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Fascicle 4
We publish and diffuse today the end of the Part I of the A.B. Razlatski's
Communist Manifesto whitch treat the subjet of the role occupied by the
intelligentsia in the capitalist society.
COMUNISTES de CATALUNYA
22 November, 1999
(Diffuse this text among the proletarians, all the downtrods and exploiteds
and that sympathice with this cause, and translate it in other languages.
Organize groups for study, discussion, support and diffusion of the II
Communist Manifesto.)
THE SECOND COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
A.B.RAZLATSKI
The end of part I)
BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIAN
The guild master, himself formerly an immediate producer, became the
production master and no longer took part in labour; but he remained
interested in it since, the more completely the producers submitted to his
command, the more productive the methods of work, the greater the value
that
would be expressed by their labour united in the final product.
Thus, the master also remained interested in guarding his organizational
knowledge, his production secrets and the growth of a widespread circle of
producers subordinated to him. The breaking of such a monopoly threatened
to
reduce the value of the resulting product. But, firstly, he had to reveal
his knowledge to the producers. And secondly, the master was to find
himself
in a completely different situation.
The master-boss, master-capitalist, owning the means of production, openly
strove to sell his product at the highest price; at a price including not
just the essential labour added by the producers, but also a superprofit
arising from his monopoly of organizational and technical knowledge.
The hired master, the master organizing production belonging to another
owner, also strove to maximize the benefit obtained from his monopoly of
knowledge. On the other hand, the owner strove to maximize his share of the
profits and in relations with the hired master was clearly guided by this.
Correspondingly, for the hired master, his share of the goods was defined
depending on the extent of the superprofits received by the owner; the
capitalist stimulated the interest of the master only in the increase of
superprofits which were appropriated by the capitalist.
The paths of the master-capitalist and the hired master were sharply
divergent. The capitalist no longer needed to possess a monopoly of
knowledge himself, he bought this knowledge, paying for it with a part of
the superprofits to which it gave rise. By appropriating the surplus labour
and a share of the superprofit the capitalist guaranteed his existence in
the world of competitive struggle.
The hired master was obliged to sell his knowledge, capabilities and
creative potential under the conditions of competitive struggle, where the
measures and criteria by no means served the master himself, but always the
superprofits of the capitalist.
The capitalist was ready to pay for any knowledge, invention, discovery,
effective method of raw materials preparation, marketing, methods of
organization or production technology, any ideal goods, so long as they
brought him superprofits. All this assisted the formation of a particular
layer of society, the intelligentsia, whose specific function became the
continuous development of the organizational knowledge of the capitalists.
The increase in the productivity of labour was and remains the fundamental
method for the creation of superprofits. It would be a mistake to suppose
that increasing productivity of labour increases the immediate profit of
the
capitalist, permitting him to appropriate a larger share of the surplus
product. Indeed, such redistribution is only possible because the resulting
product, realized at its value, exceeds the quantity of labour actually
materialized in it; but this arises because the given capitalist has a
definite advantage in methods of work, i.e. possesses a definite monopoly
of
these methods. The breaking of this monopoly leads to the lowering of the
value of the resulting product and the loss of the capitalist of the
superprofits, although he clearly still makes a profit.
This is important to note, in order to understand that the labour of the
intelligentsia (ideal, creative labour) neither creates value nor increases
it. All value is created solely by the labour of the workers. However,
clearly the intelligentsia provides an increase of the effectiveness of
production in a well-defined sense, that of the "in natura" increase of the
resulting product. In the bourgeois this fact gives rise not to joy, but
worry, for it threatens to produce a crisis of overproduction. But the
bourgeois does not want to drop out of the race for maximum profit, or the
linked pursuit of superprofits, and, consequently, can not oppose this
process.
Thus, separately stimulating the productivity of labour through its
intensification, (payment for labour power) and heightening the
productivity
of labour through improved organization, (payment for the creative labour
of
the intelligentsia) the capitalist wages the struggle for maximum profits,
which are composed of surplus value and superprofits arising from the
activity of the intelligentsia.
The bourgeoisie creates nothing with its own hands, it achieves its aims by
commanding the activities of others. It is the labour of the proletariat
that creates capital for the bourgeoisie. The organizers of production
concern themselves with raising the share of labour appropriated by the
bourgeoisie to the highest level. The creative intelligentsia produces
inventions in order that the bourgeoisie can extract its superprofits. And
all this because the bourgeoisie undividedly holds in its hands one social
obligation, the distribution of labour and material goods.
No, it is not omnipotent in this question, its possibilities are limited by
the objective laws of capitalist society. But the capitalist clearly knows
these laws and does not miss even a single one of the opportunities which
they afford him.
Through competitive haggling in the market for labour power, he obtains
labour power, but only such labour power, according to qualification, age,
and other measures, from which he is able to extract, under the concrete
conditions, the greatest quantity of surplus labour.
