The Communist Manifesto, the class struggle and the myth of private property Notes to discuss socialism, and to remove and appoint ministers in the Bolivarian Revolution 
Alejandro Ruiz INTRODUCTION The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in booklet form for political agitation among the workers, and first published in February 1848.
Manifesto began as a theoretical and practical program of the Communist League, an organization for the struggles of workers internationally.
The authors warn that the Manifesto is not a recipe: "... the practical application of these principles will depend on all parties and at all times of the existing historical circumstances ...."
addition, we consider it a work written 162 years ago and, as Marx and Engels said in the preface to the German edition of 1872, many circumstances have changed "... the effect of the huge growth experienced by major industry (... ) with subsequent developments have occurred in the political organization of the working class, and the effect of the practical experiences of the revolution ... "lived in various parts of the world and at different times.
However, in the framework of these warnings and recommendations to understand their reading and "practical application", and precisely because of them-essentially, the Manifesto remains a political work of enormous value and relevance for the interpretation and transformation today's society of neoliberal capitalism in crisis.
The Manifesto is a universal work that continues to generate controversy and lights for the emancipation of the proletariat modern and all social classes and oppressed groups.
The Manifesto begins with the phrase: "A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of communism." It ends with a slogan that was hope of millions of human beings: "Workers of the world unite."
1 .- THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN HISTORY MOTOR The Manifesto, in his first chapter recounts the history of mankind until the rise of capitalism, revealing it as a history of class struggle between exploiters and exploited.
With the exception of the primitive community, no social classes or private property, "it was like living the old and our aboriginal tribes, all of human history has been a struggle and confrontation between oppressors and oppressed.
Despite this fact, each mode of production, each type of ownership, has regarded itself as just and necessary for the good of society and the economic realization of oppression has been supported by the corresponding ideology ruling class, which is expressed on the legality, morality, ethics, religion, education and culture prevailing in each historical period.
First came the slave society, with Mr free as oppressor and the slave as oppressed.
In ancient Greece, known as the 'cradle of democracy', 400 thousand slaves worked to produce what they enjoyed 90 000 'free citizens' who were the only beneficiaries of this 'democracy' of a few.
slave society emerged from feudal society with the feudal lord and the patricians as oppressors and serfs and commoners as oppressed.
Then, with the French Revolution, began the downfall of feudal society and sprang the modern bourgeois society, capitalist society, with the bourgeoisie, the capitalists, as oppressors and the proletarians, the workers and other workers, and oppressed.
With the rise of capitalism "Big industry created the world market, ready for the discovery of America. The world market gave a huge boost to trade, navigation, communications by land "and the bourgeoisie" was moving and fading ... all classes inherited from the Middle Ages, "explains Marx and Engels (That quote and all the following correspond to
The Communist Manifesto , but one indication of another work).
bourgeois society, despite its modernity, "... has not abolished the class antagonisms. What he has done has been to create new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle, have come to replace the old. " That is, the confrontation between the exploiters and exploited is maintained, with new forms.
In America and other so-called underdeveloped countries the situation was more complex than in the 'civilized' Europe, due to a tax system that combined historical modes of production, from primitive communism of our Aboriginal devastated by conquest, through the decadent slavery coexisted with feudalism and then he shaped the nascent capitalism of the imperial metropolis for nearly four centuries.
was not until 1854 that formally abolished in Venezuela slavery, this antiquated form of oppression of man as a permanent property of another. Then in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century came instituting the capitalist mode of production with the first gush of oil, the intensive exploitation of minerals and other raw materials such as agricultural production, but appeared as a dependent and underdeveloped capitalism, combined with forms of ownership and relationships of decayed feudal landowners, still existing in many developing countries.
For these conditions, the emancipation of the oppressed and underdeveloped countries dependent becomes twofold: internal class struggle and liberation struggle national.
Despite all the specificities of every age and region of the world, The Manifesto leads us to understand that the essence of human history, at all times and everywhere, after the community succumbed early, has been the exploitation of man by man and the class struggle.
History also shows that whenever the oppressed and exploited have struggled to escape the domination of the oppressors, the exploiters. It is an irreconcilable struggle, sometimes overt, sometimes veiled antagonistic social classes.
In determining conditions, is "... a struggle at every stage leading to the revolutionary transformation of the whole social system or the extermination of the two contending classes. "
Who has not heard of Spartacus? It extends the literature and films that tell the feat of the slave who led the most epic slave revolt in Europe, which shook the Roman Empire in Italy itself a little more than two thousand years. But it was not Spartacus, he was an oppressed class in mortal combat against their oppressors.
the end of this social war anti-slavery and anti-imperial, which ran for two years, had killed a total of 100 thousand slaves, in killed in battles (mostly) and crucified or exterminated prisoners falling; crippling situation all aspects of production and life in imperial Italy.
