Socialism &

Communism
Getting there

Overview
The Goal
The Two Roads to Reaching It
Evolutionary (Democratic) Socialism
Bernstein

Revolutionary Socialism
Lenin
Trotsky
Mao

The Goal
The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one
hundred years, has created more massive and more
colossal productive forces than have all preceding
generations together. Subjection of natures forces to
man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry
and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric
telegraphs, clearing of ground -- what earlier century
had even a presentiment that such productive forces
slumbered in the lap of social labour?
-- Communist Manifesto

The Goal
Because capitalism has generated
these enormous productive forces, we
can envision a world where we can use
that social production for social welfare.

Labor
Time

Leisure Time

The Goals
The Communist Manifesto includes a
variety of goals -- long and short term -of the communist movement
Long term goals include:
Abolition of Private Property
Community of women
True Freedom & Democracy

The Goals
It also includes some short term goals,
including:
graduated income tax
abolition of inheritance
centralized credit, communication
free education for children
abolition of child labor laws

The Roads to Socialism

Marx and Engels helped unify the
socialist movement in Europe
With their death, and the resolute failure
of capitalism to collapse as expected,
leadership of the workers movement
looks for ways to hasten the advent of
socialism

Roads to Socialism
In their writings, Marx and Engels sometimes
support democratic change, and sometimes
the need for violent revolution
Various wings of the socialist movement look
to ground their policies in the writings of Marx
and Engels
Why?

Roads to Socialism
The key is the claim
to have developed a
scientific socialism
Whats special about
science?

Roads to Socialism
You cant dispute the law of gravity
You cant argue with
science
So, the socialists after
Marx attempt to use
the method to support
their policy prescriptions

Evolutionary Socialism
One road to socialism that eventually
becomes social democracy argues that
the change from capitalism to socialism
will be a protracted affair and that we
need to use democratic means to
achieve a democratic society

Evolutionary Socialism
Eduard Bernstein
(1850-1932)
German social
democrat
Best known for
revisionist theory of
Marx (as opposed to
Lenins orthodox
Marxism

Evolutionary Socialism
Bernstein argues that a really scientific
approach would take new evidence and
modify the theory to conform to the science
Points out that capitalism has not developed
in the manner predicted by Marx
Argues for the need to re-examine Marxs
presuppositions and modify (or revise) the
theory to accommodate the new reality

Evolutionary Socialism
That the number of the wealthy increases
and does not diminish is not an invention of
bourgeois harmony economists, but a fact
established by the boards of assessment for
taxes, often to the chagrin of those
concerned, a fact which can no longer be
disputed

Evolutionary Socialism
One has not overcome Utopianism if one assumes that
there is in the present, or ascribes to the present, what
is to be in the future. We have to take working men as
they are. And they are neither so universally pauperised
as was set out in the Communist Manifesto, nor so free
from prejudices and weaknesses as their courtiers wish
to make us believe. They have the virtues and failings
of the economic and social conditions under which they
live. And neither those conditions nor their effects can
be put on one side from one day to another.

Evolutionary Socialism
In other words, we need, as Marx and Engels
suggested, to take people as they actually
are, not as we want them to be and work with
the real materials we have
Most workers, as it turns out, have more to
lose than their chains and may be unwilling to
make the leaps to socialism that we would
like

Evolutionary Socialism
That means we need to slow things
down, and work to improve the
conditions now and set the stage for
bigger changes to come

Evolutionary Socialism
Law, or the path of legislative reform, is the
slower way, and revolutionary force the
quicker and more radical. But that only is true
in a restricted sense. Whether the legislative
or the revolutionary method is the more
promising depends entirely on the nature of
the measures and on their relation to different
classes and customs of the people

Evolutionary Socialism
In general, one may say here that the
revolutionary way (always in the sense of
revolution by violence) does quicker work as
far as it deals with removal of obstacles which
a privileged minority places in the path of
social progress: that its strength lies on its
negative side

Evolutionary Socialism
Constitutional legislationis stronger than
the revolution scheme where prejudice and
the limited horizon of the great mass of the
people appear as hindrances to social
progress, and it offers greater advantages
where it is a question of the creation of
permanent economic arrangements capable
of lasting; in other words, it is best adapted to
positive social political work.

Evolutionary Socialism
In other words, we
may be on a long
and winding road to
socialism, freedom,
and democracy

Revolutionary Socialism
The other road to
socialism may be
considerably shorter,
and thats by violent
revolution

Revolutionary Socialism
V.I. Lenin
(1870-1924)
Leader of the
Russian revolution
of 1917, the first
successful Marxist
revolution in the
world

Revolutionary Socialism
Argued no need to revise the theory of
scientific Marxism to conform to new facts
Rather, we need to use the theory to explain
new facts
Marx and Engels saw communism as a global
struggle, and Lenin sought to apply their
analysis to global capitalism

Revolutionary Socialism
Capitalism has
morphed into
Imperialism, as Marx
and Engels predicted it
would
It has survived because
it has managed to buy
off its own worker class
at the expense of the poorer countries in the world

Revolutionary Socialism
Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for
domination and not for freedom, the
exploitation of an increasing number of small or
weak nations by a handful of the richest or
most powerful nations-- all these have given
birth to those distinctive characteristics of
imperialism which compel us to define it as a
parasitic or decaying capitalism.
-- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

Revolutionary Socialism
Its the decaying stage, in the sense that
imperialism can only work for so long
The Bourgeoisie will quickly run out of poor
countries to exploit
When the world is fully divided up, the
contradictions of capitalism buried by imperial
conquest will return to the forefront

Revolutionary Socialism
When the world is
divided up, the
richest countries will
either have to fight
each other for
control and to
conquer the poorer
areas
Or...

Revolutionary Socialism
The class struggle will
play out first as national
struggles in the poorer
countries
Loss of the colonies will
then mean return of the
class struggle at home
in the capitalist
countries

Revolutionary Socialism