Part One
Nasser Paydar, February 2013
Some discussion has already been made of the organic relationship between the state in general and the bourgeois state in particular with the dominant economic base. This discussion must be expanded upon here, especially with regard to the substantive relationship of the socialist councils to the economic base of socialism. Commodity production presents the social nature of human labour in the form of the real properties of commodities and as a manifestation of the product of human labour. It dresses up human relations as relations between things, replaces the interactions of individuals with relations between commodities. It blurs the real existence of human beings and the human connections between them and presents all this in the form of commodities and commodity exchanges. This has been a characteristic of the commodity economy from the very beginning of this form of production in history. When people confront each other as owners of commodities, their social labour disappears from view; it appears as if commodities are rushing to meet each other to be exchanged. The philosophy of the meeting, the conversations, the agreements or disagreements, and everything that happens in between, revolves around the commodity. Human beings and their social work fade behind the role of commodities. Let us examine the issue more closely and deeply.
The products of human labour are traded on the basis of the law of value and the socially necessary labour inherent in them, and this is where the separation of the producer from his labour begins. The commodity acquires an independent existence; commodity relations transcend the existence of humans. The commodity and commodity relations become the driving force of the chain of human life. It becomes the centre of maturation and development of thought, belief, morality, culture, traditions and social values. It legislates. It creates social contracts.
“The mystery of the commodity is simply that the commodity or the commodity form of the product of labour reflects the social nature of the labour of humans themselves in their minds as the objective nature of the products of labour themselves, as the natural-social properties of these objects. In this regard, the social relationship of the labour of producers with the total labour of society is reflected in the minds as the social relationship of objects, a relationship not between the producers themselves, but separately and outside of them. It is through this reversal that the products of labour become commodities, something perceptible by the senses and at the same time superior to the senses, something social. Just as the effect of an external body on a nerve does not take the form of a cerebral stimulation of that nerve, but the objective form of an external body in our perception. With all this, in the act of seeing, light is in any case really transmitted from one thing, from an external body, to another, the eye. This is the physical relation between physical objects. But the commodity form, and the value relation of the products of labour to each other, which gives rise to this form, have absolutely nothing to do with the physical nature of the commodity and the material or object relations resulting from it. This commodity form and the value relation of the products of labour are nothing but a definite social relation between men, which here assumes for them the imaginary and illusory form of the relation between objects”. (Capital, Vol. I, Chapter 1,)
At some point in its development, commodity production led to the commodification of labour, the birth of the relationship of buying and selling labour, the expansion and, finally, the dominance of the capitalist mode of production in different societies and throughout the world. With the development and dominance of the relationship of buying and selling labour, the law of value and the production of surplus value assumed the role of the material foundation of the entire existing world and the real foundation of all social superstructures. What exists in the world under the name of law, rights, civilization, social contracts, dominant morality and culture, or various forms of state and political power, derives its validity from capital and the conditions of capital’s reproduction. Here we are talking about right, freedom, equality and law. But “seeing the heart of every particle with a sunny crack in it” is nothing more than the principle of exploitation of the worker by capital and the conditions for the survival of the relationship of buying and selling labour. It is clear that the labour movement has put these institutions under pressure wherever it has had the ability to influence and exercise anti-capitalist power, and the intensity of its anti-workerism has made them more or less the target of attack.
Right here, under the control of the power of capital, means the right to property, and billions of workers have only their labour power in their possession. A commodity whose condition for sale is the need for capital and its maximum profitability for the capitalist, the relationship in which it is sold is the most brutal form of exploitation of the worker, his complete separation from his work and his absolute fall from any kind of intervention in the fate of his work and life. Right means the capitalist’s right to own his capital, which is the result of the exploitation of the worker, meaning the right to comprehensive domination of the capitalist class over the existence and non-existence of a class whose very existence hangs on the sale of labour power. Meaning the right to participate in elections with the aim of legitimizing the domination and continuation of the system of wage slavery, declaring the dominance of the capitalist class over society to be the law of creation and the secret of the existence of the human race, considering the superiority of the capitalists and the inferiority of the wage slaves to be the soul of history and the moving chain of human life. Right means that the working masses consider their existing social position as sellers of labour power to be a glorious destiny of history, and that the social imperatives of ever more astronomical profits for capital and ever more catastrophic exploitation of themselves are the explicit text of civil rights, the covenant of civic dignity, and the very essence of their true interests, interests, and entitlements. Right means the right to strike with the aim of changing the price of labour power, provided that the eternal nature of the relationship of buying and selling labour power is accepted, provided that no disruption is created anywhere in the order of capital and that no danger is created in any area for the security of capital. Right means the right of the worker to form a union, syndicate, and party, provided that all of these are collateral for the credibility, humanity, and rationality of capital, and each of them somehow removes the danger of class struggle of the working masses against capital from this system. Right here means the indisputable right of the bourgeoisie to wage war, commit genocide, and set fire to the inhabitants of the planet, meaning that the capitalists and their governments have the right to drown and bury 70 percent of humanity in the swamp of poverty, hunger, lack of water, sanitation, medicine, and other deprivations.
