COMBAT LIBERALISM (Mao)
An extremely important and pithy essay by Mao Zedong to which revolutionary Marxists should
pay careful attention, and which we should all read over again from time to time as a personal
reminder of the standards of political behavior for communists. Generally this Dictionary just
summarizes the important works by the creators of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, but in this case we
feel it is well worth presenting this entire short essay here:
See also:
LIBERALISM [Maoist Sense]
“We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for
ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our
fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon.
“But liberalism rejects ideological
struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine
attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the
Party and the revolutionary organizations.
“Liberalism manifests itself in various
ways.
“To let things slide for the sake of
peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled
argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend,
a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead
of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the
organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
“To indulge in irresponsible criticism
in private instead of actively putting forward one’s suggestions to the organization. To say
nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a
meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective
life but to follow one’s own inclination. This is a second type.
“To let things drift if they do not
affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is
wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.
“Not to obey orders but to give pride
of place to one’s own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to
reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.
“To indulge in personal attacks, pick
quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and
struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done
properly. This is a fifth type.
“To hear incorrect views without rebutting
them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take
them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.
“To be among the masses and fail to conduct
propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them,
and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that
one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh
type.
“To see someone harming the interests of
the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow
him to continue. This is an eighth type.
“To work half-heartedly without a definite
plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along—‘So long as one remains a monk, one
goes on tolling the bell.’ This is a ninth type.
“To regard oneself as having rendered great
service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments
while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a
tenth type.
“To be aware of one’s own mistakes and yet
make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh
type.
“We could name more. But these eleven are
the principal types.
“They are all manifestations of liberalism.
“Liberalism is extremely harmful in a
revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes
apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict
discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations
from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.
“Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois
selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and
this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.
“People who are liberals look upon the
principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice
it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These
people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well—they talk Marxism but practice
liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of
goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.
“Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism
and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping
the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature,
there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution.
“We must use Marxism, which is positive in
spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A Communist should have largeness of mind and
he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and
subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should
adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to
consolidate the collective life of the Party and strengthen the ties between the Party and the
masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person,
and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a Communist.
“All loyal, honest, active and upright
Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set
them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.”
—Mao, “Combat Liberalism” (complete text),
Sept. 7, 1937, MSW 2:31-33, also online elsewhere including:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm
“COMFORT WOMEN”
Euphemism for the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during World War II.
This took place in all the many countries that Japanese imperialism invaded, but was especially
common in China and Korea. For over half a century following the defeat of Japan the authorities
in that country denied outright that this widespread outrage had happened at all. Only in recent
years, and under tremendous international pressure, has the Japanese government finally admitted
a tiny part of the truth, with respect to just one or two countries, and finally offered some
recompense to the few remaining victims in South Korea who are still alive after all these
decades.
It should be noted that soldiers from virtually
all bourgeois armies employ prostitutes, including the U.S. military. Prostitution is
itself a form a sexual slavery, since the women forced by economics into prostitution most
often are in desperate situations and have no alternative way to survive. But the “comfort
women” used by the Japanese imperial army were outright abducted and enslaved and had no choice
whatsoever about it.
“The bronze statue of a teenage ‘comfort woman’ in Seoul, South Korea’s
capital, is intended as a daily rebuke to the Japanese embassy opposite. The figure
represents one of the many thousands of Korean women who were forced to serve as
prostitutes in wartime military brothels catering to imperial Japanese soldiers. Citizens’
groups paid for the figure to be erected in 2011 when relations between Japan and South
Korea were at a nadir. Well-wishers bring her flowers, shoes and, in stormy weather, even
a hat and raincoat. Yet now the statue is meant to move elsewhere as part of a landmark
agreement struck between the two countries on December 28th [2015] to try to settle their
dispute over comfort women once and for all—and transform dangerously strained relations.
“Of former sex slaves who have come
forward in South Korea, only 46 survive.... In all [in South Korea alone], there were tens
of thousands of comfort women. Many were raped dozens of times a day, beaten and infected
with venereal diseases.” —The Economist magazine, Jan. 2, 2016,
p.27.
COMINTERN
See: COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL
COMMAND ECONOMY
A term used by bourgeois economists to describe planned economies (socialist or
state-capitalist) where there is no (or very limited) open market for commodities at least
within the sphere of production. (Even under socialism distribution of consumer goods to the
public is still mostly through commodity markets until we get to a communist society.)
Bourgeois ideologists oppose these “command economies” to the so-called “free market”
economy, and therefore view “command economies” as inherently authoritarian and opposed
to “freedom”. What they have failed to notice is that within virtually every
capitalist corporation itself, there exists this very same sort of “command economy”! Thus
every automobile corporation makes detailed and elaborate plans about how many cars to build,
in a given period, the processes and materials to use, the design and location of its new
plants, etc. State capitalism in the Soviet Union was also a planned economy for the most
part, and in a sense “one big corporation” with multi-leveled layers of detailed planning.
The commandist (anti-democratic and anti-mass line) structure and operation of revisionist
Soviet industry has colored the conception of bourgeois economists about what a “command
economy” must be like.
Under genuine socialism, and communism too,
it will be important to oppose any actual commandist aspects that may develop in production,
especially within the individual workplaces (where they are nearly universal and mandatory
in capitalist production today). Emphasis on the mass line,
proletarian democratic management of industry, and obtaining ideas and input from all the
workers involved are our main tools to combat the possible secondary bad aspects of economic
planning.
See also:
PLANNING (Economic),
DECENTRALIZATION—Socialist
COMMANDISM
Ordering, or even forcing, people to do something, rather than using the method of
discussion and persuasion to convince them to act. Commandism is a bourgeois method of
leadership, not a proletarian method. But unfortunately, some revolutionaries have not
been adequately trained and educated in the use of proletarian democratic methods. For this
reason commandism within our own ranks is a continuing problem to be struggled against.
“Marxists have always held that the cause of the proletariat must
depend on the masses of the people and that Communists must use the democratic method
of persuasion and education when working among the laboring people and must on no
account resort to commandism or coercion. The Chinese Communist Party faithfully
adheres to this Marxist-Leninist principle.” —Mao, “On the Correct Handling of
Contradictions Among the People” (Feb. 27, 1957), SW 5:391.
“Commandism is wrong in any type of work, because in overstepping the
level of political consciousness of the masses and violating the principle of voluntary
mass action it reflects the disease of impetuosity. Our comrades must not assume that
everything they themselves understand is understood by the masses. Whether the masses
understand it and are ready to take action can be discovered only by going into their
midst and making investigations. If we do so, we can avoid commandism.” —Mao, “On
Coalition Government” (April 24, 1945), SW 3:316.
COMMODIFICATION OF WOMEN
The hiring of women by capitalists so that they can themselves be sold in one way or another.
Obviously prostitution is a major way this is done in bourgeois society, but there are many
somewhat less blatant ways of doing this, as the poem below demonstrates.
[Introduction by Rita Dove, a former poet laureate of the U.S.:]
“Much has been said about the
commodification of women in the workplace, especially the service industry, but gauging its
emotional toil is often an elusive undertaking. This brisk and biting poem reads like a
witness statement—the case against the manager mounts with each ‘helpful’ tip. What’s
especially disturbing is how comfortable he feels dispensing his advice, unwittingly
confirming that the chauvinist power structure remains in place, even as his own words turn
against him. Lauren K. Alleyne has written a fitting poetic indictment of a man who is
hoisted, to quote Hamlet, ‘with his own petard’.”]
The Manager’s Tips for Working at
the San Francisco Restaurant and Bar
by Lauren K. Alleyne
He said to my breasts: you’re hired.
