Labor Movement and Political Power

Nasser Paydar

Communism Abolition of Wage Labour and Leninist Militant Reformism

During the twentieth century, a narrative has been proposed, induced, and applied regarding the issue of “the political power of the proletariat” or how the proletariat seizes political power, which has no similarity with the view of working-class communism on this phenomenon. The class origin of this political innovation is the industrial national romanticism of sections of the bourgeoisie, popular movements, nationalist anti-imperialistic, and the like. The aforementioned narrative is intertwined in a dark and murky labyrinth of minor, major, and related and contradictory principles and precepts. The outer cover of this narrative has undergone more or less change in accordance with some economic, social, and historical developments during the aforementioned century, but its specific class theme, regardless of the course of historical events and developments, has remained unchanged from beginning to end. The subject of this article is to examine the various formats and the single theme of the bourgeois socialist narrative of the relationship between the proletariat and political power, but before doing so, it is necessary to delve a little into the view of Marx and working-class communism on the issue.

Marx spoke of the priority of the conquest of political power by the labour movement. He says: “The state is based, as we shall show later, on classes. Classes themselves are produced by the division of labour, and in every such group of men they are divided, and one of them gains dominion over the others.” From this it follows that all the struggles that take place within the framework of the state, the struggle between democracy and aristocracy and monarchy, the struggle for the right to vote, etc., etc., are merely illusory forms (the general interest is generally an illusory form of the common interest) in which the real struggles of different classes are waged against each other (something of which the German theorists have not the slightest knowledge…). It also follows that every class that intends to rule, even when its rule, as is true of the proletariat, leads to the abolition of all the old forms of society in its entirety and the abolition of rule in general, must first seize political power in order to present its own interest as the general interest, for it is compelled to do so from the outset.” (The German Ideology)

The closest goal of the proletariat is to seize political power. This is an obvious explanation, but Marx states that the current struggles related to the issue of the state are an illusory model. The real and basic phenomenon is the struggle between the antagonistic social classes that takes place within this format and is pushed forward. A clearer statement of the issue is that the government is a tool for the domination of one social class over another class or classes, and at the same time, it is an institution for inducing false special interests of the dominant class as the interests and vital solutions of the entire society or all social classes within the society. The ruling class obtains its authority from the existence of the dominant mode of production in the society, and its government is merely an institution for justifying, justifying, strengthening and guaranteeing the permanence of this mode of production. A class that is in conflict with all economic relations and the ruling mode of production cannot separate its struggle against the government from the struggle against the foundation of the existence of these relations or the form of social production. Marx’s correct conclusion of the relationship between the class struggle and the issue of the state, when it spreads to the capitalist society and the class war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, takes on much greater and more decisive dimensions in terms of depth, breadth and precision. The bourgeois state is the most complete type of state in history, and, on this basis, it also carries with it the real characteristics and functions of class political power much deeper, more comprehensive and wider than all previous forms of state. This more all-round, more complex and more organic development naturally does not result from an abstract process of formation but from the inherent necessities and requirements of the capitalist mode of production itself. If the feudal aristocracy, through the mechanism of the state, defined their own special interests as the interests of the whole of society, in the capitalist system the very existence of the relation of buying and selling of labour power is the material basis and the driving force of all forms of exploitation. The state here is not a category that can be distinguished and separated from the mode of production and its internal reproduction requirements and mechanisms, and its role in encoding the interests and benefits of the bourgeoisie as the interests of the entire society or its constituent classes is simply a transcendent determination of the depth of the wage labour relationship. Capital is the unpaid labour of the proletariat and at the same time the claimant, herald, and inducer that the value of the worker’s labour has been paid to him in full. The root of all the ongoing wars and conflicts between the two basic classes of capitalist society lies precisely here, that is, in the basis of the existence and objectivity of the relationship of buying and selling labour power. A class works and produces, and as a result of the specific social relationship within which and on the basis of which this work and production are carried out, it is not only not recognized as the producer or creator of the product of its labour, but in all aspects of its social and human existence it is condemned to be the product of its own labour, and the basis of its outlook, mentality, and criterion of judgment regarding this relationship and the value produced is also transformed and distorted. Capitalist society, in its entire civil, legal, cultural, moral, political, and social structure, is itself an expanded form of this relationship, fundamentally inverted.