Freedom means the capitalist’s freedom to exploit the worker, his freedom to intensify this exploitation without any restraint, his unconditional freedom to call all the conditions and conditions for the continuation of his class’s rule the rule of all the citizens of society. Freedom at the same time means the worker’s freedom to sell his labour power, his freedom to participate in the scenario of “free elections” and entrust the fate of his work, production and social life to the bourgeoisie, his freedom to criticize, partisan, protest and discuss as long as it does not harm the foundations of capitalist power and the interests of reproducing the cycle of capital’s valorisation, and more importantly, as long as it confers the existence of capital and the survival of the capitalist system with human credibility, dignity and sanctity.
Equality means the equal right of people to exchange the goods they own. Equality in that the worker sells his labour power, and the capitalist buys this power on the condition of need and in the event of desired profit and capital creation. The equality of all individuals, including capitalists and workers, in casting their votes at the ballot box, such that the latter secures and guarantees the principle of their exploitation by capital, and the former the perpetuity of their class’s ownership of the products of worker exploitation and the perpetuity of their class’s rule over the working masses.
This thread has a long head. Capitalist society is full of these freedoms, equalities and rights from end to end!!! Basically, these are the very fabric of society’s existence!! These are the very pillars of civilization!! They get their license from capital, the relationship of buying and selling labour power that casts them. All are vital mechanisms of the relationship of surplus value production, and each plays a vital role in the survival of wage slavery. It is precisely on this basis that what is called right here is in fundamental conflict with any kind of human rights. Whatever freedom bears the name of is the deadly weapon of any form of freedom of exploited humanity. Equalities are the embodiment of the totality of inequalities and in radical conflict with any degree of real human equality. Everything is different, and all these changes, distortions, falsifications, and distortions of the truths of human existence emerge from the very heart of the material foundation of society, from the depths of the relationship of buying and selling labour power. It is this relationship that defines right as the absolute abolition of right, freedom as the annihilation of every free human breath, and equality as the abolition, obliteration, and killing of every germ of true equality among people.
The council structure of socialism brings together the framework of all these transformations, which is possible only through the entanglement and elimination of the relationship of buying and selling labour power. When the goal of social production and labour is not the creation of surplus value and capital, but rather the satisfaction of the needs of subsistence, welfare, and the guarantee of the physical, intellectual, and moral excellence of human beings, there is no longer any room for these transformations. Man, and what is the real need of man take the place of profit in the process of human labour and social production. The root of the separation of man from his labour is uprooted. With the elimination of commodity relations and, above all, the elimination of the relationship of buying and selling labour power, the achievement of these goals becomes possible. Every step towards the realization of this goal, even the slightest direction in this direction, requires its own homogeneous superstructure. The council structure is the only social superstructure for the elimination of wage labour. It is the vessel for dismantling the framework of commodity relations and the elimination of the separation of man from his labour. By abolishing this relationship and establishing this structure, rights, freedom, equality, morality, culture, thought, knowledge, social values, and everything related to the common life of mankind will leave the swamp of profit and capital and the exchange of commodities. All will gather around man, become human, and find a transparent human leaven. Rights will no longer be the right to own goods, capital, to appropriate surplus value, to transform the conditions of exploitation of the working masses into law or state and civil institutions. Just as the right to sell labour power as a commodity, the right to vote with the aim of dominating this or that faction of the bourgeoisie over the fate of workers, the right of workers to join a union to bury all their class struggle power in the swamp of capital profitability, and the like, will no longer be.
