Speaking generally, Karl Marx wrote that a class will not depart
from the scene of history until the mode of production has imparted what
is best in it. It cannot be concluded from this general statement that
the world will have to wait for a social revolution until such a thing
happens.
Revolution breaks out according to the development of
contradictions inherent to the world at the time. Under the
conditions of state monopoly capitalism, the present and last
stage of capitalism, the contradiction between exploiters and the
exploited is extremely sharp, as is the contradiction between
socialism and capitalism, and between imperialism and the
oppressed peoples and nations, and amongst the imperialists
themselves.
The history of the twentieth century has shown that
revolution continuously breaks out in spite of the low
development of the social productive forces. This will remain the
case in the future as well. Russia was "not ready" for socialist
revolution according to dogma, yet the deteriorating social
conditions engendered by the First World War, and the severely
weakened position of the Russian aristocracy and bourgeoisie
created conditions that allowed for a united front of the working
class and peasantry to seize power. Lenin pointed out that the communists
in Russia would have been condemned by history if they had not called for
and led the socialist revolution "even though" Russia was not
"ready" for it as a fully developed capitalist country.
The fully developed capitalist countries have experienced
their own difficulties in organizing a successful revolution and
these difficulties generally arise from the treachery of a
section of the working class that is bribed by the bourgeoisie to
turn against revolution. This bribery has been financed up to
this point by the super-profits that imperialism has seized from
exploiting the oppressed countries in Asia, Africa and Latin
America. This traitorous section of the working class, especially
since the end of the Second World War, has directly participated
in the capitalist government as one of the pillars of the ruling
triumvirate of big business, government and big labor.
As far as the issue of "maximum potential" is concerned, the
full potential of any economic system is reached when that system
has brought forth what is best in it. That which is best reacts
in a dialectical way and affects the system negatively. The
system must be changed to the new one that is already present
within the womb of the old but not allowed to emerge because of
the resistance of those elements who profit from the old system.
Human society has gone through many upheavals and changes as
it has progressed from one system to another. This change
requires a great effort by humans in the form of a revolutionary
upheaval. It requires courage and great thinkers who are up to
the demands of the times. The people and leadership must find
solutions to the problem of opening the door to the progress of
society. Progress is not automatic by any means. If revolution is
not successful then decay sets in and the society may very well
degenerate to a lower level or even disappear altogether. More
than one society has disappeared with hardly a trace and others
have stagnated for thousands of years.
The technical and scientific revolution is what can be
termed as the "best" that the capitalist economic system has
produced. However, right from the beginning of capitalism it was
out of control. Science and technology were used to serve the
needs of profit not human beings. Science and technology under
capitalism are not under the control of humans as the very aim of
capitalism will not allow this. Science and technology have
always been introduced without knowing their consequences for
humans and without taking appropriate measures. This lack of
planning, which is worshipped by the capitalist ideologues, has
resulted in anarchy and chaos in the economy. It is often violent
and destructive to the productive forces, especially the human
productive force.
Since the beginning of capitalism, science and technology
have violently reacted against their progenitor and have been one
of the reasons for the constant disastrous economic recessions;
the overproduction of products in some areas and scarcity in
others; a gigantic army of unemployed; two world wars and
countless regional wars; modern weapons of mass destruction that
are in the hands of a dying bourgeois class that uses them to
suppress the people as well as to fight other capitalists; the
degradation and pollution of the natural environment; and the
growing feature of the jobless recovery, which is a relentless
rationalization of production that requires fewer and fewer
workers. All this is expressed in the trend of the rich becoming
richer and the poor poorer.
The technical and scientific revolution has outstripped the
bounds of capitalism and it will only be able to serve humanity
if it is harnessed by the working class, in a planned, rational,
socialist economy where the ownership of large-scale, socialized
production is itself socialized. The experience of socialism in
the twentieth century teaches us that socialism itself must
constantly harmonize its human relations in conformity with the
developing productive forces and likewise reform its political
institutions. It must reach a situation when social classes
become anachronistic in every sense of the word, where it becomes
impossible to turn back to a condition whereby one section of
humanity exploits another. This requires a very active, vibrant
revolutionary atmosphere under socialism where the masses of
people are increasingly active in their own governance. Socialism
requires constant improvement of the productive forces, to a very
high degree of productivity and quality of labor, allowing for a
very advanced cultural level of the people. The advanced level of
the productive forces permits the people the necessary means and
free time to raise their cultural and political level, and
participate directly and fully in social affairs. The quality and
quantity of work are constantly increased in a planned way
meeting the needs of the society and the claims of its members.
A fully communist society only appears after all
antagonistic classes and all social antagonisms are eliminated
around the world. As stated before, such a thing will happen only
after the victory of socialism in at least several of the
advanced capitalist countries as well as in some of the very
heavily populated areas of the not so developed countries in the
world. At an advanced level under socialism, the state machine
that is required to administer human relations and things under
class society is no longer needed, withers away and disappears
altogether. At that point it becomes human beings administering
things without the necessity of any separate state institutions
standing above them. Communist society is the mastery of things
and phenomena by human beings, and the elimination of all social
classes. It is the real beginning of the humanization of society
and nature. Conscious human history at an advanced level will
begin at that point and the human species will make a real break
from the animal kingdom.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
