Nasser Paydar
Communism Abolition of Wage Labour and Leninist Militant Reformism
At least from the time he began writing The German Ideology, Marx spoke as a person within the masses of the working class, was a conscious activist and thinker of the anti-wage labour movement of this class. He put the revolutionary ideas of this class into practice, and with the weapon of criticism of this class, he was present at the forefront of the class war. His anti-regime was nowhere to be separated from the struggle against the basis of capitalism, his communism was the process of the ongoing struggle of the working class to end the existence of wage labour. He pursued the organization of workers for this movement and the victory of this communism, and for this very reason and in this direction, he set about the work of organizing workers nationwide and establishing the International. He considered the party-building of the modern type of the left to be the same as sectarianism and saw it as an obstacle to the organization of the anti-capitalist masses of the working class. Consciousness for him was conscious existence, and he considered the conscious existence of the proletariat to be his anti-wage labour movement. Radical theory in Marx’s view had these characteristics. This weapon was later turned against itself by social democracy, Bolshevism, bourgeois communism, anti-imperialist populism, and left-wing nationalism. On the way to his revolutionary theoretical narrative, Marx demolished all the rotten structures in his path, including the Hegelian system of the rule of the absolute idea, the dialectic of hanging above the world, “rationality is all that is real and reality is all that is rational,” the role of the state as the guardian of the common good, the dialogue of the contradiction between the state and civil society, Hegel’s Feuerbachian critique and falling into the abyss of interpretation instead of changing the world, the critique of religion instead of the critique of the world of which religion is the spiritual fragrance, the rebellion against one form of consciousness with the aim of replacing it with another form of consciousness, and many other ideological and intellectual structures. He took this path and did these things because all of these were obstacles to the class struggle of the proletariat against capitalism. In order for the workers’ anti-wage labour movement to come to life, all the above detours had to be swept away from the path of this movement, and Marx did so on his part and in the conditions of his day, but what later became a story of history under the name of Marx and “Marxism” by the hands of bourgeois communism and its numerous branches, was all put into practice in the opposite direction of this effort and struggle. Marx’s teachings on class struggle in their hands practically became a kind of interpretation of the existing situation, were considered a network of consciousness, it was instilled that the proletariat, by setting aside the existing consciousness and choosing this new consciousness, would definitely become a volcano of revolution!! What was a weapon of the campaign against capital, was transformed into a religion under the name of “scientific socialism” and dressed in the clothes of a school, became more and more sacred. As far as the eye could see, it became a subject of interpretation and interpretation. The shopkeepers’ mechanism became the interpreters, the interpreters, and the preachers. Each interpreter had the right to excommunicate the other interpreters. All interpreters gave themselves the right to call the true faithful of those teachings, the real predecessors of Marx and the serious activists of the movement to abolish wage labour, anarchists, economists, and any other devilish blasphemy. The teachings became the necessary guarantee of party games, the mechanism for establishing state capitalism, and they flew like a flag above the hell of dirt, blood, and the horror of wage slavery.
Why did this happen? It is a question that we have discussed in detail on various occasions. What is of interest here is not to retell those topics, but to emphasize another important point. More than a century and a half has passed since the time of Marx and the publication or writing of his works. It was expected that the words and writings would become the blood circulation and lifeblood of the anti-wage labour movement of the working masses. This was the reality and this goal was pursued. But this fact faded and this goal was not pursued. The global working class did not make Marx’s teachings the blood circulation of its day. Not because these trainings were very difficult and the workers did not understand them. Not in the sense that capital’s wage slaves did not have access to them. The reason for this unfortunate incident was not the power of capital censorship and the withholding of training from the workers, or at least it was not the case in many places. The crux of the matter was not the low level of school and university literacy of the working masses of the world. To be more precise, all these issues existed, all these factors were at work and had an impact, but it is a very basic mistake, pure self-deception and an obvious deception of the world’s workers if we simplify and summarize the issue at this level and only by referring to these factors. We must more honestly and more curiously, with the honesty of a worker communist and with the materialist and Marxist profundity of an active worker, explore the history of the abolition of wage labor movement and share the results of this exploration with the working class. What happened that this happened? The answer is that the anti-capitalist movement of the workers of the world became captive to other movements. It was strangled by the claws of other movements and reaped with the sickle of love of some movements. Social democracy in both its right and left forms, both in its Second International, Karl Kautsky and right type, and in its Comintern and left-wing form, crushed the anti-wage labour movement under its wheels. Trade union reformism buried it in its own cemetery. Camp communism, from the very beginning, in the very days of the glory and splendour of the Third International, with the sinister participation of left nationalism and anti-imperialist popular of the countries, made a great fuss about the existence and non-existence of those four.
