so far as the general situation did not allow them to go any further, they
disappared. In Italy, on the olber hand, workers' committees were at first able
to organize lbemselves inside the factores. Neilber the bosses nor lbe unions
could really oppose them. Many committees were fored in lbe factories, in
isolation from each olber, and lbey all began to question the speed of lbe line
and to organize sabotage.
This was in fact an alienated form of critique of wage-labour.
Throughout the Italian movement the activity of extreme left groups
(gauchistes) was paricularly noteworhy. Their entire activity consisted of
limiting the movement to its foral aspcts wi thout ever showing its real
content. They bred the illusion lbat lbe"autonomy" of workers' organizations
was in itself revolutionary enough to be supported and maintained. They
glorifed all lbe formal aspects. But since they are not communists, they were
not able to express the idea that bhind the strggle against the rhythm of the
line and the working conditions lay the strggle against wage-labour.
The workers' struggle itself met no resistance. This was in fact
what disared it. It could do nothi ng but adapt to the conditions of capitalist
society. The unions, for their part, altered their structures in order to control
the workers' movement As Trentin, one of the leaders of the e.G . I. L. said, they
decided to organize "a thoroughgoing transforation of the union and a new
typ of rnk-and-fle demoracy". They reshaped their factory organizations
according to lbe patter of the "autonomous" committees which appeared in
recent struggles. The ability of the unions to control industrial strfe made
them appear as lbe only force capable of making the workers resume work.
There were negotiations in some large concers like Fiat. The result of these
negotiations was to give the union the rght to interfere in the organization
of lbe work (time and motion, wor measurement, etc.). The management of
Fiat now deducts lbe union dues from the workers' pay, which was already
the case in Belgium. At the same time, serious eforts are being made to reach
an agreement on a merger between the biggest unions: U.I.L. (Socialist),
C.I. S.L. (Christan-Democrat), c.G.I.L. (P.c. I. ).
NOTE: The Italian example clearly shows the tendency of unions to become
monoplies which discuss lbe conditions of prouction of surplus-value wilb
olber frctions of capital. Here a quotations from Petril l i, president of lbe
State-owned I.R. (State Holding Company), and Trentin:
Trentin: " . . . Job enrichment and lbe admission of a higher degree of
autonomy in decision-making by the workers' group concered (in each
factor) are already possible . . . Even when, bcause of the fail ure of lbe
union, workers' protests lead to irrtional and illusory demands, the workers
express lbeir refusal to prouce without thinking, to work without deciding;
lbey express their need for power."
Petilli: "In my opinion it is obvious lbat lbe system of lbe assembly line
implies a real waste of human capacites and prouces a ver understandable
feel ing of frustration in the worker. The resulting soial tensions must b
real istically understood a strctrl rather than conjunctural facts . . . . Greater
participation of the workers in the el abrtion of production objectives poses
a series of problems having to do less wit the organization of work than with
the defnition of the power balance within the fn. "
The programmes are identical and the aims are the same: increased
productivity. The only remaining problem is the sharng of power, which is
at the rot of the political crisis in many industral countries. It is likely that
the end of the political crisis will b accompanied by the birth of "workers'
pwer" a the pwer of wage-labur, under varous fons: self-management,
"ppular" coal itions, Socialist-Communist Paries, left-wing goverments
with right-wing programmes, rght-wing goverments with left-wing
programmes. 8
Notes
I . If it had. pople would know abut it a they do abut the situationist-infuenced
Council for the Maintenance of Occupations (CMDO) , active from May 1 0th and
located in another university building ten minutes walk from either the Sorbonne or
Censier. In its history of 68, the SI dismisses the Censier committee a too duty to
be of real interest. The CMDO certai nly had psters and leafet widely circulated, in
France and abroad. wherea Censier was more connected to workplaces, but the truth
is. both were among the bst radical apcts of 6. Dscribed by the SI as "a link, not
a pwer", the CD decided to break up on June 1 5th. ( 1 9 note, G.D.) back
2. Hence the M. I.T. report and the debate on "zro growth". back
3. Here's an example from the engine drvers' strike at Paris-Nord, 1986. A meeting
had just voted against bloking the tracks to prevent trains from rnning. But when the
strikers saw the frst train come out of the station, driven by middle managers under
plice protection. they rushed to the tracks to stop it, undoing by spontneous action
hours of democratic discusion.
Communism is of course the movement of a vat majority at long lat able
to take actions into their own hands. To that extent, communism is "democratic", but
it dos not uphold demoracy as a principle. Politician, bsses and bureaucrats tke
advantage either of a minority or a majority when it suits them: so dos the proletariat.
Worker' militancy often stems from a handful . Communism is neither the rle of
the most numerous, nor of the few. To debate and/or star acting, pople obviouly
have to gather somewhere, and such common ground ha been called a soviet,
committee, counci l , etc. It turs into an i nstitution, however, when the moment and
machinery of decision-making prevail over actions. This separation is the essence of
parl iamentarsm.
True. pople must decide for themselves. But any decision, revolutionar
or not, depnds on what ha happned before and what is still going on outside the
foral deciding structure. Whover organizes the meeting sets the agenda; whover
aks the question determines the answer; whoever calls the vote carries the decision.
Revolution does not put forward a different form of organization, but a different 4
5
solution from that of capitl and reforism. As prnciples. demoracy and dictatorship
4
are equal ly wrong: they isolate a spcial and seemingl . privileged moment.
Demand for democracy wa at its height " France, 1 9. From shop
asistants to frefghlers and schol kids, ever group wanted to get logether and
freely manage its own world, hoping this would result in global change. Even the
situationists remained within the scop of democracy, in a councilist way of course,
i.e. anti-statist and going beyond commodity and profit, but still separating means
from ends. The SI wa the most adequate expression of May 68. ( 1 997 note, G.D.)
back
4. This 192 statement may sound odd 25 year later, still we hold it to b tre.
Growing unemployment gos together with a rise in the number of wage earers, not
only in the US, but in France, and even more so on a world scale, where millions of
pople have ben forced into the hadship of moem labur in the lat decade, a i n
China.
