Dictatorship of the proletariat
for the abolition of wage labour
from our "Theses of Programmatical Orientation"
(Theses No.44 to 50)
44.
The real communist movement, as a conscious
being, as party, has been distinguished in its long historical struggle
from all the forces and ideologies of counter-revolution by affirming,
each time more clearly, the indissociable unity between the dictatorship
of the proletariat and the abolition of wage labour. The destruction
of the relations of capitalist production is necessarily a despotic activity
(the despotism of human needs against the law of value) by the organised
and centralised force of the proletariat imposing its class domination:
the worldwide proletarian state. This state is neither free nor popular,
because it does not unite different classes or strata of people. It is
exclusively the proletariat organised as party and is not constructed in
the interests of freedom, but on the basis of the need to repress all the
forces of reaction by revolutionary terror. The various currents who, in
the name of anti-authoritarianism, deny the need for any state or claim
to make the state of transition "free", "popular", "democratic", or in
which non-proletarian forces would participate, are not only contributing
to sowing confusion amongst proletarians but are objectively serving the
counter-revolution.
45.
The proletarian state has nothing
to do with the existing bourgeois state or with a "workers'" government.
The objective of the proletariat's struggle is not to "take the political
power of the state and put it to its service", as the bourgeois state (whoever
may be leading it) will continue unstoppably to reproduce Capital. Any
attempt to use the bourgeois state in the service of the proletariat is
a reactionary utopia and is one of the best methods of the counter-revolution
for diverting the devastating effects of a workers' insurrection against
the bourgeois state and against the tyranny of value valorising itself.
The struggle of the proletariat has, on the contrary, the objective of
the
destruction, the demolition from top to bottom of the bourgeois state and
of its socio-economic power. The bourgeois state will never whither
away. It is necessary to suppress and demolish it by means of violence,
at the same time as suppressing the mercantile and democratic dictatorship
from which it emerged and which it reproduces. On the contrary, the only
state which will whither away is that of the proletariat (the "semi-state")
which, in the course of its development, consolidation and extension, abolishes
itself in the very process of liquidating Capital.
46.
The proletarian revolution has therefore
nothing to do with taking over the leadership of the state with the aim
of bringing about "social reforms". By contrast, from its starting point
to its final objective, it is a social revolution, coming from the social
need to completely destroy the total power of bourgeois society (military,
economic, ideological, political...) and has communist society as its objective.
The revolution emerges from the separation of real human beings from their
collective being (Gemeinwesen) and its objective is the constitution of
Man's
true Gemeinwesen: the human being. It is obvious that this social revolution,
in the sense that it requires the overthrow of the existing power and contains
the need for destruction and dissolution, includes political struggle.
However, when its organised social activity begins and its own objective
and content arise, communism rejects its political envelope.
For this reason, proletarian revolution cannot
be reduced to an economic question of management of production, of workers'
control, etc. In order to realise the organised activity of society up
to the achievement of communism, proletarian revolution needs to violently
destroy all the institutions and apparatuses of the counter-revolution
which assure and maintain the dictatorship of value against human needs.
47.
The politicist deviation according to which
the proletariat is supposed to take over capitalist society's state in
order to reform society and the economist deviation according to which
the problem is reduced to taking over, controlling and running production
and distribution are almost always combined into one and the same "theory".
They constitute fundamentally counter-revolutionary ideologies which have,
in crucial moments, served as ultimate barriers for the maintenance of
capitalist society. This is why the proletariat must confront them, suppress
them and bury them.
48.
Obviously, before and during the whole phase
of insurrection, the proletariat will take over the means of production
(factories, communication centres, mines, fields...). All this activity
will have to have the internationally generalised triumph of the insurrection
as its central objective, firmly rejecting any illusions of managing society
without the destruction of the organised counter-revolution. To this end,
it is indispensable to achieve centralisation as well as the most developed
organisation of the proletariat into party as possible. Only the Communist
Party, solidly welded to its historic programme, can develop
a centralised and centralising action which can prevent localist dispersion,
self-managementist illusions, democratic federalism and exchange between
independent units of production (a source of private labour opposed to
social labour and therefore of mercantile reorganisation). Only the Communist
Party and its centralising action can give a single direction to all proletarians
and guarantee a maximum concentration of forces for the social, economic
and political crushing of the counter-revolution.
49.
Armed insurrection constitutes a qualitative
leap in the struggle but this leap is not irreversible. Armed insurrection
does not destroy the bourgeois state. This will only really be destroyed
by the liquidation of all the bases which underpin it and this is not possible
in one country or even a group of countries. This is why, in the proletarian
bastions where the insurrection has triumphed, the proletariat will have
to use the power it possesses over that part of world capitalist society
to expropriate and attack Capital on every terrain (politico-military,
propagandist, economic, etc.), directly taking every possible means in
hand to orientate production and distribution in accordance with its needs
and interests (that is the needs and interests of humanity). This implies
the destruction of commodity society and wage labour. However, all these
measures must be strictly subordinated to a central objective: extending
the revolution on a worldwide level. Every illusion concerning the
possibility of constructing a "workers' state" (or several of them!) in
the midst of the worldwide commodity-producing economy must be rejected
as must, even more so, the illusion of constructing socialism in one country
or group of countries. This is why it is indispensable that the centralisation
and the effective leadership of the communist movement should be unique
and global and that every regionalist and nationalist interest (always
bourgeois) should be firmly combated, each part being subordinated to the
general interests of the movement. Only the compact and organic centralisation
of the world proletariat, constituted as party and fortified programmatically,
numerically, organisationally and militarily in insurrectional battles,
will be able to confront all attempts at capitalist restoration.
50.
The proletarian revolution has nothing in common
with the political "revolutions" of the bourgeoisie - neither in its objectives
nor in its intermediate phases, except when it comes to the use of arms
and to the overthrow of the existing power.
-
Bourgeois "revolutions" try to change the personnel
of the government or one form of national state for another. Proletarian
revolution, on the other hand, has to destroy the national state and liquidate
every nation or country.
-
Bourgeois "revolutions" are made in the name
of the well-being of the people and reproduce wage slavery for most of
society. They use social terminology to better pursue their limited political
ends, using universal discourse to assert the particular interests of specific
minorities. Proletarian revolution, by contrast, however regional its starting
point may be, however minoritarian the faction which first throws itself
into struggle, however poor and politically limited its phrases may be...
possesses in itself a universal social content.
-
Bourgeois "revolutions" are based on democracy
and citizens' rights: they start out from the necessity for one bourgeois
fraction to no longer be separated from the collective being of Capital,
the state and they aspire either to control or to divide up political power
in the very bosom of democracy. Proletarian revolution starts out from
an entirely different reality, because the collective being from which
the worker is separated is a collective being with a reality and content
quite distinct from the political community. This collective being, this
community from which they are separated by their own work, is life itself
- physical and intellectual life, human activity, human pleasure, being
human. The proletarian revolution does not therefore aspire to democratically
divide up power but, on the contrary, arises from the imperious necessity
to liquidate this power, this democracy and everything which separates
the proletariat from its humanity, from its Gemeinwesen. "The human
being is the veritable Gemeinwesen of Man".