Another crucial historical moment occurred the French Revolution of 1789, whose liberal slogan "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" promoted the social war that rose to the class of the bourgeoisie to power, while the debacle began hegemony of the nobility and the absolutist monarchy.
had been followed in the world heroic episodes of battles and victories of the proletariat and poor peasantry against the bourgeoisie and the landlords, who wanted to end the exploitation of the final and not only change their ways. This is the case of the Paris Commune of 1871, which survived two months, and the Socialist Revolution of 1917, he wrote 70 years of a new history. More recently and still under construction, China, 1949 Revolution and the Cuban Revolution of 1959.
In Venezuela the class struggle also present. it has been since the battles of resistance to European conquistadors led by the chief and his brothers Guaicaipuro indigenous rebellions of Black and Cumbe Miguel, and Jose Leonardo Chirinos against slavery, the war of independence led by Simon Bolivar against colonizing the slave-feudal regime, the call federal war, a bloody war to achieve social "land and free men, popular election, horror to the oligarchy" landed and mercantile, under the leadership of a small business become General of the Poor: Ezequiel Zamora.
Venezuelan In the twentieth century class struggle continued latent confrontation with major milestones such as the oil workers' struggle against transnational peasant uprisings here and there, military dictatorships, armed insurgency, missing, dead, strikes, manifestations. More recently, rebellions and underemployed proletariat against neoliberal capitalism and its representatives as occurred on February 27, 1989, the so-called "Caracazo" and also the military rebellion patriotic February 4, 1992 is the product of that society divided into antagonistic social classes.
World history of each country and shows a relentless struggle, underground or open-all days of the oppressed against the oppressor and vice versa, although often not reflected in the pages of the press or in books history.
So what peace talks when they accused the Communists and revolutionaries in general, wanting to destroy the peace of society, of wanting to divide the society, to confront each other, of 'inciting struggle class, where before it was not like that. "
The world bourgeoisie and wealthy leaders of the Venezuelan opposition -heirs of the slave oligarchy, feudal and capitalist course that feels left out of political power and fight fiercely for not being shifted economic power, now accuse President Hugo Chavez have divided Venezuelan society to incite confrontation: 'something never seen in this country, "he said. They argue that "the blame Chavez for wanting to impose these ideas communists in this country of peace, brothers."
No, pro-bourgeois and bourgeois gentlemen! The fault lies not with Chávez "Nor is the cow, as stated in a futile self-help book, or the evil of communist ideas. Blame it on the exploitation of man by man and his trusty class struggle. In short, the blame for the division of society, the confrontation between human beings, is the oppression of a few who appropriate the work product of many.
Only by eliminating the perverse relationship property and capitalist exploitation disappear antagonistic class struggle. Only the socialist revolution another world is possible.
2 .- THE MYTH OF PRIVATE PROPERTY That story of the elimination of all private property is not new, or exclusive to the Venezuelan opposition. Already in 1848, and before the European bourgeoisie accused the new organization of the Communists of trying to remove the sacred private property 'that has always existed as a natural human right', they said and say now advocates the exploitation of man by man.
is not that story again: 'who have two cars will be removed one, the two houses have removed him one. " Not to mention that 'the Communist state will remove the children to families,' and all this manipulative fantasy of parental rights.
The Communist Manifesto , written by Marx and Engels, addresses this issue of private property very clearly.
First, it is true that private property has always existed. In the primitive community in Aboriginal communities was unknown private property. So this does not come always with humans, as a natural right. Private property arises from the domination and exploitation by other men.
The first private property were land and slave man, which was established with the emergence of slave society, the first society divided into classes irreconcilable opposites.
To better illustrate this historical truth is necessary to mention here few paragraphs, some large-
book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State , written by Frederick Engels, originally published in 1884. For its relevance to the debate is this the only quotation we do in a different work
The Manifesto of the Communist Party , which is our reference in all of this work. Let's see what Engels wrote:
In ancient European tribes and Native American tribes, at the time of primitive society, "the domestic economy is communist, common to several and often for many families. What is made and used in common is common property: house, orchards, canoes. Here, and only here, where there really is' the fruit of personal work property "which the lawyers and economists attribute to civilized society and that is the last legal loophole which today supports capitalist property."
"A consequence of the development of all branches of production, livestock, agriculture, domestic handicrafts," the male workforce was becoming able to create more products than necessary for their sustenance. It also increased the amount of work that corresponded daily to each member of the gens, community or family home alone. It was convenient and get more labor and supplied the war, the prisoners were turned into slaves. Given all the historical conditions of that time, the first great social division of labor, increasing labor productivity and therefore wealth, and to extend the field of productive activity, had to necessarily bring slavery. From the first great social division of labor came the first great cleavage of society into two classes: masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited. "
When "the arable land was distributed to individual families, and ceased to be property of the whole community, emerged private property. "The individual family started to become the economic unit of society", then owner of the land, means existing craft and ... slaves.
far paragraphs from the book of Engels,
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State .