Needles to say, "work" h ver diferent meanings. An African wage
laburer provides money for up to 20 pople, wherea a West Europan one suppors
2 or 3. (19 note, G.D.) back
5. This passage refers to the transforation of the Taylor system. The asembly line
ha already partly disappeared i n some factories. back
6. Offcial CP leader statement, 1 90: "There are workers we'll never defend: those
who smah machines or car they maufacture." ( 1 9 note, G.D.) back
7. Such a the Shop Stewards' Movement, the French Revolutionar Syndicalist
Committees, and the German General Workers' Assoiation (AAUD). back
8. Uke the SI at abut the same tme, this text regarded Italy a a research lab o
proletaran action and capitalist counter-ofensive. In the fol lowing years, Italy wa
to display a rich variety of workers' autonomy: indisci pline, absenteeism, meetings
on the shop-for without notice, demos on the premises to call for a strke, wildcat
picketing, blokade of goods ... A pranent feature was the rejection of hierarchy:
equal pay rise, no privileged category, free speech . . . Another apect was the attempt to
go byond the distinction between representation and action (parliamentJgoverment:
see above, note 3) in the working of the rank-and-fle committees. Such self
organiztion wa essental a a meas of collective action, but when it failed a an
orga of soia change that did no come abut, it disappred with t rest of the
proletan surge.
It wa no accident that t big factor committees of norther Italy were
only loely connected: resisting the bsc b a loal matter, wherea reorganizing
prouction and soial life mean going out of one's workplace - out of the factory
gates, and out of the company as accumulated value one belongs to. ( 1 9 note, G.D.)
back
LENINISM AND TH ULTR-LEFT
by Gilles Dauve ( 1 969)
Intrduction
The fol lowing text is a modifed version of a mimeographed text written
by a small group of French revol utionares who had been under the
infuence of the ul tra-left movement and now think it necessar to discuss
the fundamenL1.1 theses of the ultra-left. The original text was submitted to
a national convention organised by the Frnch group I .CO. (lnformions
Correspondnce Ouvrieres), held in Paris i n June, 1 969. The part devoted to
the analysis of the dynamics of capitalism was wrtten later. We decided to
translate the second version of our text into English in order to give English
speaking readers an idea of our work and our problems.
Our critique of ultra-left i deas wi l l concentrate on two points
which are closely related: the problem of "organisation," and the content of
social ism. Our critique must be historical: our aim is not to oppse ideas wi th
other ideas, but to understand the historical background of the theories we
are examining. This procedure is all the more justifed since these theores
constntly refer to a defnite past and to other theories produced by a defnite
prio in the hi story of the labur movement.
What is the ul tra-left? It is bth the prouct and one of the aspcts
of the revolutionary movement which followed the frst world war and shok
capital ist Europ wi thout destroying it frm 1 91 7 to 1 921 or 1 923. Ulta-left
ideas are rooted in that movement of the twenties, which was the expression
of the struggle of many thousands of revolutionary workers in Europe.
That movement remained a minority in the Communist Interational and
opposed the general line of the interational communist movement. The term
i tself suggests the charcter of the ultra-left. There is the rght (the soial
patriots, Noske ... ), the centre (Kautsky ... ), the left (Lnin and the Communist
Interational ), and the ultra-left. The ultra-left is prmarly a oppsition: an
opposition within and agai nst the German Communist Party (K.PD.), within
and - against the Communist Interational . It assers itself through a critique
of the prevai l ing ideas of the communist movement, i .e., through a crtique of
Leninism.
The ul tra-left was f from bing a monolithic movement.
Furthermore, its various components modifed their conceptions. For
instance, Gorter's open letter to Lenin expresses a theory of the party which
the ul tra-left no longer accepts. On the two main points ("organisation" and
the content of socialism) we shall only study the ideas which the ul tra-left has
retained throughout its development. The French group I .CO. is one of the
best examples of a present-day ultra-left group.
47
4
The Prblem of Organization
Ultra-left ideas are the product of a prctical experence (mainly the workers'
struggles in Germany) and of a theoretical critique (the critique of Leninism).
For Lenin, the main revolutionary problem was to forge a "leadership"
capable of leading the workers to victory. When ultra-leftists tried to give a
theoretical explanation of the rse of factory organisations in Gerany, they
said the working class dos not need a party in order to be revolutionary.
Revolution would b made by the masses organised in workers' councils
and not by a proletriat "led" by professional revol utionaries. The German
Communist Workers' Par (K.A. P.D.), whose acti vity is expressed
theoretically by Gorter in his "Reply to Lenin," regarded itself as a vanguard
whose task was to enlighten the masses, not to lead them, as in Lninist
theory. Even this conception was rejected by many ul tra-leftists. who opposed
the dual existence of the factor organisations and the party: revolutionaries
must not t to organise themselves in a body distinct from the masses.
That discussion led to the creation, in 1 90, of the A. A. U.D.-E (General
Union of German Workers-Unitary Organisation), which reproached the
A.A.U.D. (General Lbour Union of Gerany) with being controlled by
the K.A. P.D. (German Communist Workers' Party). The majorty of the
ul tra-left movement adopted the same view as the A. A. U. D.-E ] n France,
I.C.O.'s present activity is based on the same principle: any revolutionary
organisation coxisting with the organs created by the workers themselves,
and tring to elaburate a coherent theory and political l i ne, must in the
end attempt to lead the workers. Therefore revolutionaries do not organise
themselves outside the organs "spontaneously" created by the workers: they
merely exchange and circulate i nforation and establish contacts with other
revolutionaries; they never try to defne a general theor or strategy.
To understand this conception, we must go back to Leninism. The
Lninist theor of the party is based on a distinction which can b found in all
the great soialist thinkers of the prod: "labour movement" and "soialism"
(revolutionar ideas, the dotrne, Scientfc Soialism, Marxism, etc. - it
can b given many difrent names) are two things which are fundamentally
diferent and separte. There are workers and their daily struggles on the one
hand, ad there are the revolutionaries on the other. Lnin proceeds to state that
revolutionary ideas must b "introuced" into the working class. The labur
movement and the revolutionar movement are severed from each other: they
must b united through the leadership of the revolutionaries over the workers.