When the movement for the abolition of wage labour of the workers was paralyzed by the onslaught of these movements and approaches, when this movement was eroded from within by the bourgeoisie and leftist reformism, Marx’s teachings inevitably met the same fate. The two are inseparable; what befell one would also destroy the other. When the planning of labour and factory production by the Bolshevik government’s Ministry of Economy was considered pure proletarian socialism, all of Marx’s teachings on the critique of political economy, as well as his version of communism, were shot down. When the flag of communism was hoisted over the gates of state-run camp capitalism, Marx and his teachings were also ruthlessly negated. When the trade union movement took over the entire anti-capitalist struggle of the working class, the practical and living application of Capital, the Grundrisse and the German ideology were also trampled. The teachings of Marx in the Manifesto are the guiding light, the mechanism, the mortar, the materials, the circulation and the lifeblood of the anti-wage labour movement of the working class. The organization of their councils is theirs. The exercise of power is theirs against wage labour. The overthrow of capitalism is theirs. The current demands are theirs against wage labour. When this movement is grounded, those teachings also become the crutches of the bourgeoisie. The tools of party building become a handful of shopkeepers. The state machine becomes the party, the bricks, plaster and cement of state capitalism will become. Imagine for a moment that the book Capital were published for all the workers of the world. The workers of the world may decorate their homes or their huts with Marx’s works, but these same workers, within the unions and in the ranks of the parties, are engaged in trade union struggle and the conquest of political power for their own transcendental party, according to their twisted version. Is such a thing impossible? The answer to this question is ridiculous. For many years, Marx’s writings, in large and small, have been available in most languages on the shelves of libraries in all the different cities of Europe and America. Many of these workers, on May 1st every year, form the largest processions, sing the Internationale, and curse capitalism. A large number of them are active members of the “communist”, “socialist”, “Marxist-Leninist”, “Marxist, Leninist, Maoist” and perhaps also “Marxist, Leninist, Trotskyist” parties. They are generally hardworking and faithful activists of labour unions. The majority of them can read Marx’s works fluently and very well, not in one language but in several languages. All these facts exist, but the vast majority of these workers do not feel any need to refer to any of Marx’s writings anywhere in their lives, work and protests. They do not refer to these works at all. And if they do, they understand all the points, chapters, sections and books in the same way and interpret them in the same way that Stalin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Kautsky, Iraj Eskandari, Chianuri and other leaders of the left groups and parties in the world understood and understand them. It is not Marx’s teachings that create the movement for the abolition of wage labour. On the contrary, it is the latter that, to the extent of its growth, explosion and rebellion, makes those teachings its weapon of war. Even if Marx’s works, with all their content, become the storehouse of the minds and thoughts of these workers, the water will still not stir, and no sleeper will wake up. In order for Marx to come among the workers and for Marx’s teachings to become the lifeblood and circulation of the workers’ daily struggle, the working-class abolitionist movement must regain its strength, rise, and field presence. This depends on the occurrence of very fundamental tasks. By forming unions, one cannot be with Marx in the class struggle of the working masses. The union is built to be a barrier to every effort by every worker to organize a soviet and Marxist organization against wage labour. By setting up party booths above the heads of the working masses of the world, one cannot be a communist and a comrade and comrade of Marx. These types of parties are formed to hang the anti-capitalist movement of the working class on the noose of their power and prevent them from any real, actual anti-wage labour and Marxian effort. In the history of the world labour movement, no party was more workers’ than the Bolshevik Party, but this party never became a vessel for the conscious, free, and anti-capitalist intervention and exercise of power by the Russian working masses. On the contrary, from the very beginning, it blocked the way for this intervention and vital expression. With anarchism, the stirring up of anarcho-syndicalism controversies and misleading anarchist alternatives to the organized soviet and Marxist abolitionist movement, one cannot speak of any degree of alignment with Marx in the trenches of workers’ struggles.
Party formation and syndicalisation are absolutely not specific phenomena related to the field of workers’ organization and organization. Each of these has a worldly class perspective and anti-Marxian social approaches behind them. It is not possible to explore capital from Marx’s perspective, to see the capital relationship as a wage labour relationship, to recognize this relationship in all its social dimensions, to dissect the reality of the expansion of this relationship to the production order, political order, state, law, order, civilization, and rights, and at the same time to fight capitalism by building workers’ organizations independent of the state!! But to dissolve it in the fabric of the surplus value production relationship!! It is not possible to do these things and then, with thousands of magic, gimmicks, and demagoguery, to brainwash and disfigure millions of workers under the pretext that “a union is different from syndicalism” and at the same time to shout Marx, Marx. Communism cannot be called a society in which the liberation of each individual is the condition for the liberation of all, the end point of every kind of alienation of man from himself and his work, the edifice of freedom of humans from every constraint and every force above them, and at the same time, it raises the banner of party-building beyond the workers everywhere, making the labour movement the building blocks and mortar for the construction of the party’s pyramids of power. He called the party state machine, with a world of lies and controversy, the vessel of the class power of the working masses, and with all this he called himself a staunch defender of Marx’s teachings!! Capitalism cannot be analysed with the anarchy of production, he replaced the party state machine with the all-round organization of the workers’ councils for planning work and production, he imposed socialism on the ownership of the “Vensenkha” over the centres of work and production, he allowed the capitalists to exploit the workers in the worst possible way, he proclaimed all these things as socialism, he called on all the workers of the world to sacrifice their class struggle on the threshold of this “socialism”, and at the same time Marx was of his time and filled the whole world with the reputation of loyalty to Marx’s teachings!! It is impossible to elevate Marx to the throne, to place him in the position of a saint, to turn his lessons of class struggle against wage labour into a religion, to engage in the ugliest and dirtiest shoplifting under the name of this religion, to label every worker who was a comrade and ally of Marx as a “revisionist” for criticizing these shoplifting and religious practices, and at the same time to position oneself as a follower of Marx. What the existing left and the left of the twentieth century have done has all been of this kind, and all of this is in open class conflict with the path of Marx and his teachings.
