Western Marxists popularized a dogmatic view of Communism in which it is the end of history — a final and penultimate evolution of civilization, a stateless and classless society — a heaven. Maybe in a futile effort to win over their more anarchistic brothers-in-activism, they often cite Engels’ passages from Anti-Dühring to say that no, we cannot abolish things now, but we can later: “I want the goals of anarchism as much as you do, but we need to use Marxism-Leninism to make it happen.” Communism becomes part of a stageist plan of action of modern-day Western leftism: end capitalism, create socialism, <withering of state>, end socialism, initiate communism. Communism is defined as the final stage. It’s not a coincidence that neoliberal philosophers also had their own theory of an “end of history,” a final stage of development and progress.
If we can free ourselves of his rigid definition of Communism, or at least assume that there is no authority which strictly defines Communism, we may open up to Communism developing right before our eyes.
One such way of understanding what Communism is comes directly from Marx:
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
The beauty of this perspective is that if you still take Marx as an absolute authority here, and understand this particular definition to be an eternal and rigid definition, it necessarily means that the emergence of Communism presents itself differently across time and space. A movement cannot be static. A movement cannot be rigid. A movement cannot be an end. Most importantly, a movement can exist right here and right now.
Before the passage cited above, Marx emphasizes the interconnectedness of things when noting that nations are dependent on the revolutions of others. The Russian, Chinese, and even Iranian revolutions have made dramatic impacts on the world. The movement of American workers today, most clearly articulated currently within the MAGA and anti-establishment expressions, is a continuing process directly linked to developments in Eurasia and China. The birthing of a multipolar world has, in parallel, advanced contradictions within the United States into such unique extremes that the MAGA movement was made possible in the first place.
At the same time, world-historic transformations of the means of production are in development across the globe, furthering an environment of unprecedented change. While artificial intelligence in robotics, generative models, quantum computing, and the internet of things are some examples we can name, these advancements in technology are how we can empirically measure what Marx calls the contradiction between an existing world of wealth and a great increase in productive power. Across the world, the impact of this can be recognized most clearly by the quantification of free time. Centralization of information and accelerations in technology required for automation exist ever more definitely, yet the free time of the worker does not increase.
The world transformation of production and the revolutions in the East have accelerated the contradiction between the proletariat and the “intolerable power” which stands above them in all countries where the capitalists maintain hegemony. This contradiction necessarily means the existence of movement. The development of a thing is found within the contradiction of forces which make up that thing. If we are talking about the proletariat and intolerable power above it, the movement we are seeing is Communism.
Trotskyists and their modern day successors mistake this world movement for a universal proletariat revolution. However, the movement does not take uniform forms across time and place. Contradictions between the Earth’s environment and electromagnetic fields from the sun drive the overall weather systems of the planet. But does every geography experience the same weather at all times? They do not, because the form of weather in a local area relates to that area’s specific geography. Similarly, Communism, the movement which seeks to abolish the present state of things, takes local characteristics. It takes national form. The general phenomenon presents itself in particular ways.
If this movement, the contradiction between the proletariat and the intolerable power above it, is to succeed in favor of the proletariat, it (the movement) must first gain active self-consciousness. In doing so, the movement can have direction, strategy, aims, and power. While Lenin and Mao have shown clear methods on how to do this successfully, it is not enough to simply copy their actions. Their methods had to develop through careful investigation of their own countries. Marxists in the Unites States fail to even acknowledge that a movement exists at all! In their heads, Communism is an idealized future which fails to come into existence due to American workers themselves, who are smeared as irredeemable settlers and fascists. Not only is the movement invisible to Western Marxists, but the core substance of the movement is deemed an enemy!
Objectivity of the Base
The mode and relations of production have an objectivity. One way to observe this objectivity is in studying the evolution or transformation of how production is organized in society, irrespective of a top-down ideological supervision. Technological advancements in production (agriculture, industrialization, information technology, etc.) significantly altered the way in which humans produce and reproduce life. At the same time, these advancements accelerated the concentration of production into a hands of a few. One reason is that technology did not evenly disperse itself across society. For example, during the industrial revolution, the newly developed and expensive power looms were only afforded by a few industrialists. This allowed individuals to out-compete handicraftsmen and independent tradespeople by simply hiring wage workers to run the looms. This increasing economic power eventually evolved into monopolistic totalities which exerted their power through the state, replacing the historic feudal and monarchical systems.
Throughout history, we saw "organic" transformations in production (the base) and thus transformations which follow in society and the state (the superstructure). Contradictions within a system cause change and transformation to the system. The role of the Communist party is to intervene in this nature of reality and direct the already existing change through a dictatorship of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie already intervene in reality and direct the existing and real transformation of capitalism into socialism towards their own means. They shape culture to disorganize and euthanize the working class, while further centralizing and socializing production towards their own financial ends. They demolish industry and speculate on speculation.
Intelligent Design
Because Western Marxists believe that Communism is voluntarily implemented, they see themselves as the designers. This is articulated most clearly through their obsession with "purity.” A movement cannot be representative of the proletariat, i.e a movement of Communism, unless it meets certain requirements: support trans rights, no small banks, no police. No Putin, even. The opposite approach is to see the movement itself as the architect, most clarified as a self-conscious movement, as we saw during the establishment of the Soviet Union and in China throughout it’s long and storied development. This is not to say that a self-conscious movement appears spontaneously. The role of the Communist Party is to intervene in nature and give the movement a consciousness.
The fundamental and antagonistic relationship between oneself being the voluntaristic designer and an architect already in motion is precisely why the American left is so detached from the American working class and the national context of their class struggle. Like the social engineers who sit at the helm of society, they want to seize power of institutions to implement their own agendas. This is how they conceive of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and why they see Communism, their idealized heaven, to come after such a seizure.
Change and motion have no end. The establishment of socialist hegemony around the world cannot be reduced to a utopia. Struggle comes with being human. Total mastery of nature and complete organization over production will produce its own contradictions, maybe ones that we cannot even fathom right now. Maybe life will be so fruitful and abundant that we will actually need to move beyond the Earth, in the way genocidal Malthusians claim is the case right now. The point is, Communism has no end. It is infinite. It is not a destination to be reached. Though, maybe heaven is infinite too.
"The movement of American workers today, most clearly articulated currently within the MAGA and anti-establishment expressions, is a continuing process directly linked to developments in Eurasia and China. The birthing of a multipolar world has, in parallel, advanced contradictions within the United States into such unique extremes that the MAGA movement was made possible in the first place."
What? The MAGA movement is not the origin or condition-of-possibility of United States internal contradictions.