Right here and in the conditions of the abolition of the relationship of buying and selling labour power, the right of conscious, free, equal and creative intervention of all human beings in determining the fate of the aspects of collective life becomes. The right to decide what to produce, what not to produce, how work is defined, how the results of work and production are distributed among the different realms of human life, the right to plan the paths of intellectual and physical excellence, and so on. All other concepts undergo the same fundamental transformation. Freedom, instead of its existing false translation, instead of meaning the captivity of man in the hell of filth, humiliation and cruelty of profit, instead of implying the complete deprivation of the worker’s freedom and the strengthening of his yoke of wage slavery, will mean his clear liberation from every constraint, every need and every form of government. Equality instead of the stinking misleading narrative of the equality of the exploiter and the exploited! The killer and the victim of the killing, the warmonger and the one who is filled with the fire of war, the capitalist and the wage slave, the owner of capital and the holder of the priceless commodity of labour, the ruler and the condemned, and the like, will find the true and humane meaning of equality for all members of society in production, policy-making, planning, executive affairs, and all aspects of life. Instead of being a burden of lies, deceit, corruption, theft, wickedness, and destruction, morality becomes an iron thread of solidarity, fusion, and friendship between people. Instead of ugliness, idolatry, contempt for human dignity, propaganda of slavery and servitude, and power praise and guardianship, culture will discover and practice the pure human translation of the intellectual construction of man for his ultimate liberation. The abolition of the relationship of buying and selling labour power and the council structure of life based on it will save everything from transformation and will humanize it. Marx says in this regard: “Let us imagine in our minds an assembly of free men who work with their own collective means of production. They consume the different forms of their labour power with complete self-consciousness as a single collective labour power. All the characteristics of Robinson’s work can be seen here as well, with the difference that this time, instead of having an individual aspect, it is completely social. All Robinson’s products were merely the result of his own individual labour and therefore objects directly used by him. The product of our hypothetical community as a whole is a social product. Part of this product is reused in the form of new means of production and remains socially. But another part is consumed by the members of the community in the form of means of subsistence. This part must therefore be divided among them. The manner of division also varies according to the particular type of social organization of production and in accordance with the level of social development of the producers.” (ibid.)
The model mentioned by Marx here is certainly only an example. The socialism of the abolition of wage labour, council, workers in the 21st century will combine everything that Marx proposes with all the achievements of human labour and knowledge of recent centuries and will push human liberation to the furthest limits even at the very dawn of its dawn. Marx emphasizes that socialism cannot be realized without the abolition of wage labour and the social relations corresponding to it. He adds:
“The religious reflections of the real world in the minds of men can only disappear when the practical relations of everyday life (between man, man and man, nature) appear to them in a clear and rational form. And the mask from the face of the process of social life, meaning the process of its material production, will not fall except when production is carried out by communities of free men and is placed under their conscious and planned control. But this itself requires that society has a certain material foundation, in other words, a series of material conditions of existence – conditions which are themselves the natural and self-generated product of a painful historical evolution” (ibid.).
In order for the councils to truly be the social superstructure of the process of abolishing wage labour, they must carry such a capacity in the foundation of their edifice. First of all, they must become the vessel for the expression and direct exercise of the will of each individual citizen in the planning of labour and production and the development and maintenance of all the affairs of society. They must demonstrate the end of the state. Their course of work must become the objective story of the end of man’s separation from his work.
The councils must guarantee the unity of policymaking and planning with the process of labour and production, putting an end to any kind of guardianship called democratic representation corresponding to civilization and bourgeois rights. No socialist council, from the grassroots to the commune and congresses, including the National Congress, are sitting organs of decision-making and policymaking, but are vessels of missions for the consolidation and coordination of the results of all the conscious, free, and penetrating interventions of individual people. Citizens organized in councils, when they are in the minority, while accepting the will of the majority, enjoy all the rights and social facilities necessary for the propaganda, dissemination and expansion of their policies. Free political organization and activity, the use of all economic, social and propaganda facilities for the advancement and development of opposing policies are the assumed and inalienable right of every minority within the councils. All the officials sent by the councils to the congresses are liable to dismissal at any time and under any circumstances at the request of their constituents. Representation in the commune council and the general congress of councils does not create any special economic or social rights for anyone. The days of the mission and the time of the presence of individuals in the aforementioned assemblies are part of their voluntary socialist work. Membership in the socialist work organization is voluntary for every citizen, in any of the basic councils or communes. Each of these councils can withdraw from the membership of the Union of Councils, or the Socialist Labor Organization, whenever they wish.
The council structure, based on the abolition of wage labour, while being a container for the socialist socialization of citizens, is also a platform for the struggle between different views and intellectual tendencies. When we talk about the establishment of councils with this role, we are basically considering a society in which the class struggle has progressed to the point of eliminating wage labour relations and we do not witness class confrontation or class struggle as in the past. With all this, the persistence of bourgeois culture, thoughts, habits, traditions and social values in society, in addition to all the effects and consequences resulting from the survival of the world capitalist system, makes the collision of different social tendencies and even the conflict of opposing class horizons within the councils possible. On this basis, the councils must provide all the necessary facilities and possibilities for the creative and constructive advancement of these collisions. No institution or group under any name or title will have any special role or special prestige apart from the cycle of work of the councils.