The class struggle of the proletariat against these political, legal, civil, social consequences, including the state and political power, when it is separated from the struggle against their material and economic basis, naturally abandons its real class form and adopts exactly the same channel, platform and form that the relationship of capital in essence and the bourgeoisie as the dominant social class need and induce to modify, modify and neutralize the process of class struggle. Capital disguises its existence as the unpaid labour of the proletariat behind the relationship of buying and selling labour power, and the laws, contracts, rights, thought, culture, ethics and civilization of capitalism all tell the worker that he has not been subjected to any aggression, violation or injustice as a human being who sells labour power!!! They tell him that his economic, social and human rights as a citizen are fully and completely protected and defended!!! The bourgeois state, as the defender of the civil rights of the worker!!!, absolves itself of any class affiliation to the relationship between capital and the capitalist class!!! and even introduces the worker as the perpetrator of a rebellion or “prelude” against the rights, freedom, security and sovereignty of all citizens for the crime of attributing such a relationship to him. The state and civilization and the legal system and the machine of the political order and the entire ruling social infrastructure are the same capital, the same relationship of buying and selling labour power or the same relationship of producing surplus value and exploiting the worker, which have covered themselves in the most diverse possible context with the cloak of rights, civilization and sovereignty of all! As soon as the proletariat gains power, it must and is inevitable to smash the state or the structure of political power of the bourgeoisie, but the fall of the state machine in this system and for the mass of workers who sell labour power is not limited to dismantling the parliament, cabinet, army, police and the ruling legal or political institutions. The fall of the political power of the bourgeoisie depends on the dismantling of the entire legal, political, civil, legal and relational framework or formation that has emerged as social institutions of the rule of capital or as social necessities of the reproduction of the relationship of buying and selling labor power and that in a completely organic way reflects and guarantees the continuation of the economic and class existence of the same relationship. To put it more clearly, the collapse of the political power of the bourgeoisie from the class perspective of the proletariat and from the perspective of the interests and expectations of this class is possible only through the replacement of the political, civil and social order machine of capital by a nationwide soviet organization of planning of work and production and civilization consisting of the mass of citizens.

The bourgeoisie is overthrown from power when its class authority in planning the economic and political order of the existing society is overthrown. The political supremacy and survival strategies of capital can exist in full, even if in the short term it does not have a formal and regular army, a complex police system, or a conventional administrative and bureaucratic apparatus. As long as the worker sells his labour power and as long as the provision of livelihood, health, education, and the essentials of life for the working masses of a society depends on the sale of his labour power, the political order of capital, like its production order, remains intact. The political order of capital can be maintained by the representatives of the workers or through an institution elected by them. The mere rise to power of a current or political party of the workers does not absolutely guarantee the overthrow of the political power of the bourgeoisie or, more precisely, the fall of the political power of capital. The bourgeois state is an inseparable part of the internal division of labour of the capitalist mode of production. The inherent process of capital is constantly directed towards reducing the maximum cost of reproduction of its variable part. The state and the structure of the civil and political order materialize this same internal character of capital in the form of the general laws of society and the common interests of social classes. The role of states in relation to the acceptance of the planning of education, health care, and welfare facilities is nothing other than the political and civil crystallization of the same natural strategy of capital in reproducing the conditions of its own value-added. Repression and murder, imprisonment and torture are merely part of the function of the bourgeois state; capital may, in the short term and by taking advantage of specific historical and social conditions, replace these specific functions with some other civil relations, contracts, and institutions. Instead of resorting to the brutal police suppression of the labour movement, capital may be satisfied with the intermediary role of labour unions and prefer this to bare police suppression, temporarily and as long as certain economic and social conditions persist. The capitalist state is an institution that regulates the relationship of buying and selling labour power with the aim of providing and guaranteeing the best conditions for value creation and reproduction of capital within the borders of each country, responding to the requirements of the competition of the social capital of each society in the world market, and generally an organization composed of networks, laws, contracts, and devices required for the dynamic accumulation and self-expansion of capital. For all these reasons, when we talk about the fall of the bourgeois state and its projection as the closest goal of the proletariat, we cannot summarize the framework of this state to the role of the police and the army, parliament, cabinet, or similar institutions.

