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Sunday, September 5, 2010 10:03:18 AM
Communist, Confession of Faith
A Communist Confession of Faith
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Question 1: Are you a Communist?
Answer: Yes.
Question 2: What is the aim of the Communists?
Answer: To organise society in such a way that every member of it can develop
and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby
infringing the basic conditions of this society.
Question 3: How do you wish to achieve this aim?
Answer: By the elimination of private property and its replacement by community
of property.
Question 4: On what do you base your community of property?
Answer: Firstly, on the mass of productive forces and means of subsistence
resulting from the development of industry, agriculture, trade and colonisation,
and on the possibility inherent in machinery, chemical and other resources of their
infinite extension.
Secondly, on the fact that in the consciousness or feeling of every individual there
exist certain irrefutable basic principles which, being the result of the whole of
historical development, require no proof.
Question 5: What are such principles?
Answer: For example, every individual strives to be happy. The happiness of the
individual is inseparable from the happiness of all, etc.
Question 6: How do you wish to prepare the way for your community of property?
Answer: By enlightening and uniting the proletariat.
Question 7: What is the proletariat?
Answer: The proletariat is that class of society which lives exclusively by its
labour and not on the profit from any kind of capital; that class whose weal and
woe, whose life and death, therefore, depend on the alternation of times of good
and bad business;. in a word, on the fluctuations of competition.
Question 8: Then there have not always been proletarians?
Answer: No. There have always been poor and working classes; and those who
worked were almost always the poor. But there have not always been proletarians,
just as competition has not always been free.
Question 9: How did the proletariat arise?
Answer: The proletariat came into being as a result of the introduction of the
machines which have been invented since the middle of the last century and the
most important of which are: the steam-engine, the spinning machine and the
power loom. These machines, which were very expensive and could therefore
only be purchased by rich people, supplanted the workers of the time, because by
the use of machinery it was possible to produce commodities more quickly and
cheaply than could the workers with their imperfect spinning wheels and hand-
looms. The machines thus delivered industry entirely into the hands of the big
capitalists and rendered the workers’ scanty property which consisted mainly of
their tools, looms, etc., quite worthless, so that the capitalist was left with
everything, the worker with nothing. In this way the factory system was introduced. Once the capitalists saw how advantageous this was for them, they sought to extend it to more and more branches of labour.
They divided work more and more between the workers so that workers who formerly had made a whole
article now produced only a part of it. Labour simplified in this way produced
goods more quickly and therefore more cheaply and only now was it found in
almost every branch of labour that here also machines could be used. As soon as
any branch of labour went over to factory production it ended up, just as in the
case of spinning and weaving. in the hands of the big capitalists, and the workers
were deprived of the last remnants of their independence. We have gradually
arrived at the position where almost all branches of labour are run on a factory
basis. This has increasingly brought about the ruin of the previously existing
middle class, especially of the small master craftsmen, completely transformed the
previous position of the workers, and two new classes which are gradually
swallowing up all other classes have come into being, namely:
I. The, class of the big capitalists, who in all advanced countries are in almost
exclusive possession of the means of subsistence and those means (machines,
factories, workshops, etc.) by which these means of subsistence are produced.
This is the bourgeois class, or the bourgeoisie.
II. The class of the completely propertyless, who are compelled to sell their labour
to the first class, the bourgeois, simply to obtain from them in return their means
of subsistence. Since the parties to this trading in labour are not equal, but the
bourgeois have the advantage, the propertyless must submit to the bad conditions
laid down by the bourgeois. This class, dependent on the bourgeois, is called the
class of the proletarians or the proletariat.
Question 10: In what way does the proletarian differ from the slave?
Answer: The slave is sold once and for all, the proletarian has to sell himself by
the day and by the hour. The slave is the property of one master and for that very
reason has a guaranteed subsistence, however wretched it may be. The proletarian
is, so to speak, the slave of the entire bourgeois class, not of one master, and
therefore has no guaranteed subsistence, since nobody buys his labour if he does
not need it. The slave is accounted a thing and not a member of civil society. The
proletarian is recognised as a person, as a member of civil society. The slave may,
therefore, have a better subsistence than the proletarian but the latter stands at a
higher stage of development. The slave frees himself by becoming a proletarian,
abolishing from the totality of property relationships only the relationship of
slavery. The proletarian can free himself only by abolishing property in general.
Question 11: In what way does the proletarian differ from the serf?
