by Nguyễn Thiên Thụ
SUMMARY
This
is a short survey of Communism. I focus on the theory as well as the
reality. About the theory, I also analyze what is real and unreal idea
of the authors such as Marx, Lenin, Stalin. . . under the beautiful
words.
This survey is what I studied Marxist philosophy and what I
experienced in the communist regime in Vietnam. I will present to you
some important ideas of communism and my opinion.
The class struggle
On the first sentence of Manifesto of Communism, Marx and Engels focused on the class struggle. They said:The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Maybe, in our history, sometimes but not all times have had the class struggles. In the primitive communism, there was no class, so there was no class struggle. People and animals at that time could fight together , but these fights were the battles between strong and weak, good and evils, not the class struggle.
When people went to the feudal regime, there were a lot of wars between the countries, or between the kings, the families. And in our time, the two world wars were not the class struggles but the wars of the nations. The China Vietnam war 1979, and the Cambodian-Vietnamese War 1977-1978 were a series of conflicts between the comrades, the wars between the communist forces.
With the theory of class struggle, Marx urged the proletariat class overthrow the bourgeois supremacy, and take political power .
What happened after the proletariat class overthrew the bourgeois supremacy? Did the proletariat class become the ruling class? No. The ruling class, the new class in the new society is the Communist Party.
With the theory of class struggle, Marx urged the proletariat class overthrow the bourgeois supremacy, and take political power .
What happened after the proletariat class overthrew the bourgeois supremacy? Did the proletariat class become the ruling class? No. The ruling class, the new class in the new society is the Communist Party.
Who
are the communists? The first communists were a lot of intellects, such
as Karl Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh etc. They were sons of the capitalists , feudal lords, or feudal mandarins. They led the proletariat class as they proclaimed :The
Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the
enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the
movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future
of that movement (COMMUNIST MANIFESTO * PART III ).
Therefore, the proletariat,
the working class were the means of struggle of the communists for
their aim of political power. The working class, the proletariat were
only the masks, the weapons of the communists . When the Communists
became the oppressing class, the workers still belonged to the oppressed
class excepted some of them were the communists. So, the Communists
fought for their interests, not for the interests of the working class as they promised.
Who was the proletarian? It seems that Marx and Engels did not distinguish proletarians from the laborers
(By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means
of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in
order to live. [Note by Engels - 1888 English edition, part I). Karl Marx used proletariat as a sociological term to refer to the working class.
Before
the revolution, a lot of poor people followed the Communists be cause
they thought they belonged to the proletariat , but after the
revolution, the communists explained that the proletariat class is the class of industrial workers who work in skilled or well experienced role but lack their own means of production and hence sell their labor to live.
According to this definition, in USSR, China and Vietnam before 1917, there were no bourgeois class nor proletariat class. Peasants, not the proletarians , were an important force in those countries.
Marx regarded the workers highly, and Marx always said of democracy:-Democracy is the road to socialism. (Karl Marx )
-We
have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working
class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win
the battle of democracy (COMMUNIST MANIFESTO * PART II).
Lenin also said of democracy:
Democracy is indispensable to socialism (Vladimir Lenin).But in theory and in fact , communism violated human rights and citizen rights.
Democracy is indispensable to socialism (Vladimir Lenin).But in theory and in fact , communism violated human rights and citizen rights.
In Communist Manifesto, Marx condemned many social classes:
- No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portion of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.
- The lower strata of the middle class -- the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicrafts men and peasants -- all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus, the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.
And in
fact, many millions of intellects, peasants, Christians and labors were
killed or imprisoned around the world of Communism.
Marx's theory of class struggle is not the real aim of Marx and the communists. It is only a kind of smoke grenade to hide the enemy's eyes , or a kind of prey to seduce the innocent victims. The real aim of Marx and Communists in Communist Manifesto is Abolition of private property. But Marx also said
:"The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of
property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property".
Surely, the bourgeois were the first victims, they had to be tortured by the communists:
"The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at." (COMMUNIST MANIFESTO * PART II ,2)
Only the bourgeois class is abolished their property?
No! Everybody was. Peasants, intellects, tradesmen, bourgeois and workers are robbed plainly. The bourgeois and the workers have the same fate! Unfortunately, the workers and peasants under the communist regime were more exploited than under the bourgeois or colonialist regimes.Marx believed that the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority , but that is not the truth. Communist and the proletariat movement is the movement of minority for the interest of the minority. In reality, the proletariat has nothing, they still have their chain in the communist society! Marx didn't regard the workers highly as he wrote. So, the theory of class struggle becomes superfluous!