He said: you’re going to be in training for six weeks
and I don’t pay trainees. You work for tips.
He said: I’d show off my assets more
if I were you. He said, I’d turn on that million-dollar smile
no matter what kind of day you’re having.
He said, men drink more if they think you’re really listening
to them: lean in. Especially in the right dress. He said,
go on, Hector wants to dance with you. He said,
loosen up. He said, nobody likes a stuck up bartender.
He said, if anyone asks, it’s always best to be nineteen.
He said, if someone wants to buy you a drink, let them.
He said, watch Ruthie work, she knows the ropes—
look at her swing. (Her red hair crawls with a drunk man’s fingers.)
He said: Honey, I’ll give you a tip for free;
how this goes is entirely up to you.
[From the New York Times Magazine, March 25, 2019, p. 22.]
COMMUNISM — As Part of a Supposed “World Jewish Conspiracy”
One of the most bizarre bourgeois theories about Communism and the world communist movement, is
the fantastically anti-Semitic and utterly ridiculous theory that “Communism” is part of a “world
Jewish conspiracy” against civilization! This theory was especially popular in Germany and other
ultra-racist countries during the early decades of the 20th century. But it was far more widespread
than that. The quotation below, promoting this nonsensical theory, is from someone who is still
unaccountably an international bourgeois hero, Winston
Churchill. Note that he also blames the great French Revolution at least in part on
“International Jews”, and also connects up this supposed Jewish conspiracy with other conspiratorial
trends, such as the “Order of the Illuminati” which was founded in Bavaria in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt
(“Spartacus” to the members of his secret society). Bizarre indeed!
Apparently conspiratorial theories about communist
movements tend to arise in the bourgeois mind because they cannot comprehend how anybody can find
fault with their marvelous capitalist system (violent, exploitative and oppressive as it is),
nor can they understand why anyone would ever want to overthrow capitalism. It’s quite a
mystery to them, evidently, which calls for quite extraordinary theories.
“In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort [by so-called
‘National’ (or loyal) Jews and Zionists] rise the schemes of the International Jews. The
adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations
of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race (sic). Most, if not
all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all
spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of
Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary),
Rosa Luxembourg (sic) (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide
conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstruction of society on the
basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been
growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely
recognizable part in the age of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every
subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary
personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the
Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters
of that enormous empire.”
—Winston Churchill, “Zionism versus
Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People”, a speech he gave to a British
military unit on Feb. 8, 1920, which was printed in the newspaper Illustrated Sunday
Herald.
COMMUNISM — Attitude of Americans Towards
Most Americans have never had much knowledge or understanding of what communism actually is,
and for more than a century now they have been strongly indoctrinated by the capitalist
ruling class to both fear and fervently oppose it. For most of that time, this hostility
extended to “socialism” as well, though more and more people
are now becoming sympathetic to the idea of socialism (even though they still mostly don’t
have any clear understanding of what that really means either). But certainly extremely few
Americans have yet begun to understand that genuine socialism is the period of
transition of capitalist society to communism!
But can the American people eventually change
their ideas, and become not only knowledgeable about what socialism and communism really are,
but also come to strongly favor them and even devote their lives to help bringing them about?
Well, yes and no! During prolonged periods of extreme economic crises and/or war, many
millions of people can indeed come to learn such basic things. However, many older people
will likely not be able to learn and change in revolutionary ways even then. But older
generations eventually die off and new generations rise to replace them. Part of the
fundamental change in attitude of the American people toward communism will come from the
changing of ideas of those already living, but an even bigger part of that overall change
in society will have to come through the replacement of older generations by younger ones.
We see this process underway already, though
it still has a very long way to go. In the graphic at the right we see how the deeply
indoctrinated hostility toward communism among Americans has been gradually easing for many
decades already. Note the dotted black line which shows the overall average opinion,
while the colored lines show the opinions of different generational groups. Back in 1975 nearly
half of the adult population thought that all communist books should be removed from public
libraries. By 2018 that figure had dropped to about 25%. (This is still terrible, of course,
but it is nevertheless a big improvement.) And the most interesting thing here is about just
why this previously ferocious hostility toward communist ideas is now declining so fast. It
is not primarily because older people are changing their minds; instead it is almost entirely
because old reactionary generations are dying off, and new more open-minded generations are
replacing them. With regard to this specific issue about allowing communist books in libraries,
literally 100% of the difference over this 43-year period is due to generational change and
not to older people changing their minds.
What does all this mean as far as where we
revolutionaries should put the focus of our educational efforts and of our work of mass
leadership in struggle? It obviously means that our main efforts should be focused on youth,
on young workers, on students, and thus those who have the greatest possibilities for rapidly
advancing their revolutionary consciousness. One of the major reasons the revolutionary
process of the replacement of capitalism with first socialism, and then communism, is taking
as long as it is, is that we must primarily depend on new generations that arise in the midst
of intensifying crises to accomplish humanity’s great task.
See also:
GENERATIONAL CHANGE (U.S.)
COMMUNIST
[Marxist sense:] A person who works to bring about the overthrow of capitalism by the
working class, and the transformation of capitalist society into socialism and then into
communist society. Communists attempt to do this collectively, which means they form and
promote revolutionary proletarian parties.
“They [Communists] have no interests separate and apart from those
of the proletariat as a whole.
“They do not set up any sectarian
principles of their own, by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement.
“The Communists are distinguished
from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the
proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the
common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In
the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the
bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of
the movement as a whole.
“The Communists, therefore, are
on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class
parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other
hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of
clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general
results of the proletarian movement.” —Marx & Engels, Manifesto of the Communist
Party (1848), Ch. II, MECW 6:497.
COMMUNIST, The (CPUSA)
The name of a large number of publications over the past century and more, published by a large
number of revolutionary parties and sects. In the United States the most important of these
publications was that of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), from around its
founding in 1919 through 1944. In the early years it consisted of a variety of short-lived
publications, from different factions, and appeared in newspaper format. In 1927 the CPUSA
transformed an existing magazine (the Workers Monthly) into its theoretical journal and
changed its name to The Communist. Until about the mid-1930s this publication and the
CPUSA itself, were genuinely revolutionary and communist in their perspective. After that, both
became revisionist or merely reformist. In 1945, as one of many aspects of the continuing
revisionist developments in the Party, the journal’s name was changed again to Political
Affairs.
A large number of the issues of the CPUSA’s
Communist and its renamed Political Affairs are available on the Marxist Internet
Archive at
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/communist/index.htm , and on BannedThought.net
at:
https://www.bannedthought.net/USA/CPUSA/Periodicals/index.htm .
“In this first period of the development and unification of the Communist
Party there were a number of periodicals that had the name The Communist. Bringing
order out of confusion concerning these is difficult, because rival groups within the
Communist parties of the early period published organs under that name and also because the
governmental reign of terror which began at the beginning of 1920 forced the publication of
periodicals underground.
“The first Communist to appear
was set up by a ‘National Organizing Committee’ to establish ‘the Communist Party of America.’
This periodical, which was sponsored by the language federations which had been expelled by
the Socialist Party leadership, and by the Michigan Socialist Party and other groups, lasted
from July 19 to August 30, 1919. It was published in Chicago.
“After the organization of the Communist
Party of America in September, 1919, a new Communist was established, which was
published in Chicago between September 27, 1919 and April 1, 1921. (There was another
Communist, published in New York for three issues in the spring of 1920, which claimed
the auspices of the Communist Party of America. But this was the organ of a minority group
led by Charles E. Ruthenberg, who later became the general secretary of the United Communist
Party.)
