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It is now high time for the revolutionary proletariat finally to acquire a definite conception of the social order with which it intends to replace capitalism. It no longer suffices to push this task to one side with such facile remarks as that "the victorious working class will develop hitherto undreamed of powers, once it has struck off the fetters which at present bind it". For one thing, this is an extremely uncertain vision of the future. More to the point, it is in any case quite irrelevant. Indeed the opposite is true. Each day brings fresh evidence to prove that the capitalist economy is moving with giant strides along the path of concentration, and only those afflicted with blindness could fail to recognise that sooner or later it will find its highest and most complete form in the State. This then is the path of development by which the power of capital reaches its ultimate degree of concentration, and it functions simultaneously as the form of alliance binding together all sections of the ruling class, including the leadership levels of the old workers' organisations, against the proletariat. It is in this direction that the propaganda conducted on the broadest possible basis by Social Democracy and the trade unions on behalf of "economic democracy" - a propaganda which would be better described as the opening up of measures to enable the leaderships of the old workers' organisations to exercise a degree of control over the economy through the agency of the State - is aimed. The old workers' movement is unfolding its economic programme, its proposed planned economy, and its "socialism" thereby acquires form and structure; but what becomes amply clear along with these revelations is that the proposals put forward represent no more than a continuation of wage-labour under a new guise. And now it is also possible to declare with certainty that so-called Russian State communism is no more than a somewhat more radical means of implementing this new form of wage-labour. We revolutionary proletarians therefore have no choice. Before the eyes of the broad masses of the working class a way forward for their actions and struggles is being presented which will allegedly lead then to socialism or communism, to their liberation. And it is these selfsame masses of workers whom we must win to our side, to whom we must show their own autonomous goal, for without whom there can be no revolution and no communism. And this in its turn we can only do when we ourselves have a clear conception of the mode of production and structure of the communist society for which we fight, and for which we are prepared to devote our lives.
There is however yet more to be said on this theme. Even bourgeois scientists have recognised the approaching catastrophe, and they are even now preparing the reconciliation of capital with the idea of a socialised economy. They recognise that the days of private economic management are numbered and that the time has come when thought should be devoted to the task of maintaining exploitation by means of new forms of socialised management. Characteristic of this tendency is a work by the bourgeois economist E. Horn: The Economic Limits of the Socialised Economy, in which the view is expressed that the abolition of private property in means of production does not necessarily entail the end of capitalist production. It is for this reason that, in the final analysis, the elimination of private property in means of production holds no fears for him at least, because according to his view the whole capitalist mode of production, together with its market mechanism and the process of surplus-value formation, must be maintained at all costs. For him the problem is not whether but how private property in means of production is to be made obsolete.
It is of course axiomatic for a bourgeois economist such as E. Horn to attempt to prove the impossibility of communism. The fact that he seeks to achieve this by reference to the theory of marginal utility developed by Bohm-Bawerk renders it unnecessary for us to examine this in any greater detail. In our opinion, N. Bukharin has done everything that is necessary towards the refutation of this theory in the book Die politische Oekonomie des Rentners (The Political Economy of the Rentier Class). But the manner in which Horn criticised the official theory of the communist economy is worthy of note. He describes this as an economic order with negative characteristics, because, in that official theory, communism is defined by what it is not, and never, in no single case, according to the actual categories by means of which this economy will be ordered. The characteristics of the communist economy are stated as being that it has no market, no prices and no money. In other words, everything is negatively defined.
The spontaneous activities of the workers in their role as producer-distributors will fill out the spaces left by this negative characterisation, replies Neurath; Hilferding for his part refers this task to the State commissars with their statistical apparatus governing production and consumption; as a final resort, refuge is sought in fulsome references to "the creative energies of the victorious proletariat", which will solve problems "at the flick of a wrist...". Here we have reached the fitting point at which to recall the old adage: "When concepts fail to correspond with reality, at the critical moment the imagination supplies the appropriate word".
It may at first glance appear surprising that the so-called marxist economists have paid so little attention to the categories of communist economy, in spite of the fact that Marx himself has set down his views concerning this in a more or less complete, even if extremely condensed, form in his Critique of the Gotha Programme. Only, however, at first glance. The "disciples" of Marx did not know what to make of his grandiose vision, because they believed that they had made the discovery that the basic preconditions for the administration and management of the communist economy would develop along lines so completely different from those conceived by Marx. His "Association of Free and Equal Producers" was transformed in their hands into "State nationalisation", for did not the very process of capital concentration organic to the capitalist economy lead with absolute certainty to this end? However, the revolutionary years 1917-23 revealed for all to see the forms through which the proletariat seizes control of the means of production, and the Russian Revolution proved that two opposite perspectives lay at the heart of the revolutionary development there: either the Workers' Councils succeed in maintaining their power in society, or that power falls into the hands of the centralised economic organs of the State. Thus the broad lines of development of the communist society as set forth by Marx have once again proved themselves to be correct.