Therefore revolutonaries must b organised and must act on the working class
"from the outside." Lnin's analysis, situati ng the revol utionares outside the
labour movement, seems to b based on fact: it appears that revolutionaries
live in a totally diferent world from that of workers. Yet Lnin does not see
that this is an ill usion. Marx's analysis ad his scienti fic socialism as a whole
are not the prouct of "bourgeois intellectual s," but of the class stggle on
all its levels under capitalism. "Soialism" is the expression of the strggle of
the proletariat. It was e1abourted by "burgeois intellectuals" (and by highly
educated workers: 1. Dietzgen) bcause only revolutionaries coming from
the bourgeoisie were able to e1abourate it, but it was the product of the class
struggle.
The revolutionary movement, the dynamic that leads toward
communism, is a result of capital ism. Lt us examine Marx's conception
of the party. The word, party, appears frequently in Mar's writings. We
must make a ,distinction between Marx's principles on this question and his
analyses of many aspects of the labur movement of his time. Many of those
anal yses were wrong (for example his view of the future of trde unionism).
Moreover we cannot find a text where Marx summed up his ideas on the pary,
but only a number of scattered remarks and comments. Yet we believe that
a general point of view emerges from all these texts. Capitalist society itself
produces a communist pary, which is nothing more than the organisation of
the objective movement (this implies that Kautsky's ad Lnin's conception
of a "socialist consciousness" which must b "brought" to the workers is
meaningless) that pushes society toward communism (we shall son deal
with what communism is, or at leat with what it is not). The strggle of the
proletariat develops under varous fors. Lenin saw a reformist proletariat
and said that something had to be done ("soialist consciousness" had to be
introduced) in order to tum it into a revolutionary proletariat. Thus Lenin
showed that he total ly misunderstoo class strggle. In a non-revolutionary
period the proletariat cannot change cpitalist prouction relations. It
therefore tries to change capitalist distribution relations through its demand
for higher wages. Of course the workers do not "know" that they are changing
the distribution relations when they ask for higher wages. Yet they do try,
"unconsciously," to act upn the capitalist system. Kautsky and Lenin do not
see the proess, the revolutionar movement created by capitalism; they only
see one of its aspects Kautsky's and Lnin's theory of class consciousness
breaks up a process and considers only one of its trnsitor moments: for
them the proletariat "by its own resources alone" can only b reformist.
whereas the revolutionaries stand outside of the labur movement. In actual
fact the revolutionaries and their ideas and theories originate in the worers'
struggles.
In a non-revolutionary perio, revolutionar workers, isolated in
their factores, do their bst to expse the real nature of capitalism and the
institutions which suppr it (unions, "workers'" partes). They usually do
this with little success, which is quite noral. And there ae revolutionares
(workers and non-workers) who read and write, who do their bst to provide
a critique of the whole system. They usually do this with little success,
which is also quite noral. This division is prouced by capitalism: one of
the characteristics of capital ist society is the division between manual and
intellectual work. This division exists in all the sphers of our society; it
also exists in the revolutionary movement. It would be idealistic to expct
the revolutionar movement to b "pure," as if it were not a prouct of our
49
50
society. Inevitably the revolution.J( Y movement under capitalim, that is
communism, bears the stigma of e; 'pitalism.
Only the complete success of revolution can destroy this division.
Until then we must fght against it; i t characterises our movement as much
as it charcterises the rest of our soiety. It is inevitable that numerous
revolutionaries are not greatly inclined to reading and are not interested
in theor. This is a fact, a transitor fact. But "revolutionary workers" and
"revolutionar theoreticians" are two aspects of the same process. It is wrong
to say that the "theoreticians" must lead the "workers." But it is equal ly wrong
to say, as I.CO. says, that collectively organised theory is dangerous because
it will result in leadership over the workers. l.CO. merely tkes a position
symmetrcal to Lnin's. The revolutonar proess is an organic proess, and
although its compnents may b sepaate from each other for a certain time,
the emergence of any revolutonar (or even pseudo-revolutionar) situation
shows the profound unity of the various elements of the revolutionar
movement.
Wat happned in May, 1 968, in the worker-student action
committees at the Censier centre in Paris? Some (ul tra-left) communists, who
before these events had devoted most of their revolutionar activity to theory,
worked with a minority of revolutionar workers. Before May, 1 968 (and
since then), they were no more separate from the workers than every worker
is separte from other worers in a "noral ," non-revolutionary situation
in capital ist soiety. Mar was not separate frm the workers when he was
writing Capital, nor when he was working in the Communist League or the
Interational. When he worked in these organisations he felt neither the need
(as Lnin), nor the fear (as I.CO.), to bcome the l eader of the workers.
We think that Marx's noton of the party has at least one merit.
Mar's conception of the party as a historical product of capital ist soiety
taking diferent fors according to the stage and the evolution of that society
enables us to go byond the dilemma: need of the partylfear of the party.
The communist party i s the spntaneous (i.e., totall y deterined by soial
evolution) organisation of the revolutionar movement created by capitalism.
The party is a spntaneous ofspring, br on the historical soil of moem
soiety. Both the will and the fear to "create" the pary are il lusions. It dos
not need to be created or not created: it is a mere historcal product. Therefore
revolutionaries have no need either to build it or fear to build it.
Lenin had a theory of the party. Marx had another theory of the party,
which was quite diferent from Lnin's. Lenin's theor was an element in the
defeat of the Russian revolution. The ultra-left rejected all theores of the
party as dangerous and counter-revolutionary. Yet Lnin's theor was not at
the root of the defeat of the Russian revolution. Lnin's theor only prevailed
bcause the Russian revolution failed for various reasons (mainly because of
the absence of revolution i n the West). One must not discard all theories of the
party because one of them (Lnin's) was a counter-revolutionary instrument.
Unfortunately, the ultr-left merely adopted a conception which is the exact
opposite of Lenin's. Lenin had wanted to build a pary; the ultr-left refused
to build one. The ul tra-left thus gave a diferent answer to the same wrong
question: for or against the constrction of the pary. The ultra-left remained
on the same ground as Lenin. We, on the contry, do not want merely to
reverse Lenin's view; we want to abandon it altogether.