“This was followed by another
Communist, published between June 12, 1920 and April, 1921 in Chicago as the organ of
the United Communist Party, which resulted from the fusion of the Communist Party of America
and the Communist Labor Party.
“Complicating matters further was the
publication irregularly of a Communist between July 1921 and January 1923 in Chicago
as the ‘organ of the Communist Party of America, Section of the Communist International.’
“While the various tendencies among the
Communists contended in their periodicals, the very serious question of securing legality for
the Communist movement in the United States developed. The government, by its harassment,
persecution, jailings and deportations, had driven the Communists underground. It was necessary
to set up a legal organization. This became the Workers Party, along with an underground
Communist Party.
“The Workers Party published in New York
a new Communist, which lasted from February to June, 1922.
“At the same time a Communist was
published in New York by the United Toilers, a Left Opposition group, which opposed the
formation of the Workers Party.
“As far as can be determined now, these
were all the periodicals under the name of Communist that were published in that early
formative period of the Communist Party of the United States.” —“Our Fiftieth Year”, editorial
in Political Affairs, Vol. L, No. 1, January 1971, pp. 4-5.
“A reflection of the unity of the Communists in this period was the
establishment of the Workers Monthly in New York in November 1924.... In March, 1927,
the name of the magazine was changed to The Communist, which proclaimed itself as ‘a
theoretical magazine for the discussion of revolutionary problems published by the Workers
(Communist) Party.’” —Ibid., pp. 6-7. [This is the beginning of a magazine format for The
Communist. —Ed.]
“With the January 1945 issue, Volume XXIV, Number 1, the name of the magazine
was changed to Political Affairs. This occurred in another very difficult period for
the Party.
“During World War II, the revisionist
concept of ‘American exceptionalism’ and illusory
notions about a new type of capitalists were brought into the Communist Party by Earl Browder.
Unfortunately, they were widely accepted—even if reluctantly by some. As a result, in 1944
the Communist Party became the Communist Political Association and the Party was completely
liquidated in the South.” —Ibid., p. 8. [But quite noteworthy here, the Party did not
change the name of its theoretical organ back to The Communist; a big part of Browder
revisionism lived on, in only a partly camouflaged way! —Ed.]
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL (COMINTERN)
An international association of communist parties established under the leadership of Lenin...
Also known as the “Comintern” for short, as the “Third International” (since it followed the
Second International), and often simply as “the
International”. [More to be added... ]
See also the sub-topics below, and
COMINTERN—Representatives in
China
“The Communist International, that is, the Third International, was a
united international body of the world’s Communist Parties and communist organizations.
After the outbreak of World War I the revisionists who had usurpted the leadership of
the Second International were further unmasked. In unity with the revolutionary Leftists
of various countries, Lenin waged an unrelenting struggle against these types. On March
2, 1919, under his leadership, the First Congress of the Communist International was
held in Moscow, at which the founding of the Third International was officially
announced. In the 24 years from its founding to its dissolution, the Third International
defended Marxism-Leninism and helped the advanced elements of the working class in all
lands to organize revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Parties. It supported the Soviet Union,
the world’s first socialist state, lent assistance to the liberation movements of the
oppressed nations in the East, and carried on an international struggle against fascism.
During World War II, in view of the fact that the growing complexity of the changes
taking place both in various countries and in the international arena had made it
impossible for the existing organizational form to answer the needs of the new situation,
the Communist International, with the unanimous approval of the Communist Parties of all
lands, announced on June 10, 1943 its official dissolution.” —Reference note, Peking
Review, #47, Nov. 18, 1977, p. 26.
[Whether it was actually correct
to dissolve the Comintern in 1943 is a contentious issue, as are many questions about
how the organization actually operated, such as its complete domination by Stalin, and
so forth. —S.H.]
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL — First Congress
“The First Congress of the Communist International was held on
March 2-6, 1919, in Moscow. Fifty-two delegates attended, 34 with the right to vote and
18—with voice but no vote. The following Communist and Socialist parties, organizations
and groups were represented: the Communist Parties of Russia, Germany, German Austria,
Hungary, Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Byelorussia, Estonia,
Armenia, of the German colonies in Russia, the Swedish Left Social-Democratic Party,
the Norwegian Social-Democratic Party, the Swiss Social-Democratic Party (Opposition),
the Revolutionary Balkan Federation, the United Group of the Eastern Tribes of Russia,
the French Zimmerwaldian Left, the Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French, and
Swiss Communist groups, the Dutch Social-Democratic Party, the American League of
Socialist Propaganda, the American Socialist Labor Party, the Chinese Socialist Labor
Party, the Korean Workers’ League, the Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijan and
Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of Eastern Nations and the Zimmerwald
Commission.
“The first meeting of the
Comintern passed a decision ‘to consider this meeting as an international communist
conference’, and adopted the following agenda: 1) the inauguration, 2) reports, 3)
the platform of the international communist conference, 4) bourgeois democracy and
proletarian dictatorship, 5) the Berne Conference and the attitude towards socialist
trends, 6) the international situation and the policy of the Entente, 7) the Manifesto,
8) the White terror, 9) elections to the Bureau, and various organizational questions.
“The conference, whose work
centered on Lenin’s theses and report on bourgeois democracy and proletarian
dictatorship, unanimously expressed solidarity with Lenin’s theses and adopted a
decision to refer them to the Bureau for dissemination in the various countries. The
conference also adopted a resolution tabled by Lenin, in addition to the theses.
“On March 4, after the theses and
the resolution on Lenin’s report had been adopted, the conference decided to constitute
itself as the Third International, and to take the name of the Communist International.
On the same day a resolution was unanimously passed to consider the Zimmerwald Left
dissolved, and the Comintern platform was approved, on the following main principles:
1) the inevitability of the capitalist social system being replaced by a communist
system; 2) the necessity of the proletariat’s revolutionary struggle to overthrow
bourgeois governments; 3) the abolition of the bourgeois state and its replacement by
a state of a new type, i.e., the state of the proletariat, of the Soviet type, which
will ensure the transition to a communist society.
“One of the most important
documents of the Congress was the Manifesto to the world proletariat, which declared
that the Communist International was the successor of Marx’s and Engels’s ideas as
expressed in the Communist Manifesto. The Congress called upon the workers of the
world to support Soviet Russia, and demanded non-interference by the Entente in the
internal affairs of the Soviet Republic, the withdrawal of the interventionist troops
from Russian territory, recognition of the Soviet state, the raising of the economic
blockade, and the resumption of trade relations.
“In its resolution on ‘The
Attitude Towards the “Socialist” Parties and the Berne Conference’, the Congress
condemned the attempts to re-establish the Second International, which was ‘an
instrument of the bourgeoisie only’, and declared that the revolutionary proletariat
had nothing in common with that conference.
“The establishment of the Third,
Communist International played a tremendous part in restoring links between the
working people of many countries, in forming and consolidating Communist parties, and
in exposing opportunism in the working-class movement.” —Note 73, LCW 31.
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL — Second Congress
“The Second Congress of the Communist International met from
July 19 to August 7, 1920. The opening session was held in Petrograd and the
subsequent sessions in Moscow. It was attended by over 200 delegates who represented
workers’ organizations of 37 countires. Apart from delegates representing the
Communist parties and organizations of 31 countries, there were delegates from the
Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, the Socialist parties of Italy and
France, Industrial Workers of the World (Australia, Britain and Ireland), the National
Confederation of Labor of Spain and other organizations.
“Lenin directed all the
preparatory work before the Congress. At its first session he made a report on the
international situation and the fundamental tasks of the Communist International.