Concerning the Critique of the Gotha Programme, the following information is relevant : in the year 1875, measures were set in motion to bring about a fusion of the General Workers' Union of Germany, which as a general rule followed the doctrines propagated by Ferdinand Lassalle, with the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany, for which purpose a draft of the Programme to be presented for adoption at the Unity Congress, to be held at the small Thuringian town of Gotha, was drawn up. Both Marx and Engels subjected this draft to an annihilating criticism. Marx expressed his criticism in a letter to Brake, and subsequently named this manuscript Marginal Notes on the Coalition Programme. It was only after 1891 that this criticism became more widely known, and this happened when Engels was instrumental in bringing about its publication in Neue Zeit (New Times) , Vol 9, pp. 561-575. For many years, nothing more was heard about the matter until in 1920, again in 1922 and then in 1928, new editions of this text were published (all relevant dates have been taken from Program-Kritiken (Critical Notes on the Programme), or, as it is better known in English, the Critique of the Gotha Programme. In fact, these "Marginal Notes" only came to our notice after we had concluded our study. They correspond so closely with the outline given here that our work to some extent appeared as if it were no more than a contemporary elaboration of Marx's conception. We will content ourselves with showing but one example of this close correspondence, namely at that point in Marx's text where Marx polemicises against the view, taken by the Unity Programme, that each worker should receive the "undiminished proceeds of his labour":
"Let us take first of all the words 'proceeds of labour' in the sense of the product of labour; then the cooperative proceeds of labour are the total social product.
From this must now be deducted:
First, cover for replacement of the means of production used up.
Secondly, additional portion for expansion of production.
Thirdly, reserve or insurance funds to provide against accidents, dislocations caused by natural calamities, etc.
These deductions from the 'undiminished proceeds of labour' are an economic necessity and their magnitude is to be determined according to available means and forces, and partly by computation of probabilities, but they are in no way calculable by equity.
There remains the other part of the total product, intended to serve as means of consumption.
Before this is divided among the individuals, there has to be deduction from it:
First, the general costs of administration not belonging to production.
This part will, from the outset, be very considerably restricted in comparison to present-day society, and it diminishes in proportion as the new society develops.
Secondly, that which is intended for the common satisfaction of needs, such as schools, health services, etc.
From the outset, this part will grow considerably in comparison with present-day society, and it grows in proportion as the new society develops.
Thirdly, funds for those unable to work, etc., in short, for what is included under so-called official poor relief today.
Only now do we come to the 'distribution' which the programme, under Lassallean influence, alone has in view in its narrow fashion, namely, to that part of the means of consumption which is divided among the individual producers of the cooperative society.
The 'undiminished proceeds of labour' have already unnoticeable become converted into the 'diminished' proceeds, although what the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual benefits him directly or indirectly as a member of society " ( K. Marx: Critique of the Gotha Programme; Progress Publishers, Moscow; 1978; p.15 )
That for which we search in vain amongst the writings of any of the official marxist economists is what first hits the eye in Marx's representation: as with capitalism, he sees the economy of the communist society as a closed, self-contained process, at the heart of which a law-governed circuit is taking place. The economic necessity to reproduce and extend the means of production consumed is the foundation on the basis of which the distribution of the total product is conceived. Furthermore, the idea would never have occurred to Marx that this necessary process of reproduction could be made the personal responsibility of State commissars, that is to say, could be purely subjectively decreed. On the contrary, it is an objective process, and it is a self-evident necessity that its unit measure of regulation and control must proceed out of production itself. Following upon that, when considering those general social outgoings which can be satisfied only socially and which will represent deductions from the "full proceeds of labour" - the maintenance of those incapable of work, etc., - with Marx there is no sign whatsoever of any conception which envisages that a mountain of statistics would be necessary for this to be done! On the contrary, these outgoings are obtained by a simple deduction from the individually consumed product. If one recalls the fact that he proposes as the measure for this distribution the individually contributed labour-time, the picture becomes complete. For all these reasons we believe ourselves to be fully justified in saying that the work which we have carried out is no more than the consistent application of Marx's own theoretical methods
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