Moem Leninist groups (Trotskyist groups, for instance) try to
organise the workers. Modem ultr-left groups (I.CO. , for instance) only
ci rculate inforation without trying to adopt a collective psition on a
problem. As opposed to this. we blieve it necessar to formulate a theoretical
critique of present society. Such a critique implies collective work. We also
think that any permanent group of revolutionary workers must tr to find a
theoretical basis for its action. Theoretical clarfcation is an element of, and
a necessar condition for. practical unifcaton.
The Content of Socialism
The Russian revolution died bcause it had to develop capitalism in Russia.
To create an effcient bdy of manager bcame its motto. The ul tra-left
quickly concluded that bureaucratic management could not be socialism
and they advocated workers' management. A coherent ultra-left theor was
created. with workers' council s at its centre: the councils act as the fighting
organs of the workers under capitalism and a the instrments of workers'
management under soialism. Thus the councils play the same central role in
the ultra-left theory as the party in the Lninist theor.
The theor of workers' management analyses capitalism in ters
of its management. But is capital ism frst of all a mode of management?
The revolutionary analysis of capital ism started by Mar dos not lay
the stress on the question: who maages capital? On the contrar: Marx
describes both capitalists and workers as mere functions of capital: "the
capitalist as such is only a function of capital , the laburer a function of
labur pwer. " The Russian leaders do not "lead" the economy; they are
led by it, and the entire development o the Russian economy obys the
objective laws of capitalist accumulaton. In other wors, the manager is at
the serice of defnite and complling prouction relations. Capitalism is not
a mode of MANAGEMENT but a mode of PRODUCION based on given
PRODUCTION RELATIONS. Revolution must aim at these relations; we
will try to analyse them briefy. The revolutonary analysis of capitalism
emphasises the role of capital , whose objective laws are obyed by the
"managers" of the economy, bth in Russia and in America.
The Law of Value
Capitalism is bascd on exchange: it frt presents itself as "an immense
accumulation of commodities." But though it could not exist without
exchange, capitalism is not merely the production of commodities; it grows 5 1
and develops cven by fghting against simple commoity production. Capital
is fundamentally based on a particular typ of exchange, the exchange
btween living labour and stored labour. The diference between Marx and
the clasica economists lies primarily in his creation of the concept of labour
power: thi s concept reveals the secrt of surplus-value, since it diferentiates
btween necessary-labour and surplus labur.
How do commoities confront each other? By what mechanism
can one deterine that X quantity of A has the same value as y quantity of
B? Marx does not try to fnd the explanation for x = yB in the concrete
nature of A and B, in their respctive qualities, but in a quantitative relation:
A and B can only be exchanged in the proprtion x = yB because they both
contain a quantity of "something common" to bth of them. If we abstract the
concrete and useful nature of A and B, they retain only one thing in common:
they are both "products of labour." A and B are exchanged in proportions
deterined by the respective quantities of labour crystallised in them. The
quantities of labour are measured by their duration. The concept of socially
necessar labur time, developd by furher analysis, is an abstraction: one
cannot calculate what an hour of soially necessary labour represents in a
given society. But the distinction btween abstrct and concrete labour allows
Marx to understand the mechanism of exchange and to analyse a particular
for of exchange: the wage system.
"Te best poits in my book are: J ) the two-fold character of labur
according to whether it is expressed in use value or exchange value. (All
understanding of the facts depends upon this.) It is emphasised immediately,
in the frst chater .
..
The buying and selling of all commoities, including the labur force, obeys
what Mar calls the law of value. At first that law seems to be quite simple:
commoities are exchanged according to their value, which is determined
by the labour time soially necessar for their production. Yet in the third
volume of Capital Marx asserts that:
"T exchange of comdities at their values, or approximately at their
values, requires a much lower stage than their exchange at their prices of
prodction, which requires a defnite level ofcaitalist development . ..
In fact, the law of value is analysed as both the cause and the consequence of
a long and contdictory evolution, which we will try to summase.
Exchange appars in prmitive soieties only when the degree of
prouctivity allows pople to prouce more than they need to stsfy their
own needs. The division of labur appears, as well as money, which "seres
as a universal measure of value": exchange-value thus seems to acquire some
sor of autonomy, embied by the money-lender and the merchant, who ea
their living out of the circulation of money, ad in fact derive their living
from the surplus-labour of prouctive working pople. Money implies prces:
5
2
prce is the monetar form of value, altough it does not coincide with value.
The relation btween supply and demand i ntereres at three levels: ther is
comptition I) among the sellers, 2) among the buyers, 3) btween the sellers
and te buyers. The relation btween supply and demand causes a fall or a
rse of price blow or abve the value of te commoity. But in a given pro
of time, and within the limits of these oscillations, the value of a commodity
is not deterined by comptition, but by its cost of proucton. The value of
the commoity is determined by the soially necessary labur time; its price,
by the relation between supply and demand. The law of value "is none other
than that which, within the fuctuations of trade prios, necessarily levels
out the price of a commodity to its cost of prouction.'
So far we have only considerd the case of simple commodity
production. Capi talism develops the law of value and makes the relation of
prce to value extremely complex. Pri mitive capi talist accumulation is based
on:
a) the transforation of labour-power into a commodity, which implies that
labur-power freel y appears on the market as an element distnct from the
others in the labur proess:
b) the accumulation of a considerable capital which is to be invested in
industry.
The large sums gathered under the mercantile system from the 1 5th to the
17th centuries were used for this purpse. In a totally diferent situation,
one of the aims of thc destrction of the kulaks and NEPmen which stared
in 1 928. in Russia, was to allow the State to seize a considerable stok of
values in order to invest them in industr. In both cases, the development of
commercial capital was the step that had to precede a great industral bm.
Produced by the development of exchange, capital i tself spreads exchange
throughout the planet and thereby modifies, not the law of value, but the way
it manifests i tself: the forms of value are transformed in order to maintain
and ful ly develop the content of the l aw. The distinction price/value existed
before capital ism, but industrial capitalism modi fes it. We know that prce
osci llates around value according to the fuctuation of supply and demand.