Second, private property is sacred and everyone's right. are shown successive historical changes in ownership. Each socio-economic system prevailing applied before the abolition of private property regime in place. Therefore, it is not immutable and sacred. Private property has not always existed in the same way.
property Feudalism abolished slavery and feudal ownership arose. Then capitalism "... abolished feudal property to establish on the ruins of bourgeois property."
So, "the abolition of existing property regime is not any particular feature of communism." In its historical moment, abolished feudalism and capitalism slave ownership abolished feudal property.
but also capitalism itself is private property which millions of human beings to concentrate in few hands. capitalism itself is
which has destroyed the private property of the small shopkeeper, the small business, the artisan, who succumbs to the development and the power of monopolies and oligopolies that concentrate capital. The big fish eats the small, the saying goes.
And is capitalism itself which deprives the most basic to life and property worth billions of men, women and children without shelter, health, education and proper nutrition.
So what is their communist? The Communists are distinguished from other revolutionary parties because they promote the abolition of private property. But not just any private property.
"What characterizes communism is the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of the ownership of the bourgeoisie" product "... the exploitation of men by others."
Historical reality has shown that while there is private ownership of the means of production and bourgeois property, there will be operators (owners of the property) and exploited (not ownership).
counterfeiters Manifesto and the objectives of the Socialist Revolution hide the fact that the aim is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, not personal property.
Bourgeoisie terrorize and manipulate the rest of society saying that socialism will eliminate all forms of property, 'the Communists take away what is yours, what you have achieved your life's work', that is the campaign. In this way the bourgeoisie and its media to ensure that sectors of the exploited themselves, they have no means of production, to defend the property of the capitalists, by presenting it as if it were the same as the employee's personal property and confused with this.
Manifesto puts it as follows: "Capital is not, therefore, personal wealth, but a social power." Behold
a vital ideological battlefront to win awareness and support of popular majorities in the construction of socialism, one against the bourgeoisie has managed very well to match the capitalist private property with personal property and sell the idea of \u200b\u200bthe abolition of property generally.
Manifesto interested exposes and confronts the axiom that spread the capitalists and their media: "And as the destruction of property equivalent class to the bourgeoisie, to destroy production, destroy the culture of school is for him synonymous destroy the culture at large. "
For the bourgeoisie can only property is theirs. The only culture that exists is that of the bourgeoisie, the only rights and freedom is only enjoyed by the capitalists to exploit the rest of society. Such is the bourgeois logic.
"We want to destroy alleges that it acquired personal property, the fruit of labor and human effort ..." meet Marx and Engels in 1848, from the pages of The Manifesto.
But no, the Communists that "... aim [is] to turn the capital into collective property, common to all members of society, do not aspire to become collective personal wealth."
"We do not aspire in any way to destroy this system of personal ownership of work products aimed to create ways of life (...) What I hope is to destroy the shameful nature of this regime of ownership in which the worker lives just to multiply the capital, in which he lives only to the extent that the interest of the ruling class advised to live. "
"And the abolition of these conditions, called the bourgeoisie, abolition of individuality and freedom! And yet, you're right. We hope, indeed, to see abolished personality, independence, and bourgeois freedom. " Abolish the freedom to exploit the human and ownership of their work in the form of profit. "Well yes, that's what we want."
"The Communism deprives no power to appropriate social products, the only thing not supported is usurping power through the appropriation the work of others. "
3 .- Bourgeoisie, Proletariat AND NEW COMPANY The bourgeois class, to destroy the hegemony of the feudal system, became owners of the major means of production: factories that emerged from the machines were invented, means of transport, substantial land and accumulated capital.
"The existence and dominance of the middle class are essential for the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few individuals, training and constant increase of capital and this in turn can not exist without wage labor. "
"Wherever they are established (...) No link left foot more than the short interest, that of hard cash, which has no guts (...) He buried the money under the personal dignity and reduced all those countless freedoms, and it acquired a single freedom: freedom to trade unlimited. "
In capitalism everything that can be converted into money is turned into merchandise. Even the noblest activities and become good performers, sports and sports, music and musicians, medicine and medical education and teachers, and even religion and priests, has become a commodity.
"The bourgeoisie stripped of its halo of holiness to all that previously had the venerable and worthy of pious event. Became its paid wage laborers to the doctor, lawyer, poet, the priest, the man of science. "
"The bourgeoisie tearing [up] the emotional and sentimental veils that shrouded the family and laid bare the economic reality of family relationships."
bourgeoisie became the ruling class , Economically, culturally and politically.
Changing the class rule, the character and form of government. Representative state is created to defend the interests of the bourgeoisie as a ruling class. Consequently, "... the public office is to be, quite simply, the Board of Directors that governs the collective interests of the bourgeois class."
