of a heartless world, as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”{32}
This explains the presence of vigorous anti-religious campaigns in the Communist program: “One of the most important tasks of the Cultural Revolution affecting the wide masses is the task of systematically and unswervingly combating religion—the opium of the people.”{33} “There can be no doubt about the fact that the new state of the USSR is led by the Communist Party, with a program permeated by the spirit of militant atheism.”{34} “Have we suppressed the reactionary clergy? Yes, we have. The unfortunate thing is that it has not been completely liquidated.”{35}
The Communist Theory of the Origin and Economic Significance of Morals
Up to this point Marx and Engels felt they had established that the evil of private property is responsible for the origin of class antagonisms, the creation of the State and the exploitation of religion. Now they attached a similar explanation to the origin and economic significance of morals. Engels and Marx denied that there could be any eternal basis for the moral standards of “right and wrong” set up in the Judaic-Christian code. Lenin summarized their ideas when he said: “In what sense do we deny ethics, morals? In the sense in which they are preached by the bourgeoisie, which deduces these morals from God’s commandments. Of course, we say that we do not believe in God. We know perfectly well that the clergy, the landlords, and the bourgeoisie all claimed to speak in the name of God, in order to protect their own interests as exploiters. We deny all morality taken from super-human or non-class concepts. We say that this is a deception, a swindle, a befogging of the minds of the workers and peasants in the interests of the landlords and capitalists.”{36}
The Marxists believe that “Thou Shalt Not Steal” and “Thou Shalt Not Covet” are examples of the dominant class trying to impose respect for property on the exploited masses who cannot help but covet the wealth and property of their masters. As Engels said: “Thou shalt not steal. Does this law thereby become an eternal moral law? By no means.”{37} They called such teachings “class” morality—a code designed to protect the property class.
But in rejecting the Judaic-Christian code of morals, Engels tried to represent that Communism was merely moving up to a higher level where human conduct will be motivated exclusively by the needs of society: “We say that our morality is wholly subordinated to the interest of the class-struggle of the proletariat.” But in spite of this attempt to delicately obscure the true significance of Communist moral thought, Engels could not prevent himself from occasionally unveiling the truth of what was in his mind: “We therefore reject every attempt to impose on us any moral dogma what-ever….”{38}
In other words, Communism undertakes to replace Judaic-Christian morals with a complete absence of morals. That this was exactly what later Communists deduced from the teachings of their leaders is demonstrated in the words of a modern American Marxist: “With him (the Communist) the end justifies the means. Whether his tactics be ‘legal’ or ‘moral’ or not, does not concern him, so long as they are effective. He knows that the laws as well as the current code of morals are made by his mortal enemies…. Consequently, he ignores them insofar as he is able, and it, suits his purposes. He proposes to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of ‘legality,’ ‘fairness,’ ‘right,’ etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have….”{39}
So now Marx and Engels had completed their original purposes in making an intensive study of history. They felt they had successfully explained the origin of the various institutions in society by showing that all of these were the product of Economic Determinism, and they felt they had traced to its source the cause of strife, inequity and injustice among men—private property. Only one task now remained for the master architects—to apply this knowledge to a “plan of action” which would permanently solve the economic, political and social ills of all mankind.
The Communist Plan of Action
As Marx and Engels analyzed modern civilization they concluded that capitalistic society is rapidly reaching that point where a revolution is inevitable. This is the way they reasoned: After the overthrow of feudalism the capitalistic society came into being. At first it consisted primarily of individuals who owned their own land or their own workshops. Each man did his own work and reaped the economic benefits to which he was entitled. Then the industrial revolution came along and the private workshop was supplanted by the factory. Products no longer came from the private workshop but from the factory where the united effort of many individuals produced the commodity. Engels said manufacturing thereby became social production rather than private production. It was therefore wrong for private individuals to continue owning the factory because the factory had become a social institution. He argued that no private individual should get the profits from something which many people were required to produce.
“But,” critics asked, “do not the workers share in the profits of the factory through their wages?”
Marx and Engels did not believe that wages were adequate compensation for labor performed unless the workers received
“But does not the investment of the capitalist entitle him to some profit? Without his willingness to risk considerable wealth would there be any factory?”
Marx and Engels answered this by saying that all wealth is created by the worker. Capital creates nothing. Marx and Engels believed that the reason certain men have been able to accumulate wealth is because they have taken away the fruits of the worker in the form of interest, rent or profits. They said this was “surplus value” which had been milked from the labor of men in the past and should be confiscated from the capitalists by the workers of the present.
Marx and Engels now dared to predict the ultimate trend of development in modern capitalistic civilization. They said that just as private workshops had been taken over by the factory, so the small factory would be taken over by the big combine. They said the monopoly of capital would continue until it was concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer men while the number of exploited workers would grow proportionately. And while a few were becoming richer and richer the exploited class would get poorer and poorer. They predicted that the members of the so-called middle class who own small shops and businesses would be squeezed out of economic existence because they could not compete with the mammoth business combines. They also predicted that the government would be the instrument of power which the great banks and industrial owners would use to protect their ill-gotten wealth and to suppress the revolt of the exploited masses.
In other words, all levels of society were being forced into the opposing camps of two antagonistic classes—the exploiting class of capitalistic property owners and the bitterly exploited class of the propertyless workers.
They further predicted that the revolutionary explosion between these two classes would be sparked by the inevitable advancement of technological improvements in capitalistic industry. The rapid invention of more and more efficient machines was bound to throw more and more workers out of employment and leave their families to starve or perhaps survive on a bare subsistence level. In due time there would be sufficient hatred, resentment and class antagonism to motivate the workers in forming militant battalions to overthrow their oppressors by violence so that the means of production and all private property could be seized by the workers and operated for their own advantage.
It is at this point that Communists and Socialists take different forks of the road. The Socialists have