But capi talist soiety creates a dynamic movement in the relation price/
value.
"Wat will be the consequence ofthe rising price of a condit? A mass
ofcaital will be thrown into that fourishing branch of industr and this
infux ofcapital into the domain of the favoured industr will continue until
it yields the ordinar profts or, rather until the price of its prdcts. through
overproduction, sinks below the cost ofproduction. "
Ma analyses this problem more systematically in the third volume of
Capital:
"Owing to the di erent organic compositions of caitals invested in di erent
53
lines ofproduction, and, hence, owing to the circumstance that - depending on
the di erent percentage which the variable part makes up in a total capital of
a given magnitude-capitals ofequal magnitude put into motion ver di erent
quantities oflabour, they also apropriate ver di erent quantities ofsurplus
labour or produce ver di erent quantities ofsurplus-value. Accordingly, the
rates ofproft prevailing in the various branches ofprduction are originally
ver di erent. Tese di erent rates of proft are equalised by cometition to a
single general rate ofproft, which i the average ofall these di erent rates of
proft. Te proft accruing in accordnce with this general rate ofproft to any
caital ofa given magnitde, whatever its organic comosition, is called the
average proft. Te price ofa commodit, which is equal to its cost-price plus
the share ofthe annual average proft on the total capital invested (not merely
consumed) in its production that falls to it in accordnce with the conditions
ofturover is called its price ofprodction . ..
This proess is the equalisation of the rate of proft: the development of
exchange gives birth to a market prce, which oscillates with the fuctuations
of competi tion within the limits we have descrbed. The movement of market
prices seems to negate the law of value. But the circulation of capital , its
never ending search for branches where the cost of prouction is as low
as pssible, tends to make all rates of proft uniform. Capitism tends to
create what Ma called a "capitalist communism" where all surlus-value
is redistributed. A price of proucton is created a a sort of average of the
oscillations of the market prces of each commoi ty.
"Te price thus equalised, which divides up the social surplus value equally
among the individal capitals in proportion to their sizes. is the price of
prodction ofcomdities, the centre around which the oscillation ofthe
market prices moves . ..
Like market prices, the price of production seems to be a new negation of
the law of value. since the price of commoities is compsed of their cost of
prouction plus the averge profi t:
"It would seem. therefore. that here the theor ofvalue is incompatible with
the actual process, incompatible with the real phenomena ofprduction . . . ..
We must neverheless think of soiety as a whole and consider the entire
capitalist proess of production.
"Te capital invested in some spheres ofproduction h a mean, or average,
composition, that is, it has the same, or almost the same composition as the
average social capital. "
In other sectors, it dos not coincide with value; a phenomenon of
"compnsation" appars.
5
4
"The assumption that the commodities ofthe various spheres ofproduction
are sold at their value merely implies, ofcourse, that their value is the centre
ofgravity around which their prices fuctuate, and their continual rises and
drops tend to equalise. There is also the markt-value . . . to be distinguished
fom the individual value ofparticular comdities produced by di erent
producers. The individual value ofsome ofthese commodities will be below
their market-value (that is. less labour-time is required for their prduction
than expressed in the market-value) while that of others will exceed the
market-value . ..
The meri t of Marx's analysis is that he tres to show a direct link between
the supply-demand relation and the question of labour time (as he did by
distinguishing btween value and price).
"For a commodit to be sold at its market-value
.
i.e., proportionally to the
necessar social labour contained in it. the total quantit of social labour
used in producing the total mass ofthis comdit mst correspond to the
quantit ofthe social wall for it. i.e . the efective social want. Competition.
the fuctuations of market-prices which correspond to the fuctuations of
demand and supply
.
tend continually to reduce to this scale the total quantit
oflabour devoted to each kind ofcommodit . ..
There is no contradiction between value, on the one hand, and the cost of
production plus the average proft on the other. The operation of capitalism.
by transforming surplus-value into profi t. i tself establishes the proprion
of the value of a commodity which represents the cost of prouction and
the porti on which represents the averge proft. The average proft, though
it appears as "something outside," is merely the prouct of the total capital
invested by soiety.
"It is evident that fom the point ofview ofthe total social caital the value of
the commodities prodced by it (or, expressed in money, their price) = value
ofconstant caital + value ofvariable caital + surplus-value. "
"It is evident that the average proft can be nothing but the total mass
ofsurplus-values allotted t the various quantities ofcaital prportionally
to their magnitudes in the di erent spheres ofprduction . ..
By i ts double negation of the law of value through the market price and
the price of production, capitalism merely reinforces and extends the
dominion of the law of value. Value now acquires a "modifed" for: but
the transformation of values into prices of production, and the creation of
a market value distinct from the individual value, realise the law while
generalising it.
"The commodities - taken en masse and on a social scale - are sold at their
values .
.
.
Marx sums up the process by which the law of value asserts itself through its 55
double negation:
"What competition, frst in a single sphere, achieves is a single market-value
and market-price derivedfom the various individual values ofcommodities.
And it is competition ofcapitals in di erent spheres, whichfrst brings out the
price ofprduction equalising the rates ofproft in the di erent spheres. The
latter prcess requires a higher development ofcapitalist prduction than the
previous one .
... . . This always resolves itsel to one commodity receiving too little
ofthe surplus-value while another receives too much, so that the deviations
fom the value which are embodied in the prices ofprduction compensate
one another. Under caitalist production, the general law acts as the
prevailing tendency only in a ver comlicated and approximate manner, as
a never ascertainable average ofceaseless fuctuations. "
These developments elucidate the historical cycle of exchange which runs its
course through capitalism. "Popular" Marxism has tured the law of value
into a mere regulating mechanism, disregarding what was interesting in
Marx's study: the attempt to discover the dynamics of capitalism. The very
movement of the law of value makes labour time one of the elements of this
dynamics .