Throughout the Congress, in his reports and speeches, Lenin fought uncompromisingly
against the opportunist Centrist parties, who were attempting to penetrate into the
Third International, and levelled sharp criticism at the anarcho-syndicalist trends
and ‘Left’ sectarianism of a number of communist organizations. Lenin took part in
the work of various commissions and delivered reports and speeches on the international
situation and the fundamental tasks of the Communist International, the national and
the colonial questions, the agrarian question and the terms of admission into the
Communist International. Lenin’s theses on the fundamental tasks of the Second
Congress of the Communist International, the national and the colonial questions, the
agrarian question and the terms of admission into the Communist International were
endorsed as Congress decisions.
“The Second Congress laid the
foundations of the programme, organizational principles, strategy and tactics of the
Communist International.” —Note 77, LCW 31.
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL — Third Congress
“The Third Congress was held in Moscow from June 22 to July 12, 1921.
Its 605 delegates (291 with voice and vote, and 314 with voice only) represented 103
organizations from 52 countries, namely: 48 Communist Parties, 8 Socialist Parties,
28 Youth Leagues, 4 syndicalist organizations, 2 opposition Communist Parties (the
Communist Workers’ Party of Germany and the Workers’ Communist Party of Spain) and 13
other organizations. The 72 delegates from the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks
were headed by Lenin.
“The Congress discussed the world
economic crisis and the new tasks of the Communist International; the report on the
activity of the Executive Committee of the Communist International; the Communist
Workers’ Party of Germany; the Italian question; the tactics of the Communist
International; the attitude of the Red International Council of Trade Unions to the
Communist International; the struggle against the Amsterdam International; the tactics
of the R.C.P.(B.); the Communist International and the Communist youth movement; the
women’s movement; the United Communist Party of Germany, etc.
“Lenin directed preparations for
and the activities of the Congress; he was elected its Honorary Chairman; he took part
in drafting all the key resolutions; he gave a report on the tactics of the R.C.P.(B.);
he spoke in defense of the Communist International’s tactics; on the Italian question;
in the commissions and at the enlarged sittings of the Executive Committee of the
Comintern, and at the delegates’ meetings. Before and during the Congress, Lenin met
and talked with delegates about the state of affairs in the Communist Parties.
“The Third Congress had a great
influence on the formation and development of young Communist Parties. It paid great
attention to the Comintern’s organization and tactics in the new conditions of the
world communist movement. Lenin had to combat the Centrist deviation and ‘Leftist’
dogmatism, pseudo-revolutionary ‘Leftist’ cant and sectarianism. As a result,
revolutionary Marxism prevailed over the ‘Leftist’ danger.
“In the history of the world
communist movement the Third Congress is known for the following achievements: it
worked out the basic tactics of the Communist Parties; it defined the task of winning
the masses over to the side of the proletariat, strengthening working-class unity and
implementing united front tactics. The most important aspect of its resolutions,
Lenin said, was ‘more careful, more thorough preparation for fresh and more decisive
battles, both defensive and offensive’.” —Note 121, LCW 32.
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL — Dissolution Of
[Intro to be added.]
See also:
Mao on the Dissolution of the Comintern: “The Comintern has Long Ceased to Meddle in Our Internal
Affairs”, excerpt from a speech to comrades on May 26, 1943. Online at:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_36.htm
“The Communist International remained in existence until 1943, when the
Presidium of its Executive Committee, with the approval of all Communist Parties, took a
decision to dissolve the Comintern owing to the changed situation and the impossibility
of leading the international communist movement from a single center.” —From Note 72,
Lenin: Selected Works, Vol. 3, (Moscow: Progress, 1967), p. 801.
COMMUNIST LEAGUE
The first international organization of the revolutionary proletariat, which was founded in
London in the summer of 1847.
See also:
LEAGUE OF THE JUST
“The League was organized and guided by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
who, on instructions from the League, wrote its programme—the Manifesto of the
Communist Party. The Communist League set itself the aim of overthrowing the
bourgeoisie, destroying the old bourgeois society founded on the antagonism of classes
and establishing a new society without classes and without private property. The Communist
League played an important historical role as a school for proletarian revolutionaries
and as the embryo of the proletarian party; it was the predecessor of the International
Working Men’s Association (the First International). It existed until November 1852, its
most prominent members later playing a leading role in the First International.” —Note
7 to Lenin, Selected Works, vol. I, (Moscow: 1967).
“At the beginning of 1847, Marx and Engels joined the League of the
Just and took part in its reorganization. The first congress of this league took place
in London and confirmed the renaming of the league the Communist League. The former
motto ‘All Men are Brothers’ was replaced by the slogan of proletarian internationalism
‘Workers of All Countries, Unite!’ This slogan, which had first appeared in the draft
rules of the Communist League, became the militant slogan of the international workers’
movement.
“The foundation of the Communist
League—the first international workers’ organization which proclaimed scientific
communism to be its militant banner—marked the beginning of the union of Marxism and
the workers’ movement. Ahead lay the enormous task of implementing the decisions adopted
at the congress, of strengthening the League both ideologically and organizationally and
of increasing its links with worker and democratic organizations.
“On 29 October, 1847, the second
congress of the the Communist League took place again in London, and was attended by
representatives from Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, England, Poland and other
countries. It was the first international congress of the proletariat to record in its
decisions the ideas of scientific communism. The Rules of the Communist League, adopted
at the congress, declare the aim of the League to be: the overthrow of the bourgeoisie,
the dictatorship of the proletariat, the destruction of the old bourgeois society based
on class antagonism and the foundation of a new society without classes and without
private property.
“Marx and Engels were asked to
draw up a Manifesto of the Communist Party in order to set clearly and openly
before the world the programme of the Communists. This, the major document of the age,
was written in two months, from December 1847 to January 1848. Reading the Manifesto
gives enormous intellectual satisfaction. Each should discover this for himself,
pondering over each sentence of this famous revolutionary document.”
—The Basics of Marxist-Leninist
Theory, ed. by G. N. Volkov, et al., (Moscow: Progress,1979), pp. 24-25.
COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
The world-famous and deeply profound document written by Marx and Engels in 1847 and first
published in February 1848. Its formal title is The Manifesto of the Communist Party. It
contains the first and probably still the best overall summary of the theoretical principles of
Marxism and the strategy and tactics of the Communist revolutionary movement.
The Communist Manifesto is online in
numerous places, including:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
“It [the Communist Manifesto] was commissioned by the Second
Congress of the Communist League in November 1847, and it was first published in February
1848.
“This was a stormy period: the period
of the February 1848 Revolution in France and of the climax of the
Chartist Movement in Britain, when the working class
appeared for the first time on the stage of history as an independent force.
“Readers who want to know something
of the background of the Manifesto should read the various prefaces—written by Marx
and Engels to different editions (published with the Manifesto), and should also
turn to Engels’ History of the Communist League and Marx’s Class Struggles in
France, 1848-50.
“The Manifesto was an
epoch-making document. Up to that time, socialists had been putting forward utopian schemes
(imaginary projects for an ideal society) or were engaging in secret conspiracies, while
the rising working class movement lacked a revolutionary theory. The Manifesto
signified the union of scientific socialism with the mass working-class movement.
“The fundamental ideas of the
Manifesto may be summed up under five main headings:
1. The Theory of the Class Struggle
“The history of all societies since
the break-up of the primitive communes has been the history of class struggles.
“In capitalist society a stage has
been reached when the victory of the exploited class, the proletariat, over the ruling
exploiting class, the bourgeoisie, will once and for all emancipate society at large from
all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.