The capitalist hires production organizers only, to the extent necessary,
in
order that they will worry about raising the productivity of labour and
thus
maximize his superprofits. He also hires lawyers, specialist in commercial
operations and other employees to worry about his superprofits, but these
are already outside the production sphere.
The capitalist finances scientific research and technical creativity, but
only as an advance against the superprofits which monopoly ownership of new
achievements, new knowledge, will bring.
So the capitalist accomplishes the distribution with a quantitative measure
of goods, wages.
In choosing the direction of development of production, his orientation to
the output of definite goods, (and the capitalist always does this
himself),
relying on the analysis of market conditions and production forecasts done
by hired specialists, he participates in the production of a definite
qualitative composition by society. In so far as he grabs a corner of the
existing market, he necessarily must take into account the existence of a
social demand and try to satisfy that demand.
And when, in the end, the capitalist has managed the distribution of goods,
it turns out that the distribution of labour has also already been decided.
It decided how many and which specialists he needed, which workstations the
workers manned and what the intelligentsia occupied themselves with. The
capitalist in no way intends to separate these questions; those who bring
in
the profits receive the goods. As for the rest, the capitalist is not
troubled; because each, struggling to increase the quantity of goods for
himself, provides an increase in the profits for him, there is a
convergence
of interests.
Of course, there are class contradictions in the world; when the
proletariat
becomes more organized for struggle, the capitalist can not decide his
problems in a one-sided manner, without the support of other forces. In
order to manage society in the interests of private property, the
bourgeoisie simply must direct social movement into those channels where it
can place its dams and dikes. This channel is the channel of private
property, and its banks are whole sum of the social relations of the
capitalist world, and in the first place, the entire power of its
organizations, supporting and shaping these relations. The grandest of
these
organizations is the bourgeois state with its numerous means of control
over
society.
State power in the majority of capitalist countries is formed from very
democratic beginnings. This does not prevent it however, from remaining the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Universal suffrage hardly frightens the
bourgeoisie, even in conditions where the industrial proletariat makes up a
large part of the population. Why are a handful of capitalists completely
unconcerned about the outbreak of a struggle for power?
Because, in the struggle for power, strength prevails, not numbers. And the
formula for strength in society has a simple form; numbers plus
organization. Uniting in political parties, buying the intellectually
developed part of humanity practically whole, disposing of the organizing
power of the mass media, financing various societies and single-minded
campaigns, the bourgeoisie does not simply shape social opinion in its
support, it suppresses, muffles and drowns in the general noise the voices
of the opponents of its ideology. The organizing capabilities of wealth,
money and property, these are what assist the bourgeoisie, not just in the
reproduction of capital but in the reworking of society.
Through natural stinginess, the bourgeoisie misses, and in the future will
continue to miss, those moments when the organization of the proletariat
and
general left forces reaches levels dangerous to it, as was the case, for
example, in Chile in 1970. But then all is still not lost for them. If
under
normal "democratic" conditions, the bourgeoisie prefers to deal with the
proletariat, spending the necessary minimum part of its profits on
organization, the threat of giving up private property in general compels
it
to give up more. Then, neither regretting nor stinting, the bourgeoisie
will
lay out money on the creation of a fascist regime. Fascism is the other
side
of bourgeois democracy. It is also a dictatorship, but in an unadorned
form.
Under "democratic" conditions the bourgeoisie prefers to conduct the
struggle with the proletariat by democratic means; it obstructs the
organization of the proletariat with broad ideological pressure, bringing
chaos into the workers own single-minded trend and financing bourgeois
organizations sufficiently for oppositional activities. With fascism, such
organizational advantages secure for the bourgeoisie the forcible
destruction of workers organizations and the direct liquidation of
proletarian organizational centres through arrests and executions. For the
bourgeoisie this is a further loss, and brings complications in the
economy,
but they know that these are hard times. With the damage, destruction, the
loss of its best cadre and existing connections, the workers organizations
leave the system and withdraw from the political arena. And when fascism
becomes unnecessary, they can write it off on the quiet, and having
reestablished their organizational advantage over the uncoordinated
proletarian forces within the framework of a most peculiar bourgeois
"democracy," they curse, for a long while, about the vileness of the
fascist
terror, portraying it a as an isolated black spot on the otherwise pure
democratic history of capitalist society.
This is how the bourgeoisie settles its organizational problems. By
comparison with this the regulation of personal relations is a trifling
matter. Here just one condition is necessary, namely, that bourgeois state
asserts the inviolability of private property, with all its legislation,
courts and weapons. Of course, in every concrete case each concrete
capitalist also tries to grab that which the law has not offered. Each
bourgeois gets, with difficulty, the idea that justice is good and that it
is for the powerful. And, of course, all of this gives rise to a vast
system
of corruption and the making of deals among the powerful bourgeois against
the whole of society. But these are the particulars of capitalist
existence.
So, the private property interest of the bourgeoisie serve in capitalist
society as the most important organizational basis. The process of
realization of these interests, the sum of the activities undertaken by the
bourgeoisie for their satisfaction, simultaneously appears both as the
implementation of a range of social functions, without which the
cooperative
activity of the members of society would lack completeness, and as the
whole, essential for the existence of society.