The above can be considered as general components of the socialist council structure. What determines the nature and content of this structure is certainly not its council appearance, but the economic laws of the abolition of wage labour, of which this structure is only the manifestation of their routine realization. These laws will be discussed in the following chapters of the book, but it must be emphasized again that the council structure is only the social superstructure of socialism. The abolition of the relationship of buying and selling labour power will not be realized without the nationwide organization of councils of individual citizens, wage labour will not be truly abolished without the effective and conscious participation of all individuals in the process of social work. The council structure of socialism does not imply the imposition of any costs or the waste of any part of the labour or product of the workers’ labour, for the obvious reason that it guarantees the unity of legislation and execution, planning and production, the provision of social services with policymaking. This structure ends the separation of the governed from the ruler and the separation of man from the product of his labour. It makes all human beings equally involved and united in the process of producing material blessings and general welfare and the process of planning social affairs, and in this regard, it makes the existence of any type of government redundant.
“When there is no longer any social class to be suppressed, when, together with class rule, with the struggle for the survival of the individual, which is the result of the present chaos of production, the conflicts and excesses arising from this struggle also disappear, then there will be nothing left to suppress, and no need for any special force for suppression, namely the state. The first act which the state really takes as the representative of the whole of society, namely the seizure of the means of production in the name of society, is at the same time its last independent act as the state. Then the interference of the state in the various aspects of social relations will one after another become superfluous and will fall asleep of itself. The rule over individuals will be replaced by the management of things and the leadership of the process of production by all.” (Engels. The Origin of the Family, …)
Revolution and the establishment of socialist councils
In the literature of the parties and forces of the world left, there has been a lot of talk about the seizure of political power by the working class. In these words, everything, all the contradictions and inversions are found, the seizure of power by the party, the councils, the workers’ provisional government, the unconventional government of the transitional period and the like have been sufficiently explained and expanded. The fact is that the essence of most words, theories and beliefs is the replacement of the state machine of the capitalist era by a new state. Even the alternative sought by the orthodox councillor forces and circles outside the struggle for the organization of an anti-wage labour council of the working class ultimately does not go beyond this. There is no doubt about this, but our discussion here is something else. It was emphasized earlier that neither the superstructure of socialism nor the political power resulting from the anti-capitalist revolution of the working class can be any kind of state, not even an unconventional provisional government of the transitional period. What is proposed under this name draws its validity not from the Marxian tradition of class struggle but from the convergence of the praxis of right-wing social democratic reformism and left-wing Leninist reformism. I have already briefly mentioned the phenomenon of Marx speaking of the superstructure of the transitional period between capitalism and communism. I will talk more about this later, but before that, we should examine the twentieth-century left’s perception of this category in more detail. Lenin’s theory of socialism and revolution does not adhere to the principle of the anti-wage-labour council organization of the working masses under the conditions of capitalist rule. On the contrary, it sees all the workers of the world simply as a vast mass of trade unionists whose entire role in the social and class struggle is, at best, to follow the party above them, fight behind the party leaders, and bring the party to power. In this perspective, the workers’ power born of the socialist revolution cannot be anything more than a party machine that, in principle, must take control of affairs under the name of the communist party of the working class. After the failure of the October Revolution, groups of the 20th century Leninist left, observing what happened in the camp, sought a way to escape similar failures in the future by patching up something called the Councils and seizing political power by the Councils. However, they never abandoned the Leninist perspective as the basis of their understanding of the organization of the labour movement, the real role of the proletariat, the workers’ power resulting from the revolution, the process of preparing for the socialist revolution, or the narrative of socialism, and did not try to replace it with the Marxian narrative of class struggle.
In the revolutionary thinking and approach of this left, the profound disregard for the principle of organizing the working masses in anti-wage labour national councils and during the communist preparation, preparation and maturation process continues to exist in a completely stubborn manner. With this approach, the Leninist left, in its view of the prospect of what it calls the socialist revolution, cannot take seriously and include in its calculations a phenomenon such as the council-led socialization of the working masses, the abolition of wage labour. A socialist council-led national organization composed of all, or most workers is not something that can be created overnight, and with the theory of “soviets as organs of mass uprising”, such a council-led socialization organization ready to abolish wage labour cannot be created. The emergence, growth, development and universalization of such a conscious, interventionist and organized power depend on having another narrative of the worker and the labour movement and the class capacity of the working masses in the process of historical revolutions and developments. A narrative that does not seek the path to the anti-capitalist campaign of the working class in the hanging of this class and the masses or its activists to the party of intellectuals of the upper classes, a narrative that sees the right path to this war in the organization of the councils and anti-wage labour of the working masses and recognizes the capacity for the workers to play this role. In the absence of this narrative, the Leninist left finds the solution in party building and asks the working masses to line up behind the party.