“The conception of the working class
struggle set forth in the Manifesto follows from Marx’s materialist conception
of history, the essentials of which are summarized in Engels’ prefaces to the English
edition of 1888 and to the German edition of 1883.
2. The Development of Capitalist Society
“Capitalism itself developed out of
feudalism, and the capitalist class is itself the product of a long course of development,
of a series of revolutions in the mode of production and exchange.
“The capitalist class has conquered
exclusive political sway in the modern parliamentary state. In its development, it has
played a most revolutionary role. It has brought into being the great new productive forces
of modern industry. But in creating modern industry it has created its own gravediggers,
the proletariat.
3. The Development of the Proletariat
“The growth of the proletariat as a
class is accompanied by the growth of its organization, both economic and political.
“At first the proletariat is incoherent
and scattered. It is originally dragged into the political arena by the bourgeoisie, which
must appeal to the proletariat to help fight the remnants of feudalism. The Manifesto
deals with the stages of political development through which the proletariat becomes
organized into a class, and consequently into a political party, combined against the
bourgeoisie.
“While the proletariat fights against
all relics of feudalism and for the fullest extension of democracy, it leads the struggle
for socialism against the capitalists, a struggle which must culminate in the proletariat
conquering power and becoming itself the ruling class.
4. From Socialism to Classless Society
“With power in its hands, the
proletariat makes drastic inroads into the power of the capitalists and into capitalist
property relations.
“From the rule of the proletariat will
come classless society, in which will arise new people, new human relations—‘an association
in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.’
5. The Aim of the Communist Party
“The Manifesto contains a
trenchant defense of the aims of Communism, and it exposes various fashionable brands of
‘socialism’ as expressions, not of the working-class standpoint, but of the reactionary
standpoints of other classes—of the decaying aristocracy, the petty-bourgeoisie or the
bourgeoisie itself. The ideas of Communism, on the other hand, are not inventions of any
would-be reformers, but spring from the existing class struggle.
“Communists have no interests apart
from those of the working class as a whole. Their policy is to fight for the immediate
aims of the class, to form an alliance with every movement opposed to the existing social
order, and in the movement of the present always to take care of the future, striving to
unite the class for the overthrow of capitalist class rule and for the conquest of power.”
—Maurice Cornforth, Readers’ Guide
to the Marxist Classics (London: 1952), pp. 6-7.
“The Communist Manifesto of 1847 is an extraordinary document, full of
insights, rich in meanings and bursting with political possibilities. Millions of people
all around the world—peasants, workers, soldiers, intellectuals as well as professionals
of all sorts—have, over the years, been touched and inspired by it.” —David Harvey, in
his introduction to an edition of the Communist Manifesto.
COMMUNIST PARTY — Membership Of
The membership of any genuine Communist Party should be made up of genuine and sincere
revolutionaries who are truly working toward the transformation of capitalism into first
socialism and then communist society. In addition there are high requirements for the
character and capabilities of Party members. They should be, for the most part, drawn from
the working class itself, be in close touch with the working class, and represent and
promote the interests of the working class and especially their central interest in social
revolution.
[More to be added...]
“The party organization must consist of the advanced elements of the
proletariat. As a vigorous vanguard organization, it should be able to lead the
proletarian revolutionary masses in their struggle against class enemies.” —Mao,
Jan. 19, 1968; SW 9:423.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA — Revisionist/Capitalist Period (1977-?)
While at one time the most revolutionary proletarian party in the world, the coup d’état
by the capitalist roaders following Mao’s death in September 1976 quickly transformed the
CCP into a fascist bourgeois party. It has only become further entrenched as such since that
time. There are now even a number of capitalist billionaires who are Party members!
“We are the Communist Party, and we will decide what communism means.”
—Chen Yuan, a top banker and a leading member of the contemporary CCP. Quoted in
“‘The Party is like God’”, The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 2, 2010, p. 42;
originally quoted in Richard McGregor, The Party (2010).
“Jack Ma, China’s richest man and the guiding force behind its biggest
e-commerce company, belongs to an elite club of power brokers, 89 million strong: the
Chinese Communist Party. The Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper included
Mr. Ma, executive chairman of the Alibaba Group and the country’s most prominent
capitalist, in a list it published on Monday of 100 Chinese people who had made
extraordinary contributions to the country’s development over the past 40 years. The
entry for Mr. Ma identified him as a party member.” —Li Yuan, “In China, Billionaires
Sidle Up to the Party”, New York Times, Nov. 28, 2018.
[In one of the most bizarre
statements ever made, this article also adds at the end: “Making it clear that Mr. Ma,
the most successful businessman in China, is a member could strengthen the party’s
legitimacy.” Gasp! Presumably the CCP is now only concerned about its legitimacy
within the ranks of the bourgeoisie, and not with any supposed “legitimacy” among the
working class and masses. —Ed.]
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST)
The largest revisionist so-called “Communist” party in India, most often referred to by
their initials as the “CPM”. [More to be added... ]
“How uncivilised, if the wave of ‘boss-napping’ in France is indeed
sinister. [Referring to the article “Vive la différence!”, The
Economist, May 9, 2009.] It was different in West Bengal in the 1970s when the
Communists [CPM] took power. One afternoon, a colleague was informed that he and I
would be gheraoed (sourrounded, literally) at close of day
by the staff at the Calcutta office in protest at our regressive management policies.
Alarmed at what would be a delayed start to the usual whisky session at our club, we
negotiated and were granted permission by the protestors to leave early, go home to
shower, change into comfortable clothing and return suitably armed with our favoured
libation.
“And so we spent our evening
surrounded by 35 staffers who made impassioned speeches and gave high-decibel calls
for death to capitalists as we depleted a bottle of Black Knight. It didn’t much
improve the taste of the whisky, and the calls for our demise did at times seem over
the top. But sinister? Not at all.” —Letter from Stanley Pinto of Bangalore, India,
to the editor of the British ruling class business magazine, The Economist, May
30, 2009, p. 20. [It is clear that even back in the 1970s the CPM was merely pretending
to be revolutionary. Their calls for the “death of the capitalists” were merely part
of their stage play secretly conducted along with the capitalists and designed
to fool the masses.]
COMMUNIST PARTY OF NEPAL (United Marxist-Leninist)
A totally revisionist and politically decadent bourgeois party, which has long since given
up any serious pretense of being a revolutionary party. It is one of the three largest
parties in Nepal and provides a rather transparent “left cover” for bourgeois forces there,
and generally takes very similar positions to that of the openly bourgeois party, the Nepali
Congress.
“The Vice Chairman of Nepal Communist Party-United Marxist Leninists (UML)
Mr. Bam Dev Gautam has opined that there exists no difference between his own party and
Nepali Congress. He made this remark in the district of Dang, November 3, 2010. ‘People
have begun feeling that there is no difference between my party and the Nepali Congress’,
he said and added, ‘We have failed because we cannot differentiate between our friends and
foes.’” —Telegraph Nepal, Nov. 4, 2010.
COMMUNIST WORKERS’ PARTY OF GERMANY [Kommunistische Arbeiter Partei Deutschlands (KAPD)]
A semi-anarchist “left” opportunist party which split off in April 1920 from the Communist
Party of Germany (KPD), which itself had only recently been founded by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl
Liebknecht and others in the Spartacus League at the
very beginning of 1919. The KAPD called for immediate revolution and the establishment of
its own rather dubious understanding of the
dictatorship of the proletariat; rejected
all participation in elections under any circumstances; rejected any political work within
reformist trade unions; belittled the need for extensive preparatory political educational
work among the masses to create the conditions for revolution; opposed the whole idea of
democratic centralism; and opposed the need for the
working class to be led by a single proletarian revolutionary party.