While Marx want to abolish the private property, he also decide to overthrow all existing social conditions[..],abolish eternal truths, all religion, and all morality[..].The communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.
Surely, the bourgeois were the first victims, they had to be tortured by the communists:
"The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at." (COMMUNIST MANIFESTO * PART II ,2)
Only the bourgeois class is abolished their property?
No! Everybody was. Peasants, intellects, tradesmen, bourgeois and workers are robbed plainly. The bourgeois and the workers have the same fate! Unfortunately, the workers and peasants under the communist regime were more exploited than under the bourgeois or colonialist regimes.Marx believed that the proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority , but that is not the truth. Communist and the proletariat movement is the movement of minority for the interest of the minority. In reality, the proletariat has nothing, they still have their chain in the communist society! Marx didn't regard the workers highly as he wrote. So, the theory of class struggle becomes superfluous!
While Marx want to abolish the private property, he also decide to overthrow all existing social conditions[..],abolish eternal truths, all religion, and all morality[..].The communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional relations; no wonder that its development involved the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.
This
policy aims to destroy all the traditional culture included literature,
philosophy, law, religion, arts, monuments, books etc. This is a crime
to destroy the fortune of human kind. Therefore, a lot of people
struggled against the communists.
To protect his power, Lenin put forward the policy of the " dictatorship of the proletariat " , but this theory was created first by Marx when he said that The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Marx also said of the forcible overthrow, despotic inroads in his Communist Manifesto.
Lenin said: The
revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and
maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the
bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws. With dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin and Stalin killed and imprisoned millions of Christians, peasants, intellects and labors. Lenin was the
With dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh
had the unlimited rights. They could imagine the great agricultural and
industrial plans, but at last, millions people were starving.
Many scholars praised Marx's theory of dialectical materialism and historical materialism.Marx and his followers always emphasized some words such as law and indispensable,essential. Marx and his followers considered that his ideas become laws in science and in society. But their ambition is subjective because each science has its law. We can not apply laws of science into literature and history. And laws in human and social science are relative, not indispensable and essential.Marx was not a God.I don't want to discuss about the materialsm, the idealism and spiritualism. I will present to you some ideas about three laws of dialectical materialism.
-Law of transformation
It
has been said that there are no sudden leaps in nature, and it is a
common notion that things have their origin through gradual increase or
decrease," states Hegel. "But
there is also such a thing as sudden transformation from quantity to
quality. For example, water does not become gradually hard on cooling,
becoming first pulpy and ultimately attaining a rigidity of ice, but
turns hard at once. If temperature be lowered to a certain degree, the
water is suddenly changed into ice, i.e., the quantity - the number of
degrees of temperature - is transformed into quality - a change in the
nature of the thing." (Logic)
Hegel's idea is a good idea
but in nature and in society, things developed by different ways, so the
common notion wouldn't be wrong. The case of water boiling or icing is
not a good example because water changes not by its continuous quantity
but by the exterior affect, the heat. The external things would
influence on an object. If we continue adding a quantity of water until
water would change into oil or honey. So, we can conclude that thing can
transform from quantity to quality.
Things in nature and in society are not the same. We can't apply the law of quantity into quality to society. Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward ended in catastrophe as it triggered a widespread famine that resulted in millions of deaths. Did Mao's theory take root in the law of quantity into quality?
Law of Opposites
"The
contradiction, however, is the source of all movement and life; only in
so far as it contains a contradiction can anything have movement,
power, and effect." (Hegel). "In brief", states Lenin, "dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics…"
Marx
and Engels started with the observation that everything in existence is
a unity of opposites. For example, electricity is characterized by a
positive and negative charge, and atoms consist of protons and electrons
which are unified but ultimately contradictory forces. Thing has two
different sides. Things can unite together, and can struggle against
each other. Some opposites are antagonistic. But a number of matters are
different but not really contradictory, they unite!
Lao Tzu in his work entitled "Tao Te Ching" wrote:
天 下 皆 知 美 之 為 美 ， 斯 惡 已 。 皆 知 善 之 為 善 ， 斯 不 善 已 有 無 相 生 ， 難 易 相 成 ， 長 短 相 形 ， 高 下 相 盈 ， 音 聲 相 和 ， 前 後 相 隨 。(老 子「道 德 經」第 二 章)
When people see beauty, they think, "that's beautiful".
Thinking of something as beautiful makes you think other things are ugly.
Calling something "good" forces you to call some other things "evil."
The ideas "difficult" and "easy" support each other.
"Long" and "short" define each other.