With this, there is no way for the workers to go through the process of conscious socialist preparation and readiness and reach the maturity of the socialist system of the abolition of wage labour. The working masses, who have not practiced exercising conscious and organized soviet power over the bourgeoisie in the capitalist system, on the basis of the current practice of their class struggle, will not become the dominant force in socialist planning and policymaking of work, production and life overnight with the advent of the revolution. The theory of the “provisional transitional government” emerges from here. From the midst of the conditions in which the explosion of the workers’ anger has shattered the bourgeois state machine. The proletariat has not achieved the readiness for soviet society corresponding to the abolition of wage labour, the party establishes a new state machine above the workers in place of the former political power and raises the flag of the transitional workers’ state on the top of its tower of sovereignty. The party claims that there is no other way out of the “transitional period” and that the sacred few-member political bureau of the party must take control of all matters in its own hands until further notice. But all the experiences of the last century of the world’s labour movement indicate that this state is neither temporary, nor declining, nor a tool for preparing the working masses for governing a society without a state or socialist council society, but rather a force for the destruction of all these and a real obstacle to the liberation of the working masses from the misery of wage slavery.
Councils and the “dictatorship of the proletariat”
Outside the circle of the anti-wage labour struggle, the left has always tried to attach its contradictory theory of the transitional state to Marx’s formulations of the class struggle, including his statement that “between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the former into the latter. The period of political transition corresponds to this period in which the state can be nothing other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat” (Critique of the Gotha Program). We will discuss Marx’s view on the subjectivity of the dictatorship of the working class and the place and relevance of this dictatorship in the process of transition from capitalism to communism. But before that, it is necessary to recall a few general points.
1. The very existence of capital is synonymous with the practice of dictatorship. If the compulsion of the overwhelming majority of people to sell their labour power is not a dictatorship, what else is it supposed to be called? What else can the compulsion to submit to the laws of the wage slavery system be other than the tolerance of an inhuman dictatorship. The separation of the worker from his work, his separation from the product of his labour, the comprehensive deprivation of the working class from free intervention in determining the fate of its own life, the immersion of workers in the mire of hunger, poverty, humiliation, corruption, prostitution, and the destruction of the productivity of capital, regardless of how these disasters and barbarities are imposed, are all signs of the establishment of the dictatorship of capital. Naked police violence, suffocation, torture, imprisonment or deprivation of political freedoms are functions that may or may not be associated with dictatorship. The idea of a necessary synonymy between these and dictatorship is an idea that has been imposed on minds mostly by capitalist circles. According to this idea, for example, in contemporary history and today’s world, neither democracy nor dictatorship are requirements of the process of reproduction of social capital!! Rather, they are different forms of government, the material basis of each of which and the distinction between them is hidden in a halo of ideas. Democracy is interpreted as “rule of the people”!! And dictatorship is considered as a kind of lawless rule, a manifestation of the exercise of the will of an individual or a specific social group!! Sometimes the former is attributed to a high level of industrial and political development, civil development, cultural growth and maturity of the “middle class”!! And the latter is proclaimed to be the result of society’s failure to meet the desired dynamics in these areas. Ideas and insinuations that are not only untrue but also a distorted and deeply demagogued expression of objectivity. First of all, the very division of strategies, methods or solutions for exercising power by social classes into two forms: democracy and dictatorship are a reversal. No form of domination by a social class in a class society can be anything but dictatorship. In other words, democracy is also the same as dictatorship, and the real debate does not revolve around dividing the methods of class domination into these two forms, but around how to exercise dictatorship. The dictatorship of the dominant class can be rabid, naked, and bloodthirsty, and in some circumstances and for some reasons it may not be so. The parliament, the government, the army and the police, assuming that they do not play the role of massacring dissatisfied and protesting people, are still mechanisms for exercising dictatorship. These institutions exist only to impose a kind of economic, political and social order on the opponents of the existing system. The important and crucial point here is that the principle of the existence of dictatorship in itself and apart from the social and class content of the order or system that it represents cannot be judged. Dictatorship can be a tool for eradicating the material foundations of any type of dictatorship and can be used against the resistance to the death of the defenders of an inhuman social system, or it can be used in the service of perpetuating exploitation, deprivation, poverty, humiliation and humiliation of humans.