But with all that power, the bourgeoisie creates and develops its opposite: proletariat, without which there can be as bourgeois and which will cease to exist.
"In the same proportion as the bourgeoisie is developed, ie capital, to develop the proletariat, the modern working class can only live to find work and find work only insofar as it feeds to increase the capital. , Compelled to be sold in pieces, is a commodity like any other subject, therefore, all changes and conditions for the competition, all market fluctuations. "
The Manifesto states that "of all kinds is now faced with the bourgeoisie is only one truly revolutionary proletariat", because that is what suffers most from the domination and exploitation of capitalism.
"The worker impoverish, and pauperism takes place at much higher than population and wealth. Here was a clear proof of the incapacity of the bourgeoisie to continue to govern society and rule it by imposing the conditions of his life as a class. "
The proletariat is the class key and decidedly antagonistic revolutionary against the bourgeoisie. "Tremble, if you will, the ruling classes, at the prospect of a communist revolution. The proletarians, with it, have nothing to lose but their chains either. They have, however, a world to win. "
However, to emancipate itself from the domination of the bourgeoisie, the proletariat also releases all groups, classes and oppressed sectors of society, and free the human society as a whole from the barbarity of the capitalist mode of existence.
Because "society can not continue living under the rule of that kind, the life of the bourgeoisie has become incompatible with society."
important revolutionary experiences I have confirmed in part the social prophecy contained in
The Communist Manifesto . The historical development of slightly more than half a century has shown that episodes of "whole world to win."
the proletariat and poor peasantry have shown that it is possible to overthrow the ruling classes , that it is possible to move the power to the bourgeoisie and the landlords, but not always good.
Some experiences endured two months as the Paris Commune of 1871. Others held a few years or decades, until were defeated. Others still remain and new experiences revolutionary insurgency against the capitalist system, some very peculiar and in the process, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.
Of the major historical experiences that moved to the bourgeoisie and the landlords of Power is no denying the role of the Russian Socialist Revolution of 1917 contributed for 70 years-even with its deficiencies, to the emancipation of the proletariat and poor peasantry.
should also stress the global impact of China's 1949 revolution and the victory of the Cuban Revolution of 1959 in the Americas.
The proletariat, with their allies, finally overthrow the bourgeoisie and lay the foundations of his power, to build the New Society: a communist society, the society of equality, the work of all, without exploited or exploiters. That is the perspective.
How to build this new society? will not work a miracle or art magic. It will be a building process and transitions, to overcome capitalism towards socialism and socialism advancing to communism.
If imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, communism is the highest stage of socialism.
The Manifesto states that "The immediate objective of the Communists is (...) form the proletarian class consciousness, overthrow the regime of the bourgeoisie, lead the proletariat to seize power."
and emphasizes that democracy is only possible with the proletariat in power: "... the first step of the proletarian revolution is the exaltation of the proletariat to power, the conquest of democracy. "
That democracy, we say must be understood as democracy for the majority, which is the only democracy possible, ie the conquest of Revolutionary Democracy, Social Democracy. It is clear that democracy and, truly, is a dictatorship for the bourgeoisie. And the bourgeoisie will never accept that democracy and fight by all means and at all times not to perish as the ruling class.
To successfully confront this reality irreconcilable, "The proletariat will use the power to go to the bourgeoisie gradually stripping around the capital, of all instruments of production, centralized in the hands of Estado, es decir, del proletariado organizado como clase gobernante, y procurando fomentar por todos los medios y con la mayor rapidez posible las energías productivas”.
“Tan pronto como, en el transcurso del tiempo, hayan desaparecido las diferencias de clase y toda la producción esté concentrada en manos de la sociedad, el Estado perderá todo carácter político (…) Y a la vieja sociedad burguesa, con sus clases y sus antagonismos de clase, sustituirá una asociación en que el libre desarrollo de cada uno condicione el libre desarrollo de todos”.
Finalmente, El Manifiesto no es un catecismo del determinismo económico , as some on the left and right accuse the communists. This little booklet universal XIX century which has transcended the twentieth century and the twenty-first century, considered as a dialectical development of material and spiritual conditions of society, the objective and subjective conditions in the construction of the New Society.
"The history of ideas is an obvious test of how it changes and becomes the spiritual with the material production. The prevailing ideas at a time have always been the ideas of the ruling class (...) to the couple that vanish or collapse the old conditions of life, crumble and fade away the old ideas. "
"The Communist revolution is to break the more radical with the traditional system of property, nothing is thus surprising that it is forced to break in their development, as well as more radical, with traditional ideas. "
Now more than ever The Communist Manifesto remains an essential work for the ideological debate and creative revolutionary action in the complex twenty-first century.
Now more than ever Socialism remains the hope of the people!
