FAQ's about Marxism
What is Materialism?
Materialism is the view that matter exists independent of thought.
What is Dialectics?
Dialectics is the view that everything in the world is in the process of transformation.
What is the "Materialist Interpretation of History"?
The materialist interpretation of history looks at the relationship between objective conditions and ideologies in order to explain history.
What is Capitalism?
Capitalism is a system of production based on private property. In capitalism, privately owned firms operate to maximize profits and as a result generate vast class inequalities of wealth and power.
What is Socialism?
Socialism is a system of production based on social property. In socialism, enterprises run to maximize the welfare of citizens and as a result gradually eliminate the division of society into antagonistic classes.
What is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat?
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a state formed by workers that defends the interests of the vast majority of people and is organized to suppress and eliminate exploitation and oppression.
What is Communism?
Communism is a classless and stateless society that will emerge with the eventual development of socialist production.
How does one make a 'socialist revolution'?
A socialist revolution can only come about by organizing the workers and peasants into a class-conscious political force that will grow strong enough to take political power. This requires the organization of a communist party of the working class.
Is the Communist Party an Atheist Party?
No. The Communist Party is a revolutionary party of the working class to overthrow all systems of exploitation and oppression. Although dialectical materialism is not philosophically reconcilable with religion, atheism is not a part of the party program of the Communist Party. The CP believes that religion is a personal matter in relation to the state.
Why did Socialism fail in the USSR?
Socialism did not fail but was defeated in the USSR because of the development of opportunist trends within the Communist Party that began in 1956. These opportunist trends undertook policies and measures under the false title of deStalinization that eventually led to the restore capitalism within the USSR in 1991. Even a brief look at the fate of millions of citizens of the former Soviet Union shows that socialism was infinitely superior in all respects than the current capitalism system that has replaced it.
What about Stalin?
Much like psychological war before a military invasion against enemy states, imperialist countries have waged the largest propaganda campaign of the 20th century against communism by attacking Stalin and Stalinism. Expecting a fair analysis of Soviet society from imperialism is like expecting a capitalist to take a fair decision with respect to the wages of workers. While the struggle to weed out truth from fiction is still continuing, it is already clear that the anti-Stalin campaign is a Trojan horse for anti-communism in general.
Are you still allowed freedom in a Socialist Country?
In capitalism the vast majority of the worlds people continue to live in poverty. Under capitalism their lives are utterly destroyed by their dire economic conditions of life. That is why real meaningful freedom for the vast majority of people begins with the end of capitalism. Only when one is free of hunger and poverty can one begin to fully enjoy the creative aspects of human civilization. Therefore, socialism is the beginning of freedom for the oppressed people of the world.
Isn't socialism at odds with human nature?
Firstly, human nature is not uniform, immutable, unchanging, or unchangeable. Anthropologists have shown that human nature has transformed with periods of history. It varies from one region to the other, from one family to the other, and even from one individual to the other.
Secondly, socialism is only at odds with capitalist human-nature and not with human nature as a whole which is quite diverse and always in a process of transformation. The nature of the capitalist class, by and large, is suited to the conditions of continuing capitalist exploitation. It is this system of exploitation that socialists wish to eliminate.
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Therefore, socialism is the beginning of freedom for the oppressed people of the world.
ReplyDeleteHahahahahaaa! Right!
And by this logic, Americans are the most oppressed people in the world!
In America also, the capitalism has reformed itself to a great extent, remarkably, after the great depression of 1929-33 and then the implementation of Keynesian policies. True capitalism demands land, labor and money as commodities; the commodities which are produced for sale. But these three by their basic nature aren't commodities i.e. they can't be produced for sale in the not-so-self-regulating-market. Land , a part of nature and has limitations, is not produced by man; labor is inseparable from human life and hence can't be used indiscriminately and can't be wasted or used as one may like. Money itself is governed by finance capitalists or the state. In sum, true capitalism and its base self-regulating market is not even supportable on theory, forget about their non-existence in the hitherto oppressed world.
ReplyDeleteIt was really the government spending in the country, contrary to traditional capitalism, became the survivor of modern capitalism in US. Otherwise Marx's prognosis of the capitalistic doom would have showed its fearful cast on US economy.
It was another matter that Reagan changed a lot of those policies and currently it can be rightfully said that US state and its policies are very much influenced by the big corporates. It can be easily seen in the US desperation over maintaining the market for their big corporates worldwide , whether its bombing upon Iraq and Afghanistan, or its double nuclear policy in the case of India and Iran, or its full support of Israel in order to become a 'dada' in the middle east, or its policing over the world. Everywhere US is becoming a sign of oppresion, well it has been since its modern birth when Columbus in 1498 pillaged over the local inhabitants and paved the way for other greedy merchants and kings of Europe.
Even today in US itself, blacks are the victims of racial discrimination. US common people are dissatisfied of the state policies, since a large socialist measures are being removed in the name of national interests and terrorism. A clear sign of state oppresion it is, which is the very nature of the state. Though they may not be the most oppressed people, but they are being opressed and harassed daily. Their state and big corporates are not opressing only common US citizens, but they are regularly becoming agents of oppression in the most part of the world.
Socialism is the need of all hitherto and future world in which this Aristotle statement remains valid - "Man is a social being." It is one of the self-evident truth which has been witnesssed by humankind. Where everything is social, how could anyone make the world happy by being capitalistic and therefore non-social?
Capitalism which doesn't care about the human labor/life, how can it provide happiness for each and every member of the society? It is not reconcilable with the society, it can't eliminate the various antagonisms of the society and therefore, it has to be doomed or reformed. Only a socialist society could give the world free of oppression and hence can vouch for the liberty, equality and maximum happiness.