Some of the support for the KAPD came because
of a few mishaps, missteps and confusions within the KPD in its first year. The KAPD was
fairly strong in Berlin, Hamburg and a few other cities and regions, and it is claimed that
at the end of 1921 it had 43,000 members. After 1921 the KAPD rapidly lost members and
influence and the KPD had a vastly larger membership and mass following. The KAPD was strongly
under the sway of “council communists” such as the Dutch writers Anton Pannekoek and Herman
Gorter who had also founded the much less significant Communist Workers’ Party of the
Netherlands (KAPN).
Although the participation of the KAPD (and
its members before the KAPD was actually formed) in the Communist International and its
Congresses was tolerated by the Leninist forces and other Communist parties, they were heavily
criticized. Lenin’s major 1920 pamphlet,
‘Left’-Wing Communism—An Infantile Disorder,
which he prepared just in time for the Second Congress of the Comintern, was directed against
the KAPD and similar trends.
For this reason the KAPD and similar groups
broke with the Communist International in 1921. They then worked toward establishing an
alternative international organization, to be called the “Communist Workers International”.
However, in 1922 the KAPD split into two independent groups over whether the time was ripe to
do this. Both of them kept the same name, but were referred to as the KAPD Essen Faction and
the KAPD Berlin Faction, and it was the Essen group which joined the Communist Workers
International.
Although the KAPD party (or parties)
continued to exist in a tiny way until at least 1927, they and their “International” became
of less and less significance, and soon disappeared entirely.
“On the other hand, the difficult position of the Communist Party of
Germany is aggravated at the present moment by the break-away of the not very good
Communists on the left (the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany, K.A.P.D.) and on the
right (Paul Levi and his little magazine Unser Weg or Sowjet).
“Beginning with the Second
Congress of the Communist International, the ‘Leftists’ or ‘K.A.P.-ists’ have received
sufficient warning from us in the international arena. Until sufficiently strong,
experienced and influential Communist Parties have been built, at least in the
principal countries, the participation of semi-anarchist elements in our international
congresses has to be tolerated, and is to some extent even useful. It is useful
insofar as these elements serve as a clear ‘warning’ to inexperienced Communists, and
also insofar as they themselves are still capable of learning. All over the world,
anarchism has been splitting up—not since yesterday, but since the beginning of the
imperialist war of 1914-1918—into two trends: one pro-Soviet, and the other
anti-Soviet; one in favor of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the other
against it. We must allow this process of disintegration among the anarchists to go
on and come to a head. Hardly anyone in Western Europe has experienced anything like
a big revolution. There, the experience of great revolutions has been almost entirely
forgotten, and the transition from the desire to be revolutionary and from talk (and
resolutions) about revolution to real revolutionary work is very difficult, painful
and slow.
“It goes without saying, however,
that the semi-anarchist elements can and should be tolerated only within certain
limits. In Germany, we tolerated them for quite a long time. The Third Congress of the
Communist International faced them with an ultimatum and fixed a definite time limit.
If they have now voluntarily resigned from the Communist International, all the
better. Firstly, they have saved us the trouble of expelling them. Secondly, it has
now been demonstrated most conclusively and most graphically, and proved with precise
facts to all vacillating workers, and all those who have been inclined towards
anarchism because of their hatred for the opportunism of the old Social-Democrats,
that the Communist International has been patient, that it has not expelled anarchists
immediately and unconditionally, and that it has given them an attentive hearing and
helped them to learn.
“We must now pay less attention
to the K.A.P.-ists. By polemising with them we merely give them publicity. They are
too unintelligent; it is wrong to take them seriously; and it is not worth being angry
with them. They have no influence among the masses, and will acquire none, unless we
make mistakes. Let us leave this tiny trend to die a natural death; the workers
themselves will realize that it is worthless. Let us propagate and implement, with
greater effect, the organizational and tactical decisions of the Third Congress of the
Communist International, instead of giving the K.A.P.ists publicity by arguing with
them. The infantile disorder of ‘Leftism’ is passing and will pass away as the
movement grows.”
—Lenin, “A Letter to the German
Communists” (Aug. 14, 1921), LCW 32:514-515.
COMMUNISTS — Aims Of
The long-term goal of communists to is bring about communist
society. However, there are many more immediate tasks which must be carried out for this
to occur, each of them with many sub-tasks and sub-sub-tasks. The communists must:
Organize themselves into a political party;
Connect themselves up closely with the
class struggles of the working class;
Educate the working class on the need
for social revolution and what that means;
Help the working class organize
itself for revolution;
Lead the working class and its allies
in seizing political power;
After this seizure of power, transform
capitalism into the transitional stage of socialism;
Lead the working class in struggling
against any attempts by the old (or any newly developed) bourgeoisie to return to power; and,
Lead the working class in transforming
socialism into communism, where no social classes exist any longer.
“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the
other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the
of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. II: MECW 6:498.
“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary
movement against the existing social and political order of things.” —Marx & Engels,
Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:519.
“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the
enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the
present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV: MECW 6:518.
“While actively leading immediate struggles, Communists in the capitalist
countries should link them with the struggle for long-range and general interests, educate
the masses in a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary spirit, ceaselessly raise their political
consciousness and undertake the historical task of the proletarian revolution. If they
fail to do so, if they regard the immediate movement as everything, determine their
conduct from case to case, adapt themselves to the events of the day and sacrifice the
basic interests of the proletariat, that is out-and-out social democracy.” —A Proposal
Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement: The letter of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the letter of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963 (Peking:
Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 19.
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly
declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing
social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Ch. IV, final paragraph:
MECW 6:519.
“We Communists do not conceal our political views. Definitely and beyond
all doubt, our future or maximum programme is to carry China forward to socialism and
communism. Both the name of our Party and our Marxist world outlook unequivocally point
to this supreme ideal of the future, a future of incomparable brightness and splendour.
On joining the Party, every Communist has two clearly-defined objectives at heart, the
new-democratic revolution now and socialism and communism in the future, and for these he
will fight despite the animosity of the enemies of communism and their vulgar and ignorant
calumny, abuse and ridicule, which we must firmly combat.” —Mao, “On Coalition Government”
(April 24, 1945), SW 3:282.
COMMUNISTS — Leading Role Of
[William Hinton, speaking of the role of Communist Party members in the
small village of Long Bow in Lucheng County, Shansi Province, China, in 1948:]
“Thus, as Comrade Ts’ai explained it, the Communist Party in contrast to the People’s
Congress [the village governmental body], was not in a position to exercise state power
in any form. It could only persuade and set an example. There was nothing to prevent
people from electing Communists as delegates to the Long Bow Congress, but no Communist
could have more power there than any other delegate. Communists could exert leadership
only through their own unity and their ability to come up with solutions to difficult
problems that won majority support.
“The leading role of the Communists,
in other words, depended not on coercion, not on special powers, but on education,
persuasion, and the active participation of all its members in the daily affairs of the
village. In the long run, the ability of local Communists to lead depended first on
demonstrably correct policies and second on the prestige based on merit and performance of
its individual members, on the extent to which they took an active part in all mass
organizations and led by example, educated others day by day and hour by hour, and proved
themselves to be more selfless, more devoted, and more principled than ordinary people.”
—William Hinton, Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village (1966),
p. 542.
COMPANY TOWN
A community that is created and dominated by a single capitalist corporation which often owns
the homes of the residents as well as the stores, city agencies and services. The people living
in company towns usually have no choice but to work for the one dominating company, and are
at risk of not only losing their jobs but of also being forced to move away with nothing if they
say or do anything that the company dislikes.
