CHAPTER I

STATE COMMUNISM OR THE ASSOCIATION OF FREE AND EQUAL PRODUCERS

PART 2

Varying Marxist Opinions

With the single exception of Marx, we find in the case of virtually all writers who have concerned themselves with the organisation of economic life in a communist society the same principles being advocated as those which the Russians have applied in practice. In this, they base themselves upon the well-known dictum of Engels: "The proletariat conquers state power and as its first act proclaims the means of production to be state property." (3) They then set about the task of centralisation and begin to construct organisations of a similar type to those which the Russians have called into being. Thus for instance write Rudolf Hilferding and Otto Neurath, names which could be extended by a whole series of other 'experts' :

"Exactly how, where, in what quantity and by what means new products will be produced out of the existing and man-made means of production .. is decided by the social commissariats of the socialist society at national or local level. It is they who mould with conscious intent the whole of economic life, utilising for this purpose all the instruments at the disposal of organised production and consumption statistics, in accordance with the needs of the communities as they, the social commissariats, have consciously represented and formulated them." (4)

And Neurath expresses this even more clearly:

"The science of the Socialist economy recognises only one single economic master: society itself, which, without reckoning of profit or loss, without the circulation of any form of money, whether it be precious metals or 'labour money' reflecting an economic plan, organises production without the aid of any unit of accounting control and distributes the means of life according to Socialist principles." (5)

Anyone can see that they both arrive at the same kind of social structure as that erected by the Russians. Even if we assume such structures are actually viable ( a fact which we deny) and that the central administration and the organs of social control would be willing or able to distribute the mass of products in an equitable way in accordance with the accepted differing standards of living - even then, and even if we assume that the myriad economic exchanges involved occur smoothly, the fact would still pertain that the producers have in reality no right of control over the productive apparatus. It becomes not an apparatus of the producers, but one placed over them.

Such a state of affairs can lead to nothing other than the forcible suppression of groups which, for whatever reason, come to adopt a position of opposition over and against the administration. The central economic power is simultaneously the political power. Every oppositional element which, in respect of either political or economic affairs, wishes to arrange matters differently to that willed by the central administration will be suppressed with all the means at the disposal of the all-powerful state apparatus. It is certainly not necessary to give concrete examples of this - they are already familiar enough. In this way the Association of Free and Equal Producers proclaimed by Marx becomes a prison-state such as humanity has never before experienced!

The Russians, no less than all the other theoretical schools, call themselves Marxists and of course proclaim their theory to be true communism. In reality, however, it has nothing to do with Marx. It is bourgeois economics, a capitalist administration and control of production projected in communist terms. The historical perspective's of the Bolshevik tendency are expressed in the fact that they have observed how, already under capitalism, the production process becomes subject to an ever greater degree of socialisation. The free producer of commodities is hemmed in on every side by trades unions, trusts, etc; production is indeed already "communist!:

"The overcoming of capitalist modes of thought as an incipient social phenomenon presumes the carrying through of an all-embracing process. It is highly likely that Socialism will first of all establish itself as an economic order, so that socialists will first be created through the Socialist order, and not, conversely, the Socialist order through the socialists - a sequence which, furthermore, stands in complete harmony with the basic ideas of Marxism." (6)

Should it be the case that the economy has become "communist" in this way, it is necessary only that the production relations be transformed in such a way that the means of production become state property, and then :

"...a socially planned regulation of production in accordance with the needs of the community and of each individual takes the place of the anarchy of social production." (7)

On the basis of this plan-determined control they then construct their system further. In order to bring the plan to completion, it is necessary only to install a new management in charge of the capitalist production apparatus - and communist society is there, ready made!

This perspective of communism, according to which the proletariat only needs to place a new management in charge of production in order that, with the help of statistics, this will then arrange everything for the best in the best of all possible "communist" worlds, derives its basic origin in consciousness from the fact that the type of economist or sociologist, whose brainchild this is, is unable to conceive of the growth of planned production as an aspect of the development of the working masses themselves, but can conceive of it only as a process which they - the economic experts - are called upon to carry through and complete. Not the working masses, but they, the leaders, are destined to guide the bankrupt capitalist system of production into communism. It is they who have the knowledge, they who think, organise and order. The sole role which the masses have to fulfil is to endorse which they in their wisdom have decided. Towering above the mass of working people stand the economic experts and leaders with their science, looked up to in reverence by the masses as the custodians of a temple of social marvels which remains closed to them. Science would then be the possession of the great men, from whom the light of the new society beams out. Needless to say, in this form of society, the producers have no control or administrative power whatever over production, so that the picture thereby painted represents a strange version indeed of Marx's concept of the Association of Free and Equal Producers.

All plans of this kind bear clearly the birthmarks bestowed on them by the period of history in which they have been born: in this case, the epoch of the development of the mechanical sciences. The productive system is conceived as an intricate mechanism which functions through thousands and tens of thousands of gears and cog-wheels. The various parts of the productive process function integrally with one another in much the same way as do the separate yet interdependent partial functions of a production belt, like those found in a modern factory - for instance, Ford. Here and there stand the controllers of the production apparatus, who control the operation of the machines by means of their statistics.

These mechanical plans have their origin in a fundamental error, namely, the idea that communism is primarily a matter of the ordering of organisational-technical processes. In reality, the fundamental question is an economic one: how the basic relationship between producer and product is to be determined. It is for this reason that we say, in respect of this mechanical conception, that it is necessary to find the foundation which will enable the producers themselves to construct the edifice of production. This act of construction is a process which proceeds from below upwards and not from above downwards. It is a process of concentration which is fulfilled by the producers themselves, and not in such a way as if mana from heaven were to fall upon them from above. If it is our wish to take the experience of the revolution to heart and to follow the guidelines given us by Karl Marx, it is even now possible for us to make appreciable progress along this road.

References

3. "The proletariat conquers state power and ... proclaims the means of production to be state property" (Engels)
This is, of course, the well-known quotation from Anti--Duhring (Pt. III: "Socialism", Chap. II: "Theoretical", Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1976, p.362). It should be noted, however, that in his other great work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, as quoted in Chapter VII of the present work, Engels gives expression to the opposite view of communism, that adopted by his life-long friend and co-worker, Karl Marx, which defines the social foundation of communism as an "Association of Free and Equal Producers".return to text
4. R. Hilferding: Finance Capital, trans. T. Bottomore, p.28.return to text
5. O. Neurath: Wirtschaftsplan und Naturalrechnung (Economic Plan and Accounting in Kind), p.84.return to text
6. O. Neurath: ibid., p.83.return to text
7. F. Engels: Anti-Duhring, Part III; Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1976; p.361.return to text

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