If We’re Going to Defeat Capitalism, We Need to Build a Working Class Base – Right Now
What is the purpose of a communist party? For much of the Western left, the answer to that question has become abstract. Day-to-day political work generally consists of raising consciousness through political writings (only read by other leftists), responding to the crises faced by the working class with political demonstrations (only attended by other leftists), or developing survival programs (which can only collect and redistribute the meager resources of the oppressed). The notion of the victory of the working class over the capitalist ruling class is but a hazy object on the distant horizon. Instead, leftists have come to admire struggle for struggle’s sake, divorced from the attainment of any long-term objective. Pride is placed in energy expended, rather than outcomes achieved. But there is no valor in defeat, nor liberation in failure.
The purpose of the Multinational Communist Party — and the only valid purpose for a communist party — is to build a revolution. This must mean something concretely and not in vague, aspirational terms. A communist party must set revolution as its destination, plan out a route to get there, and travel that path tirelessly — through its twists, turns, setbacks, and detours — until the goal is reached.
Class Struggle
A socialist revolution occurs when the working class rises up to overthrow the capitalist ruling class. This changes the relationship between individuals in society on the one hand and the economic output of that society on the other. These relations change from one where the means of production (resources, raw materials, businesses, factories, stores, real estate, etc.) are privately owned by a few capitalists to one where those means are collectively owned by the entire working class. This struggle is driven by both the wider conditions of society as well as the choices that people make. In Marxist terms, this is the push and pull between the “objective factors” and the “subjective factors” of a revolution.
The economy, war, unemployment, rising or falling wages — all represent objective factors in a developing revolution. Under capitalism, because of competition between capitalists, the capitalist ruling class as a whole is compelled to seek greater and greater profits. If a company does not increase its profits, it will be gobbled up or driven out of business by another company. These profits can only be gained by increasing the exploitation of the working class — by forcing workers to work harder or longer or for less money, or by some combination of these methods. This increasing pressure on workers drives them to take action in response, triggering a fight for better wages and conditions.
This conflict between capitalists and workers over the profits that workers produce is the centerpiece of the class struggle. As capitalists are forced by the market to constantly increase their profits, and workers need to get hold of the wealth they create in order to survive, this class struggle can not be resolved without the victory of one class over the other. For the working class to win, they must wage a revolutionary struggle and seize control of the economic resources of their society — the “means of production.”
Despite the pressure created by these objective factors, workers individually and as a whole must still choose whether or not to engage in revolutionary struggle. They must decide whether to stop once they have reached temporary compromises with the capitalists for small improvements in pay and conditions or to surge forward and seize the means of production. These choices, and the politically active members of the working class who influence them, make up the subjective factor of a revolution.
The role of a communist party is to win the political leadership of the subjective forces of a revolution — to drive the revolution forward and defend against those in the struggle who claim to support the working class but in effect carry out the interests of the capitalists. Without a focused, disciplined communist party dedicated to this task, the class struggle will be hijacked by the servants of capitalism — the liberal declawing of the George Floyd uprising in 2020 being only the most recent example — and ultimately end in the workers’ movement being crushed.
But how can communists achieve this, especially considering their small numbers in comparison with the wider working class? To pose the question another way, how can a small political party unify and lead an entire class? In 1915, V.I. Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party during the Russian Revolution wrote:
“What we are discussing is the indisputable and fundamental duty of all socialists — that of revealing to the masses the existence of a revolutionary situation, explaining its scope and depth, arousing the proletariat’s revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary determination, helping it to go over to revolutionary action, and forming, for that purpose, organizations suited to the revolutionary situation.” — ‘The Collapse of the Second International.’
What Lenin describes here is a process that prepares the working class to wage a revolutionary struggle. This is a process of political agitation, education, organization, and inoculation (against capitalist retaliation).
Political agitation builds revolutionary consciousness by helping workers understand the nature of capitalist exploitation, spurring them into action. Political education is what lays out a path to victory, giving the workers confidence to take revolutionary action. Organization into structured political bodies is what focuses the sporadic, spontaneous energy of the movement into a concentrated force that can be directed at the weak points of the capitalist ruling class. Workers in the struggle must also be informed and prepared for the retaliation of the capitalists if they are to maintain their determination in the face of setbacks — a process referred to as “inoculation.”
Without these methods, it is not possible to direct the actions of an entire class, to wage a revolutionary struggle, and to defeat capitalism.
The State
To understand how to wage revolutionary struggle, we must understand the relationship between the classes and how those relations are maintained.
The political system in the United States is referred to as a “republic” or a “representative democracy.” However, if we look at how politics function in the US, it is more accurate to call the US a “capitalist dictatorship.” This is not a dictatorship run by a single capitalist, but by capitalists collectively as a class. Though capitalists work to pursue their collective goals, this is not the same as cooperation with each other. In actuality, capitalists are constantly competing and undermining each other, however, their common economic interests unite them on basic policy objectives.