2- As long as classes exist, dictatorship will also exist. In order for dictatorship to disappear, the division of society into classes must be eliminated. Otherwise, the discussion will essentially be about the nature and content of dictatorship and its relationship to the interests and benefits of classes, not the principle of its existence, which is in any case a presumed and unavoidable phenomenon. In capitalist society, the foundation of dictatorship is wage slavery. So far, there is no difference between the so-called most democratic or, indeed, the worst dictatorships, no difference between Sweden, France, and Switzerland on the one hand, and Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on the other. In all these societies, the commodity nature of labour power, the unquestionable subjection of the lives of those who sell labour power to the laws of profiteering, the separation of producers from their labour and their complete detachment from any involvement in determining the fate of their labour, production, and life, the existence of classes, exploitation, oppression, inequality, in short, what is inherent in the capitalist system, is preserved by dictatorship. In all these countries, dictatorship reigns regardless of their degree of economic and social development.
In a certain part of the capitalist world, the dictatorship of capital is exercised by legal, legal, civil and political institutions. Whether these organizations and bodies are state and form organic links in the chain of political power or are created by various social groups and play the role of institutions for their expression or are even considered legal organizations “enforcing the rights” of the exploited class!! does not change the essence of the issue. The basis of the bourgeois dictatorship is nothing other than the productive, political and social order of capital, and trade unions or any other similar civil institution are an organic part of this order and are necessarily a continuous part of the dictatorship of capital. This is a point that will certainly seem strange. Many, perhaps most people, will ask how it is possible for a civil institution defending the rights of the inferior and oppressed in society to be part of the structure of the capitalist dictatorship. The answer is not so difficult. In the first place, it is not that every protest organization within the current system is a link in the chain of the bourgeois dictatorship. A labour organization that questions the very foundation of this system is as anti-capitalist as it is anti-dictatorship and is committed to eliminating any form of bourgeois power. The debate is about the dissolved civil and legal institutions in the framework of the legality and politics and economic or cultural and social planning of capitalism. For example, even if they pursue some of the workers’ livelihood demands, labour unions are still a tool for implementing and maintaining the capitalist order and a mechanism for subordinating the working masses to this order. An order that reproduces the relationship of buying and selling labour power, exploitation, lack of rights, and the separation of workers from work and their own lives. The same applies to all organs engaged in reformist activities. The attempt to make capitalism bearable or to convince the working masses to accept the rule of the system, even if it has the aspect of opposing the current policies of the bourgeois government or reducing the profits of this or that capitalist in favour of improving the workers’ livelihood, is still an attempt to perpetuate wage slavery. That is what the real secret of the existence and objectivity of the dictatorship of the bourgeois class is.
In the other part of the world, the capitalist class (the largest part) implements its dictatorship by resorting to naked police and military force and employing all methods of repression and murder. Two important components of the material foundations of these two forms of capitalist dictatorship differentiate from each other. First, the social capital of the countries of the first sphere, within the framework of the global capitalist division of labour, with its very extensive international presence in the exploitation of the quasi-free labour of the working masses, gains the largest share in the surplus value produced by the global working class. Secondly, the labour movement of these societies, in a certain period of history, having an aggressive anti-capitalist position, has exercised power and forced the bourgeoisie to make some retreats. In the second sphere, both components have had a different character. In the global capitalist division of labour, the societies of this sector are the centre of capital export, the lower organic composition of capital, and the sphere of exploitation of cheap labour. The surplus value resulting from the exploitation of the working class of this sector must simultaneously respond to the desired profit of the country’s social capital and restore the high rate of profit of the capitals of the first sphere. The result of the influence of these components is the exploitation of the working masses of societies on catastrophic dimensions. A phenomenon that, in turn, leads to the implementation of the harshest and bloodiest types of dictatorships. If in the first countries the labour movement, under certain conditions, demanded the realization of certain demands with its vast power and the capitalist class, referring to its share of profit from the exploitation of the world’s workers, saw itself able to pay these demands, in the second societies the situation was the opposite. Here the bourgeoisie must divide the mountain of surplus value with its world partners, to maintain its high share, it must increase the pressure of exploitation of the workers to the highest level, and to force the workers to produce a sea of surplus value, it must apply the most ferocious and terrifying dictatorships.