The capitalist state will only be truly broken and overthrown when all laws, contracts, civil or political, legal and social institutions responsible for ensuring the domination of the relationship of buying and selling labour power are dismantled, and this is fundamentally different from the popular narrative of the overthrow of political power by the proletariat. The popular narrative, as we have already mentioned and will discuss in more detail later, is not the solution of the communist proletariat of the world, but, on the contrary, the crystallization of this solution by non-working-class movements and sections of the bourgeoisie. The communist tendency within the labour movement has historically pursued the process of struggle against the bourgeois state machine and the goal of seizing political power primarily within the clear and distinct boundaries of the anti-capitalist campaign front for the abolition of wage labour. The reason for this is very clear. Only a movement capable of crushing the political power of capital in its real and non-imaginary form will have the necessary capacity and power to create a council organization for work planning and social production based on the abolition of wage slavery. If the labour movement has not created such a position and capacity in itself, it will not be able to dismantle the capitalist state. The working masses of this or that society, behind a powerful revolutionary movement, can break the police system, the army and the existing bureaucracy quickly, but the whole discussion is about the next step of this break. If the movement we are talking about is a mass of workers organized against capitalism and protesting the existence of the labour force buying and selling relationship, they will naturally destroy the organs of the bourgeois power to disrupt the entire political order and the production order or all that is the carrier and guarantor of the continuation of the surplus value production relationship. But a type of power and rule whose basic indicator is the abolition of all the decrees, laws, institutions and social relations corresponding to the needs of reproducing the relationship of buying and selling labour power. In order for the proletariat to pursue the issue of overthrowing the bourgeois state and seizing the political power of its class in this way and in this way, it has no choice but to have already organized a powerful movement against wage labour with the direct aim of abolishing wage labour. This point is an internal and spontaneous characteristic for the working class and the class movement. Historically and due to the necessity of the situation of work and life or their exploitation, injustice and oppression in the capitalist system, the working masses have entered the arena of confrontation with the bourgeois state from the depths of the anti-capitalist struggle. What has determined the foundation and driving force of their class struggle is not the necessity of a supra-class line-up against the states, but the war with capital. It is in the context of this class struggle against wage labour that they confront and confront political regimes as part of the organization of labour and production and the capitalist social order. The history of the world labour movement during the nineteenth century and the period leading up to it is truly such. The First Workers’ International was founded precisely in such an atmosphere. The workers of Europe do not base the foundation of their International Association on the necessity of unity for a democratic confrontation with the governments of the day in Europe, but on the contrary, they proceed from the inevitability of class war against capital and from the urgent need for unity and solidarity in carrying forward the general campaign against wage labour.

“Whereas the emancipation of the working class must be achieved by the workers themselves… Whereas the economic control of the workers by the owners of the instruments of labour is the fundamental cause of slavery in all its forms, that is, social misery, moral degradation and political dependence… Whereas all efforts aimed at this end have hitherto failed and lacked solidarity between workers of different professions in one country and fraternal unity between the working classes of different countries… Whereas… For all these reasons the International Workers’ Association is founded” (Constitution of the International)

To what extent and at what level did the First International of Workers become the real anti-wage labour organization of the working class of that day or not? What were the problems and obstacles in the way of turning it into such a dish? or other such questions are not the subject of this article. The main point here is the international point of departure and the field of real struggle that opens in front of the international labour movement. Emphasizing the relationship of buying and selling labour power or the economic control of workers by capital as the foundation of all forms of slavery and exploitation and oppression of workers, including their lack of rights and political oppression, and the call for the national unity of all sections of the working class to fight against the capitalist system are two central and continuous issues that the International shares with the workers of the world. The founders of the labour international do not tell the working masses of the countries to first seize political power in each individual society and then come and establish an international organization and fight against mercenary labour relations!!! On the contrary, they declare that the overthrow of the capitalist state machine in each country is the task of the working class of that country, and this is something that the proletariat of the societies will pursue and do on the basis of their current struggles against capital.

The International, in the view of its founders, was a broad and universal front of class struggle against the basis of wage labour, within which the scattered proletariat of the countries demonstrated its great historical power, waged a real and universal war against capital, and from within this powerful front of class struggle against wage labour, they exerted power to settle accounts with the bourgeoisie of each country and put an end to the domination of capital in this and that society. The working masses, who in this process waged an anti-capitalist campaign, became aware and organized, and could, in the event of an uprising against the bourgeois state, have the capacity and strength necessary to establish class domination and establish a socialist soviet organization of labour and production, while at the same time having the class and practical support of the workers of other countries in the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie of a given society. A problem that took on the guise of reality piecemeal and at the level of a tangible and living historical experience in connection with the uprising of the Paris workers. Although the International, as an all-encompassing workers’ and class organization, was unable to play any active role in the great event of the “Commune”, the enthusiastic and epic presence of the Polish workers and the workers of some other countries in the lasting uprising of the Communards against capitalism was itself a blazing flame of the fire that the International Workingmen’s Association had kindled in the atmosphere of the class struggle of the proletariat against wage slavery.