But why does the government of the US have to follow the policy objectives of the capitalist class? Firstly, because there is no other option. It is capitalists who control the economy — the objective factor — not politicians. By owning the means of production, capitalists determine what products our society makes and who receives them. When we think about products and resources like food, water, electricity, and housing, we realize immediately that capitalists, not politicians, hold the power of life and death over the people of this country. This control over economic production is the primary means by which capitalists exercise the dictatorship of their class.
But there are also subjective factors at play. Who determines which political ideas are acceptable in our media and educational institutions? These institutions are also owned by capitalists, and it is in the interest of capitalists to make sure that the ideas they promote fall within the pro-capitalist spectrum, whether that be “left,” “right,” or “center.” In this way, the capitalist class can bombard the people of the US with capitalist propaganda every day from every direction.
Even the political views of politicians can be confined to the pro-capitalist spectrum through the financing of political campaigns and the regular flow of capitalists into political office. With near-total control over the economy and the political ideology of the country, capitalists reduce the government to what Karl Marx said is “a mere committee to manage the common affairs of the [capitalist class].” No single politician, journalist, or academic — no matter what their political views — can break through this near-monopoly of capitalist ideology.
But if the politicians in Washington are simply managing society on behalf of the capitalist class, where does the actual power lie? How is the capitalist dictatorship enforced? The real-world instrument of ruling class power is what Marxists refer to when we speak of “the state.”
The state is not the government of a country, which as we have seen can be rendered almost completely powerless by seizing control over economic production. Instead, the state is the collection of armed persons and their commanders who violently defend the interests of the capitalist class. They are the military, the intelligence agencies, the police, the prison system, and the courts. It is the generals, soldiers, spies, cops, guards, prosecutors, and judges who wield the power in a capitalist society — and they only answer to the capitalist ruling class (how often have local politicians tried to reign in the police and failed? How often has Congress tried to put limits on the CIA that are immediately ignored?).
The purpose of this armed collection of individuals is not to defend the country, but to unleash violence upon the working class domestically and internationally, securing the rule of their capitalist paymasters. Even the government, if it fails to keep the workers under control, will be cast aside by the state — as the history of fascist coups has shown. The only thing the police and military “defend” is the capitalist economic system.
To defeat the capitalist system, the working class must overthrow the capitalist ruling class and become the new ruling class — a ruling class of workers who produce wealth for society not by the exploitation of a lower class, but through a democratically-planned, collective effort. This new class can only take hold by first liquidating the defenders of the old capitalist class — the capitalist state.
Revolutionary Democratic Control by the Working Class
To overcome the organized and disciplined power of the capitalist state requires equally organized and disciplined workers' power. To wage a socialist revolution requires a “workers’ state.”
But a workers' state can not be formed without the political support of the masses. Without a mass political base setting and mandating a clear political direction, a workers' state would very quickly become tangled in the existing web of capitalist relations (which remain for some time even after a socialist revolution).
To build a truly solid mass base requires an organization where workers can democratically exercise political direction over their own conditions — political councils made up exclusively of the working and oppressed classes. It is workers’ councils that provide the platform for revolutionary democratic control by the working class.
This is where the efforts of a communist party become pivotal. It is the communist party, through the means of agitation, education, organization, and inoculation, which draws workers in and helps them to form workers’ councils.
The communist party works tirelessly to build workers’ councils, which serve as the instrument of the workers' revolution. The party provides the political education needed to concentrate the revolutionary energy of the working class directly at the weak points of the capitalist state. Without this education, direction, and structure, the energy of the working class would be scattered and sporadic — leaving the revolution to the whims of spontaneity. Such disorganization is the short road to defeat.
Expansion
How do workers’ councils achieve revolutionary victory over the capitalist ruling class? The key element of strategy is to gradually strengthen yourself and weaken your opponent until the latter collapses or is weak enough to be crushed in one blow.
Revolutions are no different. Workers’ councils must be built, strengthened, and expanded. At the same time, they must attack the basis of capitalist power. Both the expansion of workers’ councils and the strikes against capitalist power will ebb and flow. But over time, the workers’ confidence in the revolution will grow, and the weakness of the capitalist class will be exposed. This crisis of legitimacy will mark the beginning of the end for capitalism in the US. This crisis of legitimacy is what Lenin referred to as “dual power.”
As the communist party leads workers’ councils against the ruling class — conducting strikes, demonstrations, and reappropriations — the economic and political conditions of society will change and further encourage the growth of the revolution. This is how the subjective factor drives forward the objective factor, which in turn further fuels the subjective forces. To draw an artificial dividing line between the two is to fundamentally misunderstand Marxism.
Communists do not observe, intervene, or support revolutions. They do not wait for revolutionary conditions to emerge. Communists build revolutions, taking subjective action to change the objective world around them. To do otherwise is to put all hope in spontaneity as the Mensheviks — those who were unwilling to overthrow the capitalist government during the Russian Revolution — did, and differs little from the anarchist theory of change. The Multinational Communist Party is dedicated to putting all of our effort towards the building of revolution, and we must begin now.