3. The socialist revolution of the working class, by eliminating wage labour, destroys the material and economic foundations of the existence of classes, but this does not in itself entail the elimination of the existential reality of the bourgeoisie, even in a given society. More importantly, the capitalist mode of production does not disappear in the whole world simply by a workers’ revolution in one part of the world. The elimination of the material basis of the existence of classes with the elimination of classes are not really two categories that coincide. The first is a necessary condition for the realization of the second, but the implementation of the first does not immediately lead to the realization of the second. In the first step of the victory of its revolution, the working class abolishes wage labour, abolishes private property, and calls the entire capitalist class to a direct and equal presence in the socialist organization of labour. However, as soon as this is done, all capitalists, politicians, and thinkers of this class are not baptized. The revolution does not draw a line on the existence of classes or class struggle in society. The proletariat triumphs over the bourgeoisie, but the defeated class does not disappear from the scene of social equations with its defeat. In order to see the issue more objectively, the material concept of the existence of a social class must be further explored. Capital is not a handful of objects, a quantity of money and goods, or a means of production or exchange, but rather a social relationship. The capitalist class does not manifest its class existence in the mere ownership of factories and businesses. The vast majority of the population who until yesterday were policymakers, statesmen, planners, lawyers, political and economic consultants, holders of high-ranking administrative positions, operators of the police force and repression apparatuses, and similar institutions, all formed members of the capitalist class. The problem of the revolution, however, is not limited to the survival of the capitalist class. Over hundreds of years of historical domination, capitalist production has imposed its thoughts, horizons, values, ethics, culture, and social solutions on the space of thought, mind, and life of humans. These have been the survival mechanism of the system under the conditions of wage slavery, and with the fall of the political power of capital, they will continue to play a role for years as obstacles to the establishment of socialism abolishing wage labour. The socialist revolution of the workers will not make the social, intellectual, and cultural existence of the bourgeoisie disappear overnight or in the short term. The revolution forces the defeated class to resist in all spheres of social life, and this is while the bourgeoisie is a global class and is ready to fight against the revolution of the workers of every society.
In view of all these factors, it is a naive idea to think that the council and socialist organization of labour and production of the working class will be devoid of dictatorial character. An idea that usually arises from a misunderstanding of the concept of dictatorship. Socialism cannot achieve any kind of victory without seriously exercising dictatorship over the bourgeoisie and without crushing any kind of resistance of world capital.
4. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a dictatorship against wage slavery, and its object is solely to put an end to exploitation, oppression, inequality and all the consequences of the capitalist system. Here, dictatorship is not synonymous with deprivation of freedom, pressure, suffocation and arresting and imprisoning opponents. Quite the opposite, unconditional freedom of any kind of political and social approach is an integral part of it. The proletariat, in order to organize the socialist transformation of the economy and establish the socialist council organization of labour, does not provide for any political restrictions or exert any kind of intimidation or pressure in any field on any defender of the capitalist system. Its demand is the abolition of wage labour and the denial of the existence of classes. But the very process of social practice, this very goal, is the same dictatorship and a form of exercising class power over another class. This is something that the communism of the abolition of wage labour of the working class does not deny in any way, but the dictatorship of the proletariat with this narrative is different in all its aspects from what the bourgeoisie or the militant left reformism are arguing under this name. It was said earlier that the mere existence of capital or the wage labour relationship, even with the most sublime and comprehensive possible superstructure of democracy, is a steel chain of dictatorship and the disenfranchisement and exploitation of the working masses. Here we are dealing with exactly the opposite procedure of this ruling. The process of eliminating and eradicating wage labour and ending the existence of exploitation, classes, the state, and class society, even if all the former capitalists were to be taken care of in a soft and warm bed, would still be the dictatorship of one class over another, the dictatorship of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. The proletariat does not imprison anyone for the crime of being a capitalist, it does not prohibit any defender of capitalism, even with all his past and present class savagery, from political, ideological, and intellectual activity against socialism. It does not deprive the intellectual representatives of the bourgeoisie of the right to organize, form parties, protest, and political struggle, and it does not even hesitate to give them equal social opportunities to express their opinions. The proletariat considers the granting of these rights and freedoms to be precisely part of the process of its routine struggle for the realization of socialism and the elimination of the consequences of capitalism. In order for socialism and a mode of production based on the equal and free participation of all human beings in the fate of their work and the products of their labour to be established, it is necessary to confront any illusions created by the bourgeoisie in the years following the military and political victory of the workers’ revolution. This confrontation can no longer be military and violent in principle.