.. / demonstrate that the average price of commodities can never be equal to
its value precisely because the value of the comdit is determined by its
labour time. "
Lbur time, in fact, deterines the entire soial organisation of prouction
and distribution. It regulates the proprions in which the prouctive forces
are used for spcifc puroses at spcific places. The law of value "asserts
itsel as it dtermines the necessar proportions of social labour, not in the
genera sense which aplies to aU societies, but only in the sense required by
capitalist societ; in other words
.
it establishes a proportional distribution
of the whole social labour according to the specic needs of capitalist
Production. "
This is one of the reasons why capital will not b invested in a
factory in India even though the prouction of that factor may b necessar
to the survival of the ppulation. Capital always gos where it can mUltiply
quickly. The regulation by labour tme compels capitist society to develop
a given prouction only where the l abour time soially necessar for this
prouction is at most equal to the averge labur time. "Te form in which
this proportional distribution oflabour asserts itsel in a state of society
where the interconnection of social labour is maniested in the private
exchange of the individual products of labour is precisely the exchange value
ofthese products. "
Such is the logic of capital : exchange-value determined by average labour
5
6
time. Marx wondered i this movement i tself prouced the irrational ity of the
capital ist system. We will only deal with one aspect of the contradiction, by
studying Marx's analysis of labour time.
The Contradiction of Labour Time
We mentioned the central role played by surplus l abour in the production
of surplus value. Marx emphasised the origin, the function and the limit of
surlus labour.
" . . . Only when a certain degree ofprdctivit has alreay been reached
- so that a part ofproduction time is sufcient for immediate production -
can an increasingly large part be applied to the production ofthe means of
prduction. Tis requires that societ be able to wait: that a large part ofthe
wealth already created can be withdrawn both fom immediate consumtion
and fom production for immediate consumption. in order to emloy this
part for labour which is 1I0t immediately productive (within the 1terial
production prcess itse/ .
.
.
Wage labour is the means for deVeloping the productive forces.
"Real economy - saving - consists ofthe saving oflabour time (minimum
(and minimisation) ofprduction costs): but this saving [is] identical with
development ofthe productive force . .
.
Wage labur makes possible the production of surplus value through the
appropriation of surplus labour by capital. In that sense the miserble
condition which is thc lot of the worker is a historical necessi ty. The worker
must be complled to furish surplus labur. This is how the productive
forces dcvelop and increase the share of surplus labur in the working day:
Capital creates "a large quantit ofdisposable time . . . (i.e. room
for the development ofthe individuals 'fl productive forces. hence those of
societ also}. "
The contradictory or "anti thetical existence". of surlus labur is
quite clear:
- it creates the "wealth of nations,"
- it brings nothing but mi sery to the workers who fursh it.
This contradiction has an objective basis: the need for the growth of the
producti ve forces. But when that growth reaches a fantastically high level,
surplus labour becomes so important i n relation to necessary labour that
it becomes possible to modify the relation of the worker to surplus labour
through the destruction of the contrdictor basis of surplus labour.
Capital " 'is thus. despite itsel instumental in creating the means of
social disposable time. in order to redce labour time for the whole societ
to a diminishing minimum. and thus to fee everone : time for their own
5
7
development. ".
I n communism, the excess of time in relation t o necessary labour
time will lose the character of surplus labour which the hi storical limits of
the prouctive forces had bstowed on it under capitalism. Dispsable time
will cease to be based on the pover of labour. There will b no need to use
misery to create wealth. When the relation between necessary labur and
surplus labur is overthrown by the rise of the productive forces, the excess
of time beyond labour needed for material existence will lose its transitor
fon of surplus labur .
.. Free time - which is both idle time a time for higher activit - has naturally
transformed its possessor into a di erent subject. and he then enters into the
direct prduction process as this di erent subject .
.
.
The economy of labur time is an absolute necessity for the development
of mankind. It lays the foundation for the possibility of capitalism and, at a
higher stage, of communsm. The same movement develops capi talism and
makes communism bth necessary and pssible.
The law of value and measurement by average labour time are
i nvolved i n the same proess. The law of value expresses the limit of
capitalism and plays a necessar par. As long as the prouctive forces are
not yet highly developed and immediate labour remains the essential factor of
production. measurement by average labour time is an absolute necessi ty. But
with the development of capital. espcially of fxed capital , "the creation of
real wealth comes to depend less on labour time and on the amount of labour
employed than on the pwer of the agencies set in motion during labour time,
whose ' pwerul efectiveness' is itself in tm out of all proportion to the
direct labour time spnt on their prouction, but depnds rather on the general
state of science and on the progress of technology. or the application of this
science to proucton.
The misery of the proletat has ben the condition for a considerable
growth of fxed capital, in which al the scientifc and technical knowledge of
mankind is "fxed." Automation. the efects of which we are now beginning
to see, is but one stage in this development. Yet capital continues to regulate
production through the measurement of average l abour time.
"Capital itsel is the moving contraiction. [in] that it presses to reduce
labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time. on the other side. as
sole measure a source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labour time in the
necessar form so a to increase it in the superous form . ..
What we said about the "contradictory exi stence" of surpl us labour must be
connected with the question of labur time. The well known contradiction
prouctve forces/production relations cannot b understo if one does not
see the link between the following oppositions:
58
a) contradiction btween the function of average labour time a a regulator
of "under-developed" productive forces, ad the gTwth of prouctive forces
which tends to destroy the necessity of such a function.
b) contradiction between the necessity of developing to a maximum the
surplus labour of the worker in order to prouce as much surplus value as
possible, and the very growth of surplus labour which makes its suppression
possible.
The contradictory relation productive forces/production relations can only
b understood as a concept to build, as a synthesis of several questions
at diferent levels: problems of credi t, of rent. . . The contrdiction of
labur time and thc dynamics of this contrdiction are but one aspect of
the opposi tion between the growth of prouctive capacities and the social
relations of capital ist society.
Mar attempted to give a synthesis of points a) and b):
"As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring
of wealth. labour time ceases and mst cease to be its measure, and hence
exchange value {must cease to be the measure} ofuse value. Te surplus
labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of
general wealth
.
just as the non-labour ofthe few, for the development ofthe
general powers ofthe human head .
.
.
"Human liberation, " prophesied by all utopian thinkers (past and
present), is then possible:
" With that, production based on exchange value breaks down . .
