What is communism?
First off let’s do some recap on socialism. An individual country can transition in to socialism, under which it’s societal structures begin to function in a more just, democratic and solidary way in comparison to the present capitalist system where the property owning capitalist class collects the sulprus value of the labour of companies and their workers. Under socialism this sulprus value can be distributed to benefit the common good, for example by using the profits of the government ran factories to fund social services and infrastructure.
When we have reached a point where every country in the world has went through a socialist revolution and transitioned in to socialism, the workers of these countries can unite and get together to start working towards an international communist society. This is how the world revolution takes place. The international nature of communism and the end of the capitalist class remove the need for states and armies. This means that, under Marxist terminology, the state withers away.
The international nature of communism and the end of the capitalist class remove the need for states and armies.
The state has originally been created, to borrow the words of the Communist theoretician Friedrich Engels, because ”Society thus far, operating amid class antagonisms, needed the state, that is, an organization of the particular exploiting class, for the maintenance of its external conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited class in the conditions of oppression determined by the given mode of production”. In modern capitalism this is evident to this day, for example in wage labour. In order to make a living the exploited class, aka the working class, has to sell their own labour force to the capitalist who collects the largest amount of value created by the labour. The capitalist state makes sure that class relations stay the same and the interests of the bourgeoisie remain untouched.
Under socialism the state can be used to advance the class interests of the proletariat, aka the working class, to change societal structures for the better. Under Communism however, there is no need for a state and only then it becomes possible to speak of freedom, as mentioned by Marx. Only then will a truly complete democracy become possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state.
Under socialism the state can be used to advance the class interests of the proletariat, aka the working class, to change societal structures for the better. Under Communism however, there is no need for a state and only then it becomes possible to speak of freedom, as mentioned by Marx.
Under Communism instead of states people are split in to self-sufficient communities. There is no wage labour under a community since in a Communist society there is no need for money as a medium of exchange, but rather everyone is working together for the common good of the community as a whole, on the basis of solidarity. The leading idea is: ”From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”.
You also have to take in to account that technological progress has in that stage of society already developed so far that actual human workforce is needed very scarcely or at least significantly less than now in 2020.
The leading idea is: ”From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”.
There’s a lot of good theory and literature about Communism. However it’s still important to remember that a Communist society of the future is still not at this point possible to fully conceptualize. Even tho’ the principles remain, practice can shape accordingly to however things prove to be the best to organize. Work towards Communism begins by challenging and abolishing this current system destructive to humans, animals and the environment: capitalism. Become a member of Communist Youth of Finland!
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