In the process of abolishing wage labour, the bourgeoisie must be given the opportunity to once again propose and publicize its solutions. This is a necessary condition for exposing the capitalist class and all its intellectual representatives. For all these reasons, unconditional freedom of political activity for everyone, including the defeated bourgeoisie, is a serious need for the further strengthening of socialism. The socialist labour council organization is the only type of social order in the history of human life that sees the unconditional freedom of opponents as an integral part of its existence. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not only a means of depriving freedom, violating rights, or exerting pressure on any opposing person, which, without guaranteeing all the unconditional rights and freedoms of citizens, loses its philosophy of existence. The manifesto of this dictatorship is the abolition of wage labour. The working class, organized in the councils of the society, calls upon all former capitalists, or indeed all members of the class that has not refrained from committing any crime against it for centuries, to submit to its determined historical will to create a society of free men equal in all respects. It warns the capitalists that their citizenship and their enjoyment of all human rights depend on their direct presence in the councils of work and production, equal participation in decision-making, and adherence to the planning and policymaking of local and national councils. The socialist labour council organization gives the former exploiters and former perpetrators of the entire thirty-day period of the working masses the right to work together with other citizens within the councils. To plan the work. To have an effective presence in defining work, determining the type of work, distributing the products of labour, and in everything that concerns the livelihood and social life of the population. In the process of practical advancement of these programs, to propose whatever they think, to use the facilities of the councils with equal rights, and to strive to become the majority.
Lovers of democracy who describe the imposition of exploitation, oppression and misery of capitalism on the working class within the framework of “legality”, “free elections” and “parliamentarism”, a very free!! human!! democratic and free from any kind of dictatorship!! relationship, upon hearing the word dictatorship of the proletariat, their arsenals of populism and trickery explode at once and they drag the world into a controversy that communists and the proletariat are not adherents of democracy and support the practices of dictatorship!! They can resort to any means, but the dictatorship of the proletariat is the direct presence of the vast masses of citizens who have made ending the “prehistory” of human life and establishing a society free from exploitation, injustice and inequality the order of their ongoing struggle. Here, a class holds power that is the standard-bearer of the obliteration of the It is a class and it carries the banner of every kind of class power. A class that does not seek supremacy because it has no choice but to remove the foundation of every kind of superiority in order to free itself, and in order to free itself, it must free humanity. The proletariat does not respect the freedoms and rights of the former exploiting class until it has respected democracy, law and the civil rights of individuals. It does this because it will not be able to liberate itself and humanity without establishing a world free from all forms of exploitation, injustice, government, force, classes and inequality.
5. What, following the failure of the October Revolution, has declared its existence in a part of the world, in the former Soviet camp or in any other society claiming to be a workers’ revolution and socialism under the name of “dictatorship of the proletariat”, has been precisely a type of bourgeois dictatorship which, like any other state, this class has pursued the establishment and survival of the system of wage slavery. In all these societies, commodity labour power and the relation of labour and capital have been the dominant economic element. The state has played the role of the police, military, political and social organization of the wage labour system. Why the dictatorship of capital in these countries did not correspond to the Western method of exercising the dictatorship of capitalism is a subject that was mentioned very briefly above. Factors such as the arrangement of class forces and the degree of exercise of power by the working class against the bourgeoisie, the place of the social capital of each country in the global capitalist division of labour and its capacity to secure a share in the total surplus value produced in the world, the ability of each society to retreat in an emergency in the face of the wave of workers’ struggles while ensuring the conditions for its own survival and reproduction are among these factors.
6. The real concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat is what has been said, but this concept can be accompanied by a range of different objective situations under the influence of the state of the basic class confrontation on the eve of the revolution and the period following it. The anti-capitalist council movement of the working class can overthrow the bourgeoisie from the throne of power while it itself does not have sufficient preparation for widespread council socialization and the general abolition of wage labour in the strict sense of the word. It may already have acquired all the necessary preparation for this task and finally it may revolve around a point on the dividing line between these states. In each of these forms we will be faced with different equations of power between the victorious council anti-wage labour movement of the proletariat on the one hand and the defeated bourgeoisie on the other, the pressure of its effects on the daily functioning of the socialist soviet organization of labour and production is inevitable. If the bourgeoisie has the necessary strength to restore power and launch a war against the proletariat, if the capitalists deprived of political and economic power can, taking advantage of the broad international support of their class, begin to prepare forces to crush the revolution, then there is no other way left but to fight at the feet of the proletariat. In such a situation, the dictatorship of the proletariat will have no other choice but to use military force and the entire power of its councils to suppress the bourgeoisie. They do not share the spoils in war. The proletariat’s desire for the victory of the revolution is not to use military force, but to create conditions for the struggle between strategies. However, if the capitalist class is not willing to accept such conditions, the continuation of the war will be imposed on the socialist soviets of labour and production, and if this happens, the dictatorship of the proletariat will not hesitate to resort to any humane and socialist solution, including the use of military force, to break the resistance of the bourgeoisie.