. . The fee development of individualities. a hence not the reduction of
necessary labour time so a to posit surplus labour but rather the general
reduction of the necessary labour of societ to a minimum, which then
corresponds to the artistic, scientifc etc. development ofthe individuals in
the time set fee. and with the means created, for all ofthem. "
What one might call the dialectics of labur time is also i nteresting as regards
the subject of communist society and the necessary transition which leads to
it. I one studies the question of labur time and measure as we have tred
to. one will b able to understand asserions by Marx which might otherise
seem somewhat paradoxical or even contrdictor.
"Ever child kows that a nation which ceased to work, 1 will not say for a
year, but even for a few weeks, would perish. Ever child knows, too, that
the masses ofproducts corresponding to the di erent needs require di erent
and quantitatively determined masses ofthe total labour ofsociet. That this
necessit ofthe distribution ofsocial labour i defnite proportions cannot
possibly be done away with by a particular form ofsocial production but can
only change the mode ofits appearace, is sel evident. No natura/ laws Can
be done away with. What can change in historically di erent circumstances
is only the form in which these laws assert themselves . ..
59
We have seen that the law of value organises what ukharn calls "the social ly
indispensable proprions btween the various brnches of production," and
creates "the state of equil i brium" of society, with average labour time as the
fundamental regulator.
Yet we read in a letter wrinen by Marx to Egels on January 8,
1 868:
"No form ofsociet can prevent the working time at the disposal ofsociet
fom regulating production one wa or another. So long, however as this
regulation is accomlished not by the direct a cOllscious cOlltrol ofsociet
over its working time - which is possible only with commoll oWllership - but
by the movement ofcommodit prices. things remain as you have already
quite aptly described them in the Deutsch-Frazosische lahrbucher . . "
There is in fact no incoherence in Marx's thought at this level. This letter has
ben interpreted in all pssible ways in the debate which drew a fundamental
opposition btween Bukharin and Peobrzhensky. but the real content of
Marx' s ideas has not been presented in its true l i ght. One thing is certain:
Marx opposes regulation by soially necessary labour time to regulation by
available time. Of course these are not two methos which could b used or
rejected, but two historical objective proesses involving all social relations.
Many people know the pages from the Critique of the Gotha Programme
where Ma explains that "within the co-operative societ based on comll
ownership ofthe means ofprodction, the producers do not exchange their
products; just as liltle does the labour employed on the products appear here
as the value ofthese products, as a material quality possessed by them. since
now, in contrast to caitalist societ, inividual labour no longer exists in an
indirect fashion but directly as a comonent part ofthe total labur. "
The following passage from the second volume of Capital is less frequently
quoted:
"I we conceive societ as being not caitalistic but comnistic, there
wibe no nwney-caital at all in the frst place, nor the disguises cloaking
the trasactions arising on account of it. Te question then comes down
to the need ofsociet to calculate beforehand how much labour means of
productioll, a meas ofsubsistence it can invest, without detriment, in such
lines ofbusiness as for instance the building ofrailways, which do not furnish
any means ofproduction or subsistence, nor produce any useful efect for a
long time, a year or more, while they extract labour means ofproduction
and means of subsistence fom the total annual production. In capitalist
societ however where social reason alwas asserts itsel only post festu1
great disturbances may a must constantly occur. On the one hand pressure
is brught to bear on the money-mket, while on the other an eas money
market calls such enterprises into being en masse, thus creating the ver
6 circumstances which later give rise to pressure on the money-mrket. "
Marx states that in communist soiety there will b a high level of
development of the productive forces. This level will make it pssible for
mankind not to measure with necessary labour time. Yet something will b
needed to study the relative imporance given to one or another branch. Te
calculation will not b made according to the soial cost of the prouct, but
by confronting the various needs. "To everyboy according to his needs,"
in Marx's view, docs not mean that "everything" will exist "in abundance";
the notion of absolute "abundance" is itself a ideological notion and not a
scientifc concept There will have to be some sort of calculation and choice.
not on the basis of exchange value, but on the basis of use value, of the social
utility of the considered product. (Thereby the problem of "undeveloped
countries" will be seen and treated in a new way.) Marx was quite clear about
this in The Poverty of Phi l osophy:
"In a fture societ. in which class antagonism will have ceased
.
in which
there will no longer be any classes. use will no longer be determined by the
minimum time ofproduction; but the time of production devoted to di erent
articles will be determined by the degree oftheir social utilit. "
Thus the text on the passage from the "realm of necessity" to the "realm
of freedom" is elucidated. Freedom is regared as a relation where man.
masterng the process of production of materal life, will at l ast be able
to adapt his aspirations to the level reached by the deVelopment of the
productive forces. The growth of social wealth and the development of every
individuality coincide.
"For real wealth is the developed prodctive power ofall individuals. The
measure ofwealth is thell 10t any longer in any wa
.
labour time. but rather
disposable rime. "
Thus Marx is quite right to describe time as the dimension of human
liberation.
Furthennore. It IS clear that the dynamics analysed by Marx
excludes the hypothesis of any gradual way to communism through the
progressive destrction of the law of value. On the contrary, the law of value
keeps asserting i tself violently until the overthrow of capitalism: the law
of value never ceases destroying itself - only to reappear at a higher level.
We have seen that the movement which gave birth to it tends to destroy its
necessity. But it never ceases to exist and to regulate the functioning of the
system. A revolution is therefore necessary. But at the same time one realises
how revolution is possi ble. The driving force of revolution, and the sign of
the strength of the proletariat, are not to be found in any "consciousness" or
in the pure "spontaneity" of the workers (as if they were "free"), but in the
growth of productive forces. which includes soial strggles.
The contradictory nature of labour time also underlies the two-fold
character of labour i tself, the source of the dialectic: use-value/exchange
-
61
value. Marx's analysis tries to give a defnition of capital, and we have only
attempted to present one aspect of his work. Marx's analysis is not the only
thing revolutionares must study, but we do think it necessary to b as familiar
with i t as possible. This is why we have concentrated on Mar. We have only
ted to state a question, and we will take care not to imitate the thinker who,
according to Mar, solved problems only by simplifing them.