Are all similar functions fulfilled by the bourgeoisie itself? Definitely
not. Really, wherever it turns out to be possible, the bourgeoisie draws in
the intelligentsia. All leading posts in capitalist society are handed out
to the intelligentsia. State functionaries right up to the very highest
come
from the intelligentsia. Technical and commercial leaders at all ranks come
from the intelligentsia. Also, to the intelligentsia falls all ideological
work. The creative potential of the intelligentsia is exploited by the
capitalist world with all its might.
This situation of the intelligentsia, together with the developing
depersonalization of capital, in the form of joint stock companies and
other
forms of capitalist cooperation, permit many bourgeois ideologues to speak
about the retreat of capitalism from key positions, about the passing of
power to the hands of the intelligentsia and its formulation,
cooperatively,
according to its laws of the commercial-technical systems, of progressive
economic policy, supposedly independent of the capitalists, not answerable
to them. This is a lie, because never have the capitalists given up control
over the distribution of goods to anyone, because in granting to the
intelligentsia the right to lead, the bourgeoisie retains for itself the
right to decide the direction, because the capitalists are ready to pay for
the activities of any administrator, politician or engineer, the activity
of
any system, just so long as they meticulously fulfill their principal
obligation to the capitalists, the provision of maximum profit for them.
However important the position of the intelligentsia in bourgeois society
might appear to be, the bourgeoise, while permitting it to do as it
pleases,
does not allow it to go beyond the bounds of what is comfortable for the
bourgeoisie.
And for all that, the intelligentsia plays its highly essential role in
bourgeois society. The individualistic worldview, the firm graft onto
bourgeois society, the accessibility to the intelligentsia of all posts,
the
appearance of being the source of social structure, in combination with the
practical experience of the intelligentsia in resolving major and minor
problems on the basis of calculation and reasoned agreement, gives rise to
the specific convictions of the intelligentsia, the belief in the
possibility of stabilizing society and strengthening its rational
foundation. At the heart of every intellectual is his completed model for
restructuring society, which consists of the removal of such obstacles as
he
has experienced in his personal relations with society, and the
illogicality
of whose existence appears self-evident to him. Remaining outside the heat
of class conflict, and untroubled by the analysis of class forces and class
interests, the intelligentsia proves itself not to be in a position to
(nor,
indeed, does it manifest any powerful striving to) understand that
everything taken by him as an obstacle is at heart an expression of the
real
and unavoidable class contradiction, that these "obstacles" give him
knowledge of the iron grip of the capitalist, affirming his interests.
Such a spiritual atmosphere gives rise in the midst of the intelligentsia
to
a mass of theories of the "rational," but in fact wholely idealistic and
thus groundless, organization of society. All these theories play into the
hands of the bourgeoisie, for they distract the thinking part of humanity
from participation in class struggle, they mask the genuine source of
social
contradiction. But even more important, the apparent attainability of
Utopian social structures shapes in the intelligentsia a definite caste
viewpoint. This leads them to think of themselves as a class capable of
taking on the whole responsibility for the fate of society. This mass
delusion, sprouting in the fertile soil of hypertrophied self-love,
characteristic of the intelligentsia, conceals from it its own secondary,
service role in society. The bourgeoisie keenly supports these maniacal
prejudices, for the intelligentsia, in its confusion, reliably serves the
bourgeoisie; when it sees more clearly, becoming conscious of the
obligatory
character of its service, it is capable of making the revolutionary choice
and serving the proletariat.
The fact that in capitalist society, the very existence of the
intelligentsia is called forth by the demands of the bourgeoisie and is
possible only under its supervision, not unnaturally, only assists the
strengthening of the caste mentality. These same activities of capital,
taken by the intelligentsia as annoying obstacles, provide a definite
equilibrium in capitalist society, its wholeness and coordination; they
prevent the intelligentsia from testing the groundlessness of its theories
and so support the intelligentsia's belief that peace and order exist
exclusively thanks to its efforts.
Two consequence of this state of affairs directly touch the interests of
the
proletariat. Firstly, the social caste outlook of the intelligentsia closes
it in on itself and cuts it off from the proletariat, and this results in
serious damage to the development of the proletariat's world-encompassing
ideology and weakens the organizational work without which the proletariat
can neither prepare for nor enter into the decisive class battle. Secondly,
after the victory of the proletariat, however much it may need the creative
potential of the intelligentsia, it cannot trust it; striving to realize in
practice its numerous personal theories, unavoidably leads the
intelligentsia to a single non-contradictory combination of them, to the
resurrection of capitalist relations.
In order not only to win power, but not to lose it anew, in order to be
able
to bring order after victory, the proletariat is obliged to know all these
mysteries of capitalist society and all the social forces existing in it.
Before it lies the task of taking them as an inheritance, transforming them
and directing them to the construction of the new society.
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