An Introduction to Communist Theory

ICC Introduction

We are publishing a contribution we have received which demonstrates that in-depth reflection is currently taking place amongst small minorities within the proletariat. The subject addressed is particularly noteworthy and significant, in that the reflection does not focus on secondary aspects of immediate propaganda – in this case, Trump’s empty rhetoric and other antics – but addresses directly the question of the true meaning to be given to the communist perspective. With the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the lie that ‘Stalinism = communism’ was hammered home time and again. Today, the idea of communism continues to be widely distorted by the bourgeoisie and, as we can see, is still under attack. The approach taken in this contribution is all the more to be commended as it enables us to fight against capitalism’s no future and bears witness to the reality of a maturing consciousness that has been taking place, particularly since the struggles of the ‘Summer of Anger’ in 2022 in Britain, marking a break with the apathy of previous decades. Whilst we agree with and support the bulk of the theoretical analysis presented, given its quality, we nevertheless believe that the question of the ‘transition period’ requires clarification. Indeed, we do not believe that, in the case of the Paris Commune—which was internationally isolated and arose from a movement that, whilst certainly remarkable, was premature in terms of historical conditions—one can still speak of a ‘transitional period’. For us, such a period can only be conceived after the working class has seized power at the international level. That said, this criticism in no way detracts from the serious effort represented by this work, which undeniably contributes to the long process of politicisation that the working class must undertake for its long and difficult revolutionary struggle. Our aim is therefore to encourage the continuation of this process of reflection.

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Introduction

Communism is heavily distorted and obscured by the various ruling ideologies of our time. Just recently, Donald Trump claimed that communism is the greatest threat to the United States, which is significant because said country is the strongest imperial power in the world. We communists couldn’t agree more that the greatest threat to the United States, and the American ruling class which it represents, is a communist revolution. This goes for every state on the planet and their respective ruling classes. But, to be clear, when we communists say communism, we don’t mean the absurd caricatures which ruling ideologies conjure up in an attempt to dissuade the working class from the course of liberating itself. We don’t mean the state capitalism of China or the former USSR. We don’t mean the social democracy of the Scandinavian countries. We don’t mean movements which attempt to insert “communal” forms into a capitalist world which necessarily suppresses the emergence of a real community. And we certainly don’t mean it in such an incoherent fashion as it’s often utilized as an insult, barren of any sort of consistency, by those sections of the ruling class which lazily attempt to score cheap political points against their rivals due to the stigma of the term. Karl Marx even notes this absurd tendency in his time, saying in his Eighteenth Brumaire:

“Whether it was a question of the right of petition or the tax on wine, freedom of the press or free trade, the clubs or the municipal charter, protection of personal liberty or regulation of the state budget, the watchword constantly recurs, the theme remains always the same, the verdict is ever ‘ready and invariably reads: ‘Socialism!” Even bourgeois liberalism is declared socialistic, bourgeois enlightenment socialistic, bourgeois financial reform socialistic. It was socialistic to build a railway where a canal already existed, and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a cane when one was attacked with a rapier”.

But if none of these are communism, what is it really? Before I answer this, an explanation of the historical materialist perspective must be undertaken.

Historical Materialism

Throughout history, necessarily and inescapably, the character and function of human society has been a product of the material basis within which humans reproduce themselves, of their interaction with nature and with each other. This is true of societies bearing the whole gamut of modes of production, from primitive-communal, to ancient, to feudal, all the way to capitalist. A mode of production is a type of society, at a particular stage of development in the productive forces, governed by a distinct set of economic laws. Of these, the primitive-communal mode had existed the longest, whether it be nomadic or sedentary, hunter-gatherer or agrarian. While modes of production did not follow a rigid, mechanical chain from “lowest” to “highest,” instead following a much more complex pattern, the dissolution of the primitive-communal mode did necessarily imply its replacement by one form or another of class society, of a mode of production in which there existed the stratification of its members, of groups of exploited and those of exploiters. This stratification, in turn, produced the state, the political apparatus of the ruling class responsible for ensuring social cohesion both by keeping in check individual members and sections of the ruling class and, especially, the whole of the exploited class. This stratification was also, it should be noted, a result of the development of the productive forces, which became capable of producing surpluses that allowed for the elevation of certain classes above the general population, but not to the extent that a universal abundance was realizable for the whole of the community.