"High" creates "low"
"Tone" creates "noise"
"Before" creates "after"
"Have" creates "don't have"(Chapter 2 - Making things ugly)
http://www.thetao.info/english/index.htm
"The Book of Change" wrote " 一陰一陽之謂道 a yin ( negative) corporates with a yang (positive) to make the road, and create the life (易經﹒系辭上傳).
Rob Sewell wrote:
The world in which we live is a unity of contradictions or a unity of opposites: cold-heat, light-darkness, Capital-Labour, birth-death, riches-poverty, positive-negative, boom-slump, thinking-being, finite-infinite, repulsion-attraction, left-right, above-below, evolution-revolution, chance-necessity, sale-purchase, and so on.(What is Dialectical materialism? http://www.marxist.com/what-is-dialectical-materialism.htm)
Why did Marx focus only on the opposite? Marx want to develop the contradiction between the bourgeois class and the proletariat class in order to urge the labors revolt. Marx's theory is served for his political ambition, and his hostility toward the human kind.
Law of negation
The law of negation was created to account for the tendency in nature to constantly increase the number of all things. Marx and Engels demonstrated that entities tend to negate themselves in order to advance or reproduce a higher quantity. This means that the nature of opposition, which causes conflict in each element and gives it motion, also tends to negate the thing itself. This dynamic process of birth and destruction is what causes entities to advance. This law is commonly simplified as the cycle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis
Marx said that the aristocracy was negated by the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie then created the proletariat that will one day negate them. This illustrates that the cycle of negation is eternal, as each class creates its "grave-digger", its successor, as soon as it finishes burying its creator. But who will negate the proletariat class?Marx pointed out five forms of societies: the primitive society, the slave , the feudal , the bourgeois and the communist society, and he confirmed the second society negates the first one, and the second one is better the first one. But in reality and in history, the societies don't negate each other but they live together in this world. In the XXIth century, some primitive societies still living in the South America, in Asia and in Australia. In England , Japan, Thailand etc, the feudal society exists in the bourgeois society. And in Europe, and in America, the proletariat class gets along with the bourgeois class. And in the Asia, the communist society is not better than the bourgeois society. It is clear that the communist society is not indispensable!
Marx believed that everything will get better and developpe forward following the shape of a vertical or a spiral line. But in nature and in reality, things can change in many ways, maybe the circle or the ziczag etc.
Communism was critized by many points:
+Marx was cruel . His theories of class struggle, violent revolution and abolition of private property, and Lenin 's dictatorship of the proletariat caused the war in a each country, and cause deaths and sufferings of millions of people in the world.
+Marx 's ideas were imaginary and illusory. Marx 's theories were not objective, scientific but subjective and idealist.Marx was not a good fortune teller because his predictions didn't come true.
It seems that Lenin mocked Marx 's predictions when he said: It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. Vladimir Lenin
+The alishbotion of private property will resulte in the laziness and the struggle of people.
+The dictatorship of the proletariat vilolated the human rights and led to the faillure of the national economy and the negocide.
+USSR or Russia and China always invade the neighbor countries. Communism is an imperialism.
+Marx's ideas were the teachings for the robbers and the killers.
In his work entitled "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression", Stéphane Courtois, asserts that "...Communist regimes...turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government". He cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the "excess deaths" (decrease of the population due to lower than the expected birth rate). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:
Ottawa, July 22nd,2009
Nguyễn Thiên Thụ
When people see beauty, they think, "that's beautiful".
Thinking of something as beautiful makes you think other things are ugly.
Calling something "good" forces you to call some other things "evil."
The ideas "difficult" and "easy" support each other.
"Long" and "short" define each other.
"High" creates "low"
"Tone" creates "noise"
"Before" creates "after"
"Have" creates "don't have"(Chapter 2 - Making things ugly)
http://www.thetao.info/english/index.htm
"The Book of Change" wrote " 一陰一陽之謂道 a yin ( negative) corporates with a yang (positive) to make the road, and create the life (易經﹒系辭上傳).
Rob Sewell wrote:
The world in which we live is a unity of contradictions or a unity of opposites: cold-heat, light-darkness, Capital-Labour, birth-death, riches-poverty, positive-negative, boom-slump, thinking-being, finite-infinite, repulsion-attraction, left-right, above-below, evolution-revolution, chance-necessity, sale-purchase, and so on.(What is Dialectical materialism? http://www.marxist.com/what-is-dialectical-materialism.htm)
Why did Marx focus only on the opposite? Marx want to develop the contradiction between the bourgeois class and the proletariat class in order to urge the labors revolt. Marx's theory is served for his political ambition, and his hostility toward the human kind.