Answer: The serf has the use of a piece of land, that is, of an instrument of
production, in return for handing over a greater or lesser portion of the yield. The
proletarian works with instruments of production which belong to someone else
who, in return for his labour, hands over to him a portion, determined by
competition, of the products. In the case of the serf, the share of the labourer is
determined by his own labour, that is, by himself. In the case of the proletarian it
is determined by competition, therefore in the first place by the bourgeois. The
serf has guaranteed subsistence, the proletarian has not. The serf frees himself by
driving out his feudal lord and becoming a property owner himself, thus entering
into competition and joining for the time being the possessing class, the privileged
class. The proletarian frees himself by doing away with property, competition, and
all class differences.
Question 12: In what way does the proletarian differ from the handicraftsman?
Answer: As opposed to the proletarian, the so-called handicraftsman, who still
existed nearly everywhere during the last century and still exists here and there, is
at most a temporary proletarian. His aim is to acquire capital himself and so to
exploit other workers. He can often achieve this aim where the craft guilds still
exist or where freedom to follow a trade has not yet led to the organisation of
handwork on a factory basis and to intense competition. But as soon as the factory
system is introduced into handwork and competition is in full swing, this prospect
is eliminated and the handicraftsman becomes more and more a proletarian. The
handicraftsman therefore frees himself either by becoming a bourgeois or in
general passing over into the middle class, or, by becoming a proletarian as a
result of competition (as now happens in most cases) and joining the movement of
the proletariat – i. e., the more or less conscious communist movement.
Question 13: Then you do not believe that community of property has been possible at any time?
Answer: No. Communism has only arisen since machinery and other inventions
made it possible to hold out the prospect of an all-sided development, a happy
existence, for all members of society. Communism is the theory of a liberation
which was not possible for the slaves, the serfs, or the handicraftsmen, but only
for the proletarians and hence it belongs of necessity to the 19th century and was
not possible in any earlier period.
Question 14: Let m go back to the sixth question. As you wish to prepare for community of
property by the enlightening and uniting of the proletariat, then you reject revolution?
Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the
harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made
deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the
necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever
dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole
classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all
countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus
a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in
the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will
defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.
Question 15: Do you intend to replace the existing social order by community of Property at one
stroke?
Answer: We have no such intention. The development of the masses cannot he
ordered by decree. It is determined by the development of the conditions in which
these masses live, and therefore proceeds gradually.
Question 16: How do you think the transition from the present situation to community of
Property is to be effected?
Answer: The first, fundamental condition for the introduction of community of
property is the political liberation of the proletariat through a democratic
constitution.
Question 17: What will be your first measure once you have established democracy?
Answer: Guaranteeing the subsistence of the proletariat.
Question 18: How will you do this?
Answer. I. By limiting private property in such a way that it gradually prepares
the way for its transformation into social property, e. g., by progressive taxation,
limitation of the right of inheritance in favour of the state, etc., etc.
II. By employing workers in national workshops and factories and on national
estates.
III. By educating all children at the expense of the state.
Question 19: How will you arrange this kind of education during the period of transition?
Answer: All children will be educated in state establishments from the time when
they can do without the first maternal care.
Question 20: Will not the introduction of community of property be accompanied by the
proclamation of the community of women?
Answer: By no means. We will only interfere in the personal relationship between
men and women or with the family in general to the extent that the maintenance of
the existing institution would disturb the new social order. Besides, we are well
aware that the family relationship has been modified in the course of history by
the property relationships and by periods of development, and that consequently
the ending of private property will also have a most important influence on it.
Question 21: Will nationalities continue to exist under communism?
Answer: The nationalities of the peoples who join together according to the
principle of community will be just as much compelled by this union to merge
with one another and thereby supersede themselves as the various differences
between estates and classes disappear through the superseding of their basis –
private property.
Question 22. Do Communists reject existing religions?
Answer: All religions which have existed hitherto were expressions of historical
stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But
communism is that stage of historical development which makes all existing
religions superfluous and supersedes them.
Monday, June 21, 2010 3:18:33 PM
Thật là lạ!
Khi là trẻ con thì mong thành người lớn thật nhanh
Đến khi lớn rồi lại ước được là trẻ con!
Khi còn đi học phổ thông thì chỉ muốn ra trường thật nhanh
Đến khi lên Đại học lại bồi hồi nhớ thời áo trắng!
Hình như chỉ khi đã qua rồi người ta mới luyến tiếc quá khứ, vậy có còn can đảm bước tiếp tương lai chăng?
Thi xong bao nhiêu thứ, đầu óc lộn xộn quá
!!!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 2:46:40 AM
Đây là tài liệu "SỰ THẬT VỀ QUAN HỆ VIỆT NAM - TRUNG QUỐC TRONG 30 NĂM QUA" mà Bộ Ngoại Giao công bố tháng 10/1979.
Trân trọng cảm ơn bác TàiHiênHèn của trang Quân Sử đã số hóa để Molnya đóng Ebook.
http://files.myopera.com/Molnya/files/Su%20that.pdf
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