Under capitalism in general, workers are in
effect the property (wage slaves) of the capitalist class as a whole. But those living in
company towns are often not merely wage slaves, but in a condition a step closer to complete
slavery.
Company towns were once fairly commonplace,
especially in the U.S., but over the past century they have become less common, especially with
the great decline of U.S. manufacturing.
“America has had more experience with company towns than any other country
(though presumably China will eventually catch up with America in this, as in everything
else).... At their height there were more than 2,500 such towns housing 3% of the
population.
“Company towns usually came in one of
two forms—the satanic and the Utopian. The satanic type were little better than gulags, where
workers were forced to live in company shacks and spend their money in company shops. You
could pass a lifetime in a company town without knowing any real freedom. But many other
towns were monuments to the Utopian spirit. Benevolent bosses such as Milton Hershey, a
chocolate king, and Henry Kaiser, a shipping magnate, went out of their way to provide their
workers not just with decent houses but with schools, libraries and hospitals. This Utopian
impulse inevitably went hand-in-hand with benevolent bossiness. Hershey served as his town’s
major, constable and fire chief and employed a squad of ‘moral police’ to spy on the
workers.” —The Economist, Oct. 16, 2010, in a review of the book by Hardy Green,
The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills that Shaped the American
Economy (2010).
COMPATIBILISM
The philosophical view that free will is compatible with
determinism. In other words, the view that although everything
(including each of our own decisions) has definite causes, we are nevertheless still able ourselves
to decide what actions to take. Dialectical materialism supports this compatibilist viewpoint.
Of course, there are normally reasons (either
explicit or implicit, and either important or trivial) which determine what we consciously decide
to do, but far from precluding a free choice, these reasons are what help us decide
what choice to make. Conscious human beings (and also many other animals, for that matter) are
themselves part of the causal chains that lead to the choices that they make. The parts
of the causal chains that are internal to them, and which they are conscious of, are the parts
they have control over, and therefore manifestations of their free will.
The opposite view, incompatibilism, holds
that if determinism is true (i.e., if everything has causes—including each choice we make),
then free will is impossible. But this is a simple-minded or naïve conception of what “free
will” might plausibly be construed as. Philosophical idealists often
subscribe to incompatibilism, because they do not wish to view people’s actions as being determined
by physical causes. On the other hand, naïve materialists
also sometimes subscribe to incompatibilism because they have a simplistic notion of what “free
will” must mean, a notion similar to that of the idealists. Thus these naïve materialists
accept the fact that everything, including each of our own choices, has causes, but falsely
conclude that this means there can be no such thing as free will.
COMPETITION
1. Under capitalism: The antagonistic struggle
between different commodity producers for more advantageous conditions of production and sale of
commodities and for more profits. (Ironically, however, this competition—when real—usually leads
to smaller profits for all the producers.)
2. SOCIALIST COMPETITION:
A non-antagonistic sport-like contest between different production teams or enterprises to see
which is capable of producing more and better goods for the people while at the same time striving
to use less labor and fewer raw materials. The better methods developed by the winners are then
freely communicated to all other socialist enterprises.
“[C]ompetition rages in direct proportion to the number, and in inverse
proportion to the magnitudes, of the antagonistic capitals. It always ends in the ruin of
many small capitalists, whose capitals partly pass into the hands of their conquerors,
partly vanish.” —Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Part VII, Chapter XXV, sect. 2; International
Ed. (1972), p. 626; Penguin ed. (1990), p. 777.
COMPETITION — Bourgeois Views On
“Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. Capitalism without competition
is exploitation.” —U.S. President Joe Biden, in his March 1, 2022, State of the Union address.
[Well, of course, there are forms of
capitalism which have virtually no competition within them, such as state
capitalism. They are still capitalism because they still extract surplus
value from the workers they hire, from which their profits are drawn. It is this surplus value that
the capitalists extract from workers that constitutes the primary form of exploitation under all types of
capitalism, even the most competitive. However, it is true that lessening competition through more and
more monopoly practices, or even the outright elimination of competition under pure state capitalism, do
make greater monopoly profits possible, or in other words, increased exploitation. But it is so
typical and completely bourgeois of capitalist spokesmen like Biden to try to totally deny the existence
of any exploitation of workers under competitive capitalism, and to attempt to restrict the concept of
exploitation to the price gouging of consumers by monopolies! —Ed.]
COMPLEMENTARITY (Quantum Mechanics)
A set of related philosophical concepts especially associated with the idealist
Copenhagen Interpretation of
quantum mechanics. On a gross level, complementarity can
simply refer to wave-particle duality in which the
view of entities in the microworld as behaving as waves in some situations complements
the view that these entities behave as particles in other situations. Here the concept of
complementarity can be innocuous, and might only mean that in some experiments and situations
it is useful to view electrons and other subatomic particles as waves instead of
as particles.
However, complementarity usually implies an
idealist philosophical stance, such as the view that microworld entities like electrons are
in fact both waves and particles, or the view that they are “neither” until they are observed
or measured, or the view that electrons and the like actually do not even have any definite
properties at all until they are measured, and so forth. Here is one description of this
conception of complementarity with an unsupported idealist philosophical conclusion at the
end:
“A profound aspect of complementarity is that it not only applies to
measurability or knowability of some property of a physical entity, but more importantly it
applies to the limitations of that physical entity’s very manifestation of the property in
the physical world. All properties of physical entities exist only in pairs, which Bohr
described as complementary or conjugate pairs (which are also Fourier transform pairs).
Physical reality is determined and defined by manifestations of properties which are limited
by trade-offs between these complementary pairs. For example, an electron can manifest a
greater and greater accuracy of its position only in even trade for a complementary loss in
accuracy of manifesting its momentum. This means that there is a limitation on the precision
with which an electron can possess (i.e., manifest) position, since an infinitely precise
position would dictate that its manifested momentum would be infinitely imprecise, or
undefined (i.e., non-manifest or not possessed), which is not possible. The ultimate
limitations in precision of property manifestations are quantified by the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle and
Planck units. Complementarity and Uncertainty dictate that all properties and actions in
the physical world are therefore non-deterministic to some degree.” —From the Wikipedia
article on Complementarity.
This idealist conclusion that “all properties and actions in the physical world are therefore
non-deterministic to some degree” simply doesn’t follow! This is only a limitation on the
formulas of quantum mechanics to determine properties and actions beyond a certain level
of accuracy, not a limitation on the reality or definiteness of reality itself.
COMPRADOR BOURGEOISIE — Unreliability Of (For Foreign Imperialists)
Virtually every comprador would love to become more independent of the foreign imperialist power
he serves, and transform his subordinate class into an independent national bourgeoisie. For
this reason the foreign imperialist power which that comprador serves cannot completely trust
him. Indeed, if the foreign imperialist power is in a major decline, or even if it is only
temporarily distracted by problems elsewhere in its empire, it is a frequent occurance that
compradors will try to operate more independently and start to ignore directions from the
imperial center. For this reason the imperialist power still in overall control of the country
frequently finds it necessary to kill or replace some of the local compradors or their political
representatives.
