Karl Marx was probably the greatest communist ideologist in history. His works and ideas have made its mark in Russia during the past two centuries, and it had been continually manifesting throughout every nation in every part of the globe henceforth. With communism still very much alive in China and other Communist-States, it would be naiveté to consider it as a dead ideology.
Every nation that has a working sector, of which consists a majority of minimum wage laborers or proletariats, the risk of a social revolution will always be present. Its occurrence will be a vicious cycle that encompasses geography, time, and regimes as long as the majority of its citizens are, or are at the risk of, being proletariats—minimum wage earner. It may be likened to a social and national epidemic just waiting for the right stimulus and conditions to present itself. The prevalence of a corrupt and incompetent leadership, added to the proletariat’s continuous deterioration of his standard of living, and poor or inadequate government support system will only enhance the chances of the working class’ instigating a revolution to free themselves from the bondage of oppression and poverty—a communist revolution.
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In Marx’s viewpoint, the very existence of the bourgeois capitalist depends and breathes on industrial production undertaken by the laborers. Industrial machines have replaced the innate creativity and uniqueness of the individual worker, with the machines requiring only minimal skill and understanding to operate. This system made production run at a faster pace, eliminating the need for much labor force to be employed, resulting in many skilled and creative men to be worthless, economically. This has resulted in creating a more distinct separation of classes in the society, with the capitalist-bourgeois acquiring more wealth and power and the proletariat finding himself being more destitute. The landed too, that had once been a power in society, now finds itself in danger of being unavoidably included among the proletariats, now that the economy is shifting from purely agricultural to a modern industrial one.
The ultimate goal of a communist revolution is to give to the proletariat the authority of ruling their State. The awakening and beginning of this proletarian struggle is attainable only if capitalism succeeds in its own goal of monopolizing the State industry into the hands of a few bourgeois. Whence, the unavoidable result of this situation will only lead to mass poverty and economic slow down. Thus we can surmise that the Russian revolution was not of a communist kind for the obvious reason that the country’s leadership was not handed over to the proletariat. Communist tenets were only imposed on the citizens, such as abolition of the right to property, but in actuality there was not even a participation in the governing aspect of the State.
The apparent successes of capitalism in world markets only encourage the working class to be aware of the imbalances and flaws in the prevailing system. Marx terms this as class consciousness, wherein proletariats become aware of the fact that the ruling class exploits their hard labour for their own profits, and that the wealth and power of the bourgeois will not exist without their contributions to their huge industries. This prevailing world condition may be viewed as a necessary prelude for a worldwide consciousness resulting for a clamor for a change in the system, one which true communism may just provide.
In a capitalist system, there is an unavoidable tendency to treat one’s work with less importance and prestige. He tends to look forward to the wages that the capitalist rewards him, irrespective of the creativity and ingenuity his work commands. Salary thus becomes an accepted form of appreciation by the bourgeois for the hours the proletariat spends in the capitalist industry. His contributions are necessary for the bourgeois in the sense that the capital continually increases through their employment, be it in monetary, land, property, or other forms of capital needed to maintain the bourgeois’ position or ranking in the capitalist society. Profits from these are in turn diversified into other forms of industries which results in added profits, thus increases the bourgeois’ wealth and power within the society.
However, due mainly to the capitalists’ greed, a point where a problem of over production instigated the downfall of the capitalist is looming: the dilemma of over production, or the prevalence of too much commerce; it is the accumulation throughout the ages of the industries of the capitalists, whereby the products of the present industry reaches a quantity too much even for the world market to absorb. Where the bourgeois used capital as their weapon, the laborers have used the proletariats in denying the capitalists the workforce necessary in maintaining their industries, without which everything in their world comes to a halt.
Proletariats, being the most treasured sector of the communists, must form themselves into a group in their places of work. From thereon, utilizing the advances in communications technology, they need to coordinate with the same groups of another town, then cities, then States, and ultimately with other nations, until the proletariats of the world unite with one goal in sight, their eventual reign. It is the ultimate aim of the Communist Parties around the world to assist these groups in attaining their goal. True Communists desire only for the proletariats’ conquest of political power in their own countries, as manifested by Marx himself in Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels, 20).
Work Cited
- Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. Communist Manifesto. November 2006. Socialist Labor Party of America. Retrieved 19 April 2009