The capitalist mode differed from the others in that it came to encompass the entire world, necessitating the dissolution of all previous modes in its wake. This is quite astonishing considering its humble origins, emerging out of pockets within feudal European society and first personified in the medieval burgher. Nonetheless, what it has brought to bear is the universal extension of the market, unprecedented industrialisation, socialisation of the productive apparatus, and monstrous development of the state, both in terms of size and capability. At the same time, this immensely powerful capitalism has internal contradictions which threaten its very existence, the most important among them being the antagonism between wage labour and capital, between proletariat and bourgeoisie. Having created the proletariat, the class of wage labourers, the bourgeoisie has produced both the foundation for tremendous capital accumulation, on the one hand, and the only revolutionary class capable of overthrowing it, on the other. The antagonistic interests of the proletariat against those of the bourgeoisie compel the former to make revolutions against the latter by historical necessity, as has been demonstrated practically. So too do these antagonistic interests lead to the creation of the class party of the proletariat, the communist party, made up of the class’s leading militants, its vanguard, who bear the most revolutionary perspective and historical clarity, which, together, enables them to approximate practical prescriptions for the class as a whole according to the current situation. Upon successfully overthrowing the bourgeoisie, the proletariat forms its own state, or rather semi-state, known as the proletarian dictatorship, as occurred with the Paris Commune of the late nineteenth century and the council republics of the early 20th century. This semi-state, this state-in-decay, the administrators of which (the whole proletariat) aim at its ultimate demise, exists only as a means of suppressing the insurgent bourgeoisie and managing crises, in short, to safeguard the transition from capitalism to communism.

Communism

In terms of communism, it’s important, first and foremost, to distinguish it from another school, that of utopian socialism. Communism as a political movement is a scientific socialism in that it predicts the emergence of a communist society based on real historical developments and the social conditions which accompany them. These, however, matter little to the utopian socialist. The utopian socialist draws up plans for an ideal society which it wishes current society to adopt based on moral justifications. This is, of course, backwards. As Marx maintains in The German Ideology,

“Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence”.

To this point, communism isn’t possible without the social conditions created by capitalism. For one, the socialisation of the economy in general is impossible without capitalism having first socialised the productive apparatus, i.e., transformed nearly the whole of society into proletarians and put an enormous productive machine, the vast network of means of production, into their hands, despite them having no ownership over it. With the coming of the proletarian revolution, the proletariat will seize these means of production and socialise them in the sense of ownership as well, so that the absurd contradiction between social production and private appropriation is abolished. Another example of capitalism providing the foundations for communism is in the interconnection it has put into effect across the entire world. The proletarian revolution will carry forward this internationalisation still further by dissolving national boundaries and making way for a unified world community. Finally, capitalism has created unprecedented productive capabilities which more than allow for the universal abundance of all members of society, an outcome, ironically, which capitalism alone stands in the way of being realised. Proletarian revolution will destroy capitalism so that this universal abundance can be realized, and thus the abolition of classes and the state as well. One might object: “But wasn’t the USSR communist? Some emancipation that was!” In order to unpack this, one must be familiar with the history of the Russian Revolution. We communists unashamedly uphold the Russian Revolution as a proletarian revolution, just as much as we do the German Revolution and the Paris Commune. Bourgeois ideologues of all stripes point to the USSR, and, by extension, a great many other so-called “communist” and “socialist” states, in an attempt to dissuade the proletariat from revolution. The irony in this, however, is that the misery of the USSR lay not in communism, not in the world-historic task of the proletariat to emancipate itself, but in capitalism, in bourgeois counterrevolution. After having been isolated due to the failure of other proletarian revolutions around the world, a bureaucracy developed in Russia which dissolved the proletarian dictatorship, the rule of the proletariat as a class. This bureaucracy took on the role of national capitalist, of the state becoming the primary employer of wage labour, as opposed to the traditional private capitalist. Thus it was, just as much as the United States or the British Empire, a capitalist society in which the proletariat was disempowered and exploited by the ruling class via wage labour, only the forms of this exploitation were configured in a peculiar way compared to most liberal democracies. Coming back to the question of internationalism, the Russian Revolution is a clear example of why communism can only emerge following a sweeping world revolution. Communism cannot exist in one country, nor can the proletarian dictatorship, the political transition to communism, even exist for long in one country without the emergence of proletarian dictatorship in other countries with which to fraternise. Internationalism is an inseparable aspect of communism for this reason, and the various shades of nationalists who attempt to undermine and distort it (be they leftists, liberals, conservatives, etc.) are unequivocally the enemy of communists. To conclude, communism means the abolition of capitalism, the abolition of classes, the abolition of private property, the abolition of the state, the abolition of nations, the abolition of exchange, the abolition of commodity production. It means the realisation of a world community of freely associated individuals interacting with one another and nature in a direct and conscious manner, wherein the means of production are held in common, unencumbered by the law of value, or any other impersonal law which guides the interaction of individuals in spite of themselves. It means the reconciliation of the individual with the community, indeed, wherein the community is but a collection of freely associated individuals. It means the dissolution of institutions of status and identity, enforced diversity, in favour of the organic diversity of individuals according to their varied skills and desires, and, along with this, the realisation of the principle “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.”

Synthesiz, July 2026