“The ruling classes of most countries in the world today are forced into
the position of being compradors (or de facto agents) of foreign imperialist powers, and
of the world imperialist system as a whole, to a very considerable extent. (For a limited
time they can also forge partnerships with international capital, but such arrangements
are always transitional.) If they become too independent, if they seek to promote their
own national economic interests in opposition to the interests of international imperialism,
then tremendous economic pressure is put on them, sometimes rising to the level of outright
economic warfare. And if they persist they are apt to suffer serious political interference
and even assassinations or political coups engineered by foreign imperialist intelligence
agencies [such as the CIA]. And, if all that still doesn’t whip the recalcitrant local
ruling class back into line, the world imperialist system will mobilize its massive
military forces (usually at present led and/or organized by the U.S.) to invade the country
and forcibly attempt to set up a new client regime friendly to the world imperialist
system.” —N. B. Turner, Is China an Imperialist Country? Considerations and Evidence
(Montreal: Kersplebedeb, 2015), p. 48. Online at:
https://www.bannedthought.net/International/Red-Path/01/RP-8.5x11-IsChinaAnImperialistCountry-140320.pdf
“Britannia may have ruled the waves, but when it came ashore for either
formal or informal rule it needed local allies who could serve as intermediaries in
controlling complex, often volatile populations. These ‘subordinate elites’—so essential
to the rise of any empire—can also precipitate its decline if they move into opposition.
With its contradictory motto ‘Imperium et Libertas,’ the British Empire necessarily
became, as the London Times said in 1942, ‘a self-liquidating concern.’ Indeed,
historian Ronald Robinson has famously argued that British imperial rule ended ‘when
colonial rulers had run out of indigenous collaborators,’ with the result that the
‘inversion of collaboration into noncooperation largely determined the timing of
decolonization.’ The support of these local elites sustained the steady expansion of the
British Empire for two hundred years, just as their later opposition assured its rapid
retreat in just twenty more.”
—Alfred W. McCoy, In the Shadows
of the American Century: the Rise and Decline of US Global Power (2017), p. 50. [Of
course McCoy ignores here the central role of mass independence movements within the
British Empire, and thus exaggerates the role of “local elites” (compradors) turning
against the empire. But still there is some secondary validity to this perspective, as
the compradors began to see their national bourgeois opportunities expand by joining up
with, and taking over the leadership of, those mass independence movements. —Ed.]
COMPUTER
A data or information processing machine or entity, capable of performing mathematical
calculations and other operations on the input information, and giving output information
as a result.
The first things that were called “computers”
were the human beings who performed mathematical calculations, and especially those who were
set to work on the more complex calculating tasks such as preparing tables of logarithms.
Then mechanical calculators were invented to do some of the computing chores that humans can
do (such as multiplications and divisions). Finally, around the time of World War II and
shortly afterwards, programmable electronic digital computers were invented which soon became
able to perform most or all of the mathematical calculations that humans can do (but vastly
faster and more reliably than humans can), and also an ever larger part of the other
intellectual operations that humans can perform—including image processing, pattern
recognition, semantic processing, recognition of analogies, and so forth.
Though the term “computer” today most often
still refers to the present digital electronic machines with only moderately
sophisticated programming and capabilities (though rapidly improving), there is also the
more abstract philosophical concept of a computer that includes not only existing
machines, and the much more powerful ones that will be constructed in the future, but also
the brains of the higher animals and of human beings ourselves. On this general philosophical
conception of what a computer really is, a human brain is also a computer (or a
complex of multiple computers working together).
See also the topics below.
COMPUTERS — Stored Program Design
A major breakthrough in the design for early computers occured when it finally became understood
that not only the data on which a computer works can be held in active memory, but that the
computer program itself can also be held in that memory! Sometimes this major advance is
attributed to one individual (and often John von Neumann in particular) who supposedly came up
with the whole idea in a near-instantaneous brilliant flash of genius. The reality is far
different, as the quotation below brings out. Very few major advances in science and technology
are really accomplished on one single occasion, nor are they really the work of one single
person.
“‘The idea of the stored program, as we know it now, and which is a clear-cut
way of achieving a universal computer, wasn’t invented overnight,’ explains [Jan] Rajchman.
‘Rather it evolved gradually. First came manually changeable plug-ins, relays, and finally the
modifying contacts themselves became electronic switches. Next came the idea of storing the
state of those switches in an electronic memory. Finally this resulted in the idea of the
modern stored program in which “instructions” and “data” are stored in a common memory.’”
—George Dyson, Turing’s Cathedral: The origins of the digital universe (NY:
Vintage, 2012), p. 77.
COMPUTERS — and Unemployment
The mechanization of work has been a major and growing trend in society since the industrial
revolution. For a long time the types of work which were moved to machines were hard physical
labor and routine physical operations that were performed over and over again in production.
Human beings were still necessary to guide and control these sorts of machines. So though
these early types of machines did substantially decrease the total amount of human labor
necessary, they did still require some new jobs to be opened up, jobs which often required
higher levels of skills and provided better pay.
Digital computers first began to be
utilized in corporations in the 1950s. In the first few decades of their use they were
mostly employed to do new tasks which were not feasible before, and especially in the
preparation of many detailed business reports to aid managers (which mushroomed far beyond
their level of true usefulness). Only a relatively small number of clerical jobs were lost,
and these were more than made up by the large number of jobs which then arose in data
processing and in the manufacture and servicing of computers and related equipment. This
phenomenon led to a dogma among bourgeois economists and social observers that claimed that
while computers (and technology in general) did eliminate many jobs, on balance they led
to more and better jobs. This, however, was only a temporary situation.
By the 1990s computers were clearly
eliminating more jobs than they were creating, and this trend has really taken off in the
new 21st century and under pressure from the developing economic crisis. The bloated
levels of management and management reports are now being trimmed (under the rubric of
“restructuring”). And the availability of much improved software for the management of
capitalist businesses, along with ever cheaper computer power, is automating more and more
clerical sorts of jobs, and now even much intellectual work (including within data
processing and the computer industry itself!).
In addition, the combination of computers
and industrial machines, which now very frequently take the form of industrial robots, is
also eliminating many of the remaining manufacturing jobs.
We could put the overall situation this
way: The first wave of automation starting in the mid-20th century mostly eliminated many
“blue-collar” manufacturing jobs. The second wave of automation, made possible by computers,
began also eliminating large numbers of “white-collar” clerical jobs, especially from
the 1990s on. And now this second wave of automation is also being extended to so-called
“knowledge workers”, or intellectual work, middle-level management, and so forth. As just
one example of this newest trend, many former extremely well paid Wall Street financial
analysts are now losing their jobs because their work can be done vastly more cheaply (and
generally more reliably) by computers.
The end result is that computers are
enormously intensifying the trend towards higher unemployment under capitalism. Under
socialism, of course, the elimination of onerous work through the employment of computers,
robots, and other advanced machinery, is an extremely good thing, and the benefits from
this will be spread among the entire population. But under capitalism it leads to enormous
unemployment and desperate poverty, and is thus a disaster for the working class. The
root problem is not really with computers, of course; it is instead due to the private
appropriation of wealth by a tiny class of exploiters under capitalism.
See also:
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE,
AUTOMATION
COMTE, Auguste (1798-1857)
Reactionary French bourgeois philosopher and sociologist, best known as the founder of
positivism.
[Speaking of planetary nebulae:] “This temporary limitation—astronomers
knowing where things were in the sky and what they looked like but not what they were
made of—was seized upon by the philosopher Auguste Comte in 1835. Groping for an
example of knowledge permanently beyond human ken—always a dangerous presumption—Comte
declared that while humans might eventually learn the shapes, distances, sizes, and
motions of celestial bodies, ‘never, by any means, will we be able to study their
chemical composition.’
“Comte’s assertion was refuted
just a few years after his death, when spectroscopes were trained on the Sun and stars
by the physicists Joseph Fraunhofer, Gustav Kirchhoff, and Robert Bunsen, revealing
their composition and ushering in the new science of astrophysics.” —Timothy Ferris,
Seeing in the Dark (2002), p. 237. [The Comte quote is from his Cours de
Philosophie Positive (1835).]
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