In order to be with Marx, we must twist the scroll of these trades. Alongside the workers and in the trenches of their ongoing war, we must make the Marxist critique of political economy and the radical labour critique of the entire capitalist society our beacon for the anatomy of the present objectivity of the relationship between the production of surplus value and the fate of labour and the product of labour. We must make the result of this anatomy a weapon of consciousness for ourselves and our comrades in arms in the open field of class war.
As members of the working masses, we must make the Marxist explanation of the labour process, the process of production of surplus value, and capital the starting points for determining the demands of the day and fighting the capitalist system. The urgent expectations of our class must become the scissors for severing the artery of capital profit and the relationship of production of surplus value. Our message to the owners of capital and the owners of the hell of wage slavery is that everything is the product of our labour and production, and it is we who must plan it based on the interests of our livelihood, well-being, and human needs.
To say these things, to put forward these demands and to impose all these expectations on the capitalists and their government, we must organize a council and an anti-wage labour movement. Our organization must become a vessel for conscious intervention, a place of training, a headquarters for practicing power and a stronghold for the struggle against capital. For us, the councils are the backbone of the dream and the product of class power. Here we organize, exercise, strengthen, make our anti-wage labour power more and more flourishing and bring it to a point where the abolition of wage labour is sufficient to destroy capitalism and establish socialism.
Transfer the fight against the political regime to the stronghold of direct struggle against the system of wage slavery, seeking a supra-class overthrow and outside the orbit of the anti-capitalist war is not at all the agenda of our class, our problem is not the displacement of governments, nor the dismissal of part of the bourgeoisie and the installation of another part on the throne of political power, but the crushing of any type of political order and state and the structure of capital power.
The anti-capitalist movement of our class is a movement against all forms of injustice and oppression that capital perpetrates against us and all members of humanity. Every form of sexual oppression, patriarchy or inequality between men and women, all racial and ethnic discrimination, brutal religious tyranny, ignorance and superstition and theocracy, child labour and every form of child abuse, dictatorship and suppression and deprivation of political and social freedoms from humans, every form of war-making and setting humanity on fire, environmental pollution and, in short, every form of crime and barbarity anywhere in the world arises without any reduction or reduction from the depth of the relationship between capital and capitalist rule. The war against all forms of these crimes and inhumanities is an inseparable part of the general war of our class against capital and is a real and fundamental war only when it is a link in the general chain of this struggle. In their historic attempt to disintegrate and dismantle the working class’s anti-wage labour movement, right and left reformism has sold all the bastions of protest against these oppressions, injustices, and human suffering to the bourgeois opposition. It has disintegrated all these strongholds from the general front of our class war, and in this way, it has both hanged all the aforementioned movements on the scaffold of reformism and shattered our unified class power. This situation must be put to an end. To eliminate it, we must fight against capital, and the stronghold of all these wars must be rebuilt on the general axis of the struggle against wage labour.
Our movement must open a very clear perspective before all humanity. Socialist planning and the abolition of wage labour in production and social labour by the all-embracing Soviet organization of the free, conscious, penetrating, and united intervention of all workers must be placed before our class as an urgent and tangible horizon. Our daily struggle must be a link in the general war to replace capitalism with this horizon. The masses of our class must see their movement as a campaign to realize this replacement.
Our class is a world class, and our movement is an international movement. At no time in the history of capitalism has the need for internationalist solidarity, unity, and unity imposed its importance and urgency on us as much as today. Our class is in a situation where it needs internationalist solidarity and unity for any real, effective, and decisive exercise of power against the bourgeoisie. Global capital, in order to guarantee its survival at every moment, is carrying out the most brutal attacks against the masses of our class throughout the world. If, for any reason, it is satisfied with less aggression in one place, it will certainly increase the pressure and scope of this aggression to its peak in another place. We must make every effort to achieve internationalist cohesion in our movement. If we are to be Marx’s comrades and comrades-in-arms, we must avoid falling into the trap of any kind of syndicalism and any form of party-building above the masses of our class. Let us turn to the current world workers’ movement, join hands as active anti-wage labour units of this movement, and make sure that the demands of the day, organization, anti-regime, freedom-seeking, egalitarianism, and all forms of struggle of the masses of our class against all the crimes and atrocities of capital, become the real embodiment of the various fields of the war against wage labour and for the abolition of wage labour. Only in this way will we have a radical movement, and only with such a movement will our theory be radical, our radical theory will be mass-oriented, and Marx, with all his works, will be with us, with us, and with us.