The theory of the management of society through workers' councils
does not take the dynamics of capitalism into account. It retains all the
categories ad characteristics of capitlism: wage-labour, law of value,
exchange. The sort of soialism it propses is nothing other th; capitalism
- demoratically managed by the workers. If this were put into prctice
there would b two possibilities: eiter the workers' councils would try not
to function as in capitalist enterrises, which would b impssible since
capitalist production relations would still exist. In this case the workers'
councils would be destroyed by counter-revolution. Production relations are
not man-toman relations, but the combination of the various elements of the
proess of labur. The "human" relation leaderslled is only a secondary form
of the fundamental relation between wage-labour and capital. Or the workers'
councils would consent to functioning as capitalist enterprises. In this case
the system of counci ls would not surive; it would bcome an illusion, one
of the numerous forms of assoiation btween Capital and Lbour. "Eected"
managers would son become i dentical to traditional capital ists: the function
of capitalist, says Ma, tends to separte from the function of worker.
Workers' management would result in capitalism; in other words, capitalism
would not have been destroyed.
The Bolshevik bureaucrcy tok the economy under its control.
The ulta-left wants the masses to do this. The ultr-left remains on the
same ground as Lninsm: it once again gives a diferent answer to the same
question (the management of the economy). We want to replace that question
with a difernt one (the destrcton of that economy, which is capitalist).
Soialism is not the management. however "demoratic" it may be, of
capital , but its complete destrction.
The Historical Limit of the Ultra-Lef
Our examination of the probl em of "organisation" and of the content of
socialism has led us to affr the existence of a revolutionary dynamic under
capitalism. Prouced by capitalism, the revolutionar movement assumes
new fors in a new situation. Socialism is not merely the management
of society by the workers. but the terination of the hi storcal cycle of
capital by the proletari at. The proletariat does not only seize the worl d;
it also concludes the movement of capitalism and exchange. This is what
distinguishes Marx from all utopian and reforist thinkers; socialism is
prouced by the objective dynamics which created capital and spread it all
62 over the planet. Marx insists on the content of the movement. Lnin and the
ultra-left insisted on its fonns: fon of organisation, fonn of management of
soiety. while they forgot the content of the revolutionary movement. This.
to, was a hi storical product. The situation of the priod, and above all the
l imited development of productive forces, prevented revolutionary struggles
from having a communist content (i n the sense we have defned). It impsed
upon the revolutionares fons which could not be communist. radical. The
time for the destrction of capi tal ism had not yet come.
Leninism expressed the impssibility of revolution in his time.
Marx's ideas on the party were abandoned. It was the time of the large
reformist organisations. then of the communist paries (which quickly
or immediately sank into another fon of refonism). The revolutionar
movement was not strong enough. Everywhere. in Genany, in Italy. in
Frnce. in Great Britain, the bginning of the twenties was marked by the
control of the masses by "workers' " leaders. Reacting against this situation,
ultra-leftists were driven to the point where they feared to beeome the new
bureaucrats. Instead of understanding the Leninist parties as a prouct of
proletarian defeat. they refused any pary, and l i ke Leni n let the Marxist
conception of the party remain in oblivion. As for the content of socialism,
al l social movements from the Russian revolution to the Spanish revolution
tried to administer capitalism and not to overhrow it. In such conditions the
ultra-left could not make a profound crtique of Leninism. They could only
take the opposite view, and oppose other fons to Leninism, without seeing
the content of revolution. This was all the more naturl as that content did not
clearly appear. (We must nevertheless remembr that the ultra-left provided a
remarkable critique of some aspects of capitalism - unionism and "workers' "
parties).
These are the reasons why the ultr-left movement only replaced
the Leni nist fetishism of the party and class-consciousness with the fetshism
of workers' councils. We daresay that the ul tra-left has not gone byond
Leninism. Its conceptions were useful and necessary, but only in a trnsitory
phase. Now Leninism approaches its end bcause the counter-revoluton
which produced it also approaches its end (though no one knows when it will
be over, opening the way for a revolutionar prio). Consequently, ul tra-left
ideas, which are no more than the counterar of Leninism, must and can b
gone beyond. The critique of bth Lninism and ulta-leftism is now possible
because the devcJopment of capital ism gives us an idea of the real content of
the revolutionary movement, itself developd by capital.
By holding on to the ultra-left ideas we presented (fear of creating
the party, and workers' management), we would tur them into mere
ideol ogy. When these ideas frst appeared around 1 920, they expressed a
real revol utionary struggle, and even their "mistakes" played a positive ad
progressive role in the struggles against soial democracy and Lninism.
Their limits were the expression of the activity of thousands of revolutionary
workers. But things have changed a great deal since 1920. A new revolutonar
workers' mi nority is in a slow press of fonation, as was revealed by the
63
6
1 968 events in France, and by other strggles in several countries. The
situation today is diferent. Capitalism has developd on a world-wide scale:
1 969 is totally diferent from 1 91 9. The revolutionary situation which may
arise in a few (how many?) years may not b the beginning of the end for the
capitalist system, but its content must b quite diferent from that of 1 920.
Therefore our frst task is to understand the ideas we have inherited from the
past and to study the revolutionary movement of our own society.
In a revolutionary prod. the revolutionary fghts alongside the
proletarian without any theoretical or soiological problem. The revolutionary
movement gets unifed. Theoretical coherence is a peranent objective
of the revolutionaries, as it always hastens the practical co-ordination of
revolutionary eforts. Revolutionares never hesi tate to act collectively in
order to propagate their critique of the existing society.
They do not try to tell the workers what to do; but they do not
refrin from interening under the pretext that "the workers must decide for
themselves." For. on the one hand. the workers only decide to do what the
general situation compels them to do; and on the other, the revolutionary
movement is an organic structure of which theory is an insepardble and
indispensable element. Communi sts represent and defend the general
interests of the movement. In all situations. they do not hesitate to express the
whole meaning of what is going on, and to make prctical proposals. I the
expression is right and the proposal approprate. they are parts of the struggle
of the proletarat and contrbute to build the "party" of the communist
revolution.
(July. 1 969)