maintained from the beginning that centralized control of all land and industry can be achieved by peaceful legislation. Marx denounced this as a pipe dream. He held out for revolution. Nevertheless, he was quick to see some advantage in pushing forward any legislation which concentrated greater economic power in the central government. But he did not look upon such minor “victories of the Socialists” as anything more than a psychological softening up for the revolution which was to come.
Marx was particularly emphatic that this revolution must be completely ruthless to be successful. It must not be a “reform” because reforms always end up by “substituting one group of exploiters for another” and therefore the reformers feel “no need to destroy the old state machine; whereas the proletarian revolution removes all groups of exploiters from power and places in power the leader of the toilers and exploited… therefore it cannot avoid destroying the old state machine and replacing it by a new one.”{40}
Marx further justified the use of violence to bring about the new society because he felt that if moral principles were followed the revolution would be abortive. He pointed to the failure of the Socialist Revolution in France during 1871: “Two errors robbed the brilliant victory of its fruit. The proletariat stopped half-way: instead of proceeding with the ‘expropriation of the expropriators,’ it was carried away with dreams of establishing supreme justice in the country…. The second error was unnecessary magnanimity of the proletariat:
Marx attempted to soften the blow of his doctrine of violence by stating that he would be perfectly satisfied if the capitalistic state could be transformed into a Communist society by peaceful means; however, he pointed out that this would be possible only if the capitalists voluntarily surrendered their property and power to the representatives of the workers without a fight. He logically concludes that since this is rather unlikely it must be assumed that revolutionary violence is unavoidable.
Marx and Engels were also convinced that the revolution must be international in scope. They knew that all countries would not be ready for the revolution at the same time, but all Marxist writers have emphasized the “impossibility of the complete and final victory of socialism in a single country without the victory of the revolution in other countries.”{42}
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Since they now believed a revolution was inevitable, the next question Marx and Engels asked was this: Should they wait for it to come in the normal course of events or should they take steps to promote the revolution and speed up the evolution of society toward Communism? Marx and Engels decided that it had become their manifest duty to see that the revolution was vigorously promoted. Why prolong the suffering? The old society was doomed. In the light of the principles discovered by Marx and Engels perhaps the race could be saved a dozen generations of exploitation and injustice simply by compressing this entire phase of social evolution into a single generation of violent readjustment.
They felt it could be done in three steps: First, by wiping out the old order. “There is but one way of simplifying, shortening, concentrating the death agony of the old society as well as the bloody labor of the new world’s birth—Revolutionary Terror.”{43} Second, the representatives of the working class must then set up a Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Joseph Stalin described the things which must be accomplished during this period of the dictatorship:
1. Completely suppress the old capitalist class.
2. Create a mighty army of “defense” to be used “for the consolidation of the ties with the proletarians of other lands, and for the development and the victory of the revolution in all countries.”
3. Consolidate the unity of the masses in support of the Dictatorship.
4. Establish universal socialism by eliminating private property and preparing all mankind for the ultimate adoption of full Communism.{44}
Third, the final step is the transition from socialism to full Communism. Socialism is characterized by state owner ship of land and all means of production. Marx and Engels believed that after awhile when class consciousness has disappeared and there is no further resistance to be overcome, the state will gradually wither away and then property will automatically belong to all mankind “in common.” Later Lenin explained how the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would pave the way for this final phase. He said the dictatorship would be “an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another…. But, striving for Socialism, we are convinced that it will develop further into Communism, and, side by side with this, there will vanish all need for force, for the subjection of one man to another, of one section of society to another, since people will grow accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social existence without force and without subjection.”{45}
Even in the latter stages of Socialism, Lenin visualized a world without courts, lawyers, judges, rulers, elected representatives or even policemen. All these would be swept down into the limbo of forgotten and useless appendages which characterized the old order of decadent capitalism. Lenin said the spontaneous homogeneity of the socialized masses would make all the machinery of the old order superfluous. He felt that the new society would even change human nature until resistance to the communal society would become “a rare exception and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are men of practical life, not sentimental intellectuals, and they will scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), and very soon the necessity of observing the simple, fundamental rules of everyday social life in common will have become a habit. The door will then be open for the transition from the first phase of communism to the higher phase (full Communism).”{46}
The Classless, Stateless Society Under Full Communism
All Marxists fervently hope that the new society will produce the changes in human nature which are necessary before full Communism can become a reality. Individuals must forget that there was ever a time when income could be secured from the mere ownership of property or from productive labor. In other words, wages will be abolished. They must forget that some people once received very large incomes while others received small ones. They must lose any hope of a graduated pay-scale for differences in productivity or service. They must forget all about differences in skill, training, and mental or physical abilities. They must come around to the notion that, if man does the best he can in the best type of work for which he is fitted, he is just as good and just as deserving of income as any other man regardless of differences in productivity and output.
This is the Communist promise that, “Each will produce according to his ability and each will receive according to his need.” He must give up his old profit-motive incentive and become socially minded so that he will work as hard as he can for the benefit of society as a whole and at the same time be content to receive, as a reward for his work, an amount of income based on his needs in consumption.
Marx and Engels presumed that under such a system the output of production would be so tremendous that they could dispense with markets, money and prices. Commodities would be stockpiled at various central places, and all individuals who worked would be entitled to help themselves on the basis of their needs. Marx and Engels felt there would be no particular incentive to take more than was needed at any one time because, due to the superabundance of commodities, the worker could replenish his desires at will. Services were likewise to be dispensed at convenient places and individuals could call for these services as they felt they were needed.
Under these pleasant circumstances, the Marxist writers explain, the government machinery of the State will no longer be necessary:
“Only Communism renders the state absolutely unnecessary, for there is no one to be suppressed—‘no one’ in the sense of a class, in the sense of a systematic struggle with a definite section of the population. We are not Utopians (believing that society can function on a sublime level of perfection), and we do not in the least deny