Law of negation
The law of negation was created to account for the tendency in nature to constantly increase the number of all things. Marx and Engels demonstrated that entities tend to negate themselves in order to advance or reproduce a higher quantity. This means that the nature of opposition, which causes conflict in each element and gives it motion, also tends to negate the thing itself. This dynamic process of birth and destruction is what causes entities to advance. This law is commonly simplified as the cycle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis
In
nature, Engels often cited the case of the barley seed which, in its
natural state, germinates and out of its own death or negation produces a
plant; the plant in turn grows to maturity, and is itself negated after
bearing many barley seeds. Thus, all nature is constantly expanding
through cycles. (Wikipedia).
In the case of the barley seed, we can
not say the seed negates the tree or the tree negates the seed. So, we
can not say the hen negates the egg or the egg negates the hen. In
nature and in society, matters continue, but don't negate. The feudal
class was not negated by the bourgeois class. The feudal landlords or
the feudal mandarins became the capitalists or the ministers in the
bourgeois government because the bourgeois class didn't kill all people
of the feudal class and abolish all their property!Marx said that the aristocracy was negated by the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie then created the proletariat that will one day negate them. This illustrates that the cycle of negation is eternal, as each class creates its "grave-digger", its successor, as soon as it finishes burying its creator. But who will negate the proletariat class?Marx pointed out five forms of societies: the primitive society, the slave , the feudal , the bourgeois and the communist society, and he confirmed the second society negates the first one, and the second one is better the first one. But in reality and in history, the societies don't negate each other but they live together in this world. In the XXIth century, some primitive societies still living in the South America, in Asia and in Australia. In England , Japan, Thailand etc, the feudal society exists in the bourgeois society. And in Europe, and in America, the proletariat class gets along with the bourgeois class. And in the Asia, the communist society is not better than the bourgeois society. It is clear that the communist society is not indispensable!
Marx believed that everything will get better and developpe forward following the shape of a vertical or a spiral line. But in nature and in reality, things can change in many ways, maybe the circle or the ziczag etc.
Communism was critized by many points:
+Marx was cruel . His theories of class struggle, violent revolution and abolition of private property, and Lenin 's dictatorship of the proletariat caused the war in a each country, and cause deaths and sufferings of millions of people in the world.
+Marx 's ideas were imaginary and illusory. Marx 's theories were not objective, scientific but subjective and idealist.Marx was not a good fortune teller because his predictions didn't come true.
- The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution[..], the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution..
- What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
- The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action of the leading civilized countries at least is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.
- In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
- The proletariat will use its political supremacy to [..] increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
It seems that Lenin mocked Marx 's predictions when he said: It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. Vladimir Lenin
+The alishbotion of private property will resulte in the laziness and the struggle of people.
+The dictatorship of the proletariat vilolated the human rights and led to the faillure of the national economy and the negocide.
+USSR or Russia and China always invade the neighbor countries. Communism is an imperialism.
+Marx's ideas were the teachings for the robbers and the killers.
In his work entitled "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression", Stéphane Courtois, asserts that "...Communist regimes...turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government". He cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the "excess deaths" (decrease of the population due to lower than the expected birth rate). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:
- 65 million in the People's Republic of China
- 20 million in the Soviet Union[3]
- 2 million in Cambodia
- 2 million in North Korea
- 1.7 million in Africa
- 1.5 million in Afghanistan
- 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe
- 1 million in Vietnam[4]
- 150,000 in Latin America
- 10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international communist movement and communist parties not in power."
Ottawa, July 22nd,2009
Nguyễn Thiên Thụ
Preface in 2013
In 2009, I finished the Vietnamese version of "Critique of Communism", and I began to write the English version. I wrote three chapters then I cannot continue because of many reasons. At the end of 2012, I continue to write and I finish the English version on Tuesday, February 20th, 2013.
I hope this document will help you to understand Communism.
Nguyễn Thiên Thụ
Canada, Feb, 20th, 2013.
MỤC LỤC
Lời nói đầu
Chương I. Nguồn gốc chủ nghĩa cộng sản
ChươngII. Lược sử các đảng cộng sản
Chương III.Tuyên ngôn của đảng cộng sản
Chương III. Phê phán tuyên ngôn cộng sản
Chương IV. Tư hữu và tập thể
Chương V. Vô sản chuyên chính
Chương VI.Vong thân
Chương VII. Biện chứng pháp
Chương VIII. Phê phán Duy vật biện chứng pháp
Chương IX. Tư bản luận
Chương X. Nhà Nước &Xã Hội Cộng sản
Tổng kết
Phụ lục
Thư Mục
No comments:
Post a Comment