Communists

“ The Communists, who represent the class-conscious wage-earners, wait for some propitious moment when events have caused a mood of revolutionary discontent with the existing Government. They then put themselves at the head of the discontent, carry through a successful revolution, and in so doing acquire the arms, the railways, the State treasure, and all the other resources upon which the power of modern Governments is built. They then confine political power to Communists, however small a minority they may be of the whole nation. ”

“ Do we have to go through this to realize that we need a powerful labor movement and a large and active Communist Party so that the people can say with assurance—"It will not happen here!"
Who are we—the Communists of America? We are Americans—native born and immigrants; we speak all languages; we are of all religions; of all colors; men and women; young and old. We are miners, steel, railroad, electrical, textile, office workers, trade unionists, farmers, veterans, professionals, housewives, students. We are a cross section of America—folks just like you. ”

“ In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.
Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. ”

“ Communists, that we acknowledge only one straight road, that we do not admit maneuvers, co-operation, compromises—and this will already be a mistake, which is capable of bringing, and, in fact, has brought and is bringing, the most serious harm to Communism. ”

“ In every Soviet of Workers' Deputies, in every labour union, every cooperative institution, workshop, house committee, in every government institution, everywhere, even though there may be only three people sympathising with Communism, a Communist nucleus must be immediately organised. It is only the power of organisation of the Communists that enables the advance guard of the working class to be the leader of the whole class. ”

“ The best workers of the world called themselves Communists with pride.... The party is not a peculiar sect, it is not an aristocracy of labour. It also consists of workers and peasants—only more organized, more developed, knowing what they want and with a fixed programme. The Communists are not the masters, in the bad sense of that word, of the workers and peasants, but only their elder comrades, able to point out the right path.... Recently we have purged our ranks. We have ejected those who in our opinion did not merit the great honour of being called Communists. ”

“ The Communists must strain every effort to direct the movement of the working class, and the development of society generally, along the straightest and quickest way to the universal victory of Soviet power and the proletarian dictatorship. ”

“ Communists.—One who has yearnings for equal division of unequal earnings. Idler or bungler, he is willing to fork out his penny and pocket your shilling.—Ebenezer Elliott.
Your leaders wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear leveling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them.—Johnson.
Communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are hunger, envy, death.—Heinrich Heine. ”

“ Will you be at the pains, now, however, to learn rightly, and once for all, what Communism is? First, it means that everybody must work in common, and do common or simple work for his dinner; and that if any man will not do it, he must not have his dinner. That much, perhaps, you thought you knew?—but you did not think we Communists of the old school knew it also? You shall have it, then, in the words of the Chelsea farmer and stout Catholic, I was telling you of, in last number. ”

“ The duty of the Communists consists in inspiring the industrial unions and the shop committees with a spirit of determined struggle, and the consciousness and knowledge of the best methods of such struggle—the spirit of Communism. ”

“ The stronger, the more united, the more elastic and aggressive the revolutionary wing of the labor movement will be, the more objectively we, the Communists, estimate the relation of forces outside and inside the working class—the more correct will be our conduct—the sooner will humanity arrive at the developed form of Communist society. ”

“ It is therefore, in their view, the duty of the Communist party in a capitalist country to prepare for armed conflict, and to take all possible measure for disarming the bourgeoisie and arming that part of the proletariat which is willing to support the Communists. ”

“ Grace to their splendid organization, discipline, and well-thought-out programs, the Communists ordinarily have but little difficulty in winning the general bodies around to their point of view.
In the industries Communist organization is no less thorough than elsewhere. ”

“ The fundamental principle of all organisation work of the Communist Party and individual Communists must be the creation of a Communist nucleus everywhere they find proletarians and semi-proletarians—although even in small numbers. ”

“ The German Communists are Communists because, through all intermediary stages and compromises, created not by them, but by the course of historical development, they clearly see and perpetually follow the one final end, the abolition of classes and the creation of a social system in which there will no longer be any place for private property in land or in the means of production. ”

“ But after a few crushing defeats, the Communists were compelled to sue for peace, and to cede a large part of their richest territory. Driven back into their own chaotic misery, deterred by merciless punishment from further invasion of their neighbours' dominions, they had leisure to contrast their wretched condition with that of those who prospered under the restored system of private ownership, family interest, strong, orderly, permanent government, material and intellectual civilisation. ”

“ That is enough to prevent our being led astray in our struggle against "the reactionary mass." "The Communists, therefore, are practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country. ”

“ When that time has come it will be better for all; all will enjoy life, not those only who do so now at the cost of their fellow-beings.
If you, define Communism in this way, some of my readers will say, we do not object to it; quite on the contrary, we must confess we belong to the Communists ourselves. But this is not what people generally understand by the word "Communism." We were to consider the Communism which the Socialists want to introduce, the Communism with regard to property. We admit that they do not intend to divide, but do they not intend to abolish property? ”

“ In a thousand ways, the Communists have a life which is happier than that of the rest of the community. Above all, they are less exposed to the unwelcome attentions of the police and the extraordinary commission.
The Communist theory of international affairs is exceedingly simple. ”

“ The period of the open struggle for the dictatorship of the workers has created a new party—the Communists.
5. The Communist International emphatically rejects the opinion that the workers could carry out a revolution without having an independent political party of their own. All class. struggles are political ones. The object of such a struggle, which inevitably turns into a civil war, is the obtaining of political power. ”

“ Ultimately, after a longer or shorter period, according to circumstances, the nation will be [148] converted to Communism, the relics of capitalist institutions will have been obliterated, and it will be possible to restore freedom. But the political conflicts to which we are accustomed will not reappear. All the burning political questions of our time, according to the Communists, are questions of class conflict, and will disappear when the division of classes disappears. ”

“ Those among the workers, on the other hand, who, convinced of the inadequacy of purely political revolutions, demanded a thoroughgoing transformation of society, spoke of themselves at that time as communists. ”

“ The tactics of the Communists, in case a necessity for split arises, must be a continuous most attentive study of the surrounding conditions, and of the question whether such a split might not lead to the isolation of the Communists from the labour masses. ”

“ This is an unpardonable blunder which results in the Communists rendering the greatest service to the bourgeoisie ... A greater lack of sense and more harm to the revolution than this attitude of the 'Left' Communists cannot be imagined ... ”

“ In the beginning of the revolutionary movement Communism denoted what we now call Socialism; for example, the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels became the platform of the Social-democratic parties. But because most of these parties supported their governments during the war, the more radical elements have now rejected the word Socialism, and taken up the old word Communism. In the Russian revolution the Communists went so far as to seize all the property of the rich, and so the word Communism has come to bear something of its early Christian significance. ”

“ To the question how one kind of labor can be measured against another, how the labor of the artisan can be measured against the labor of the artist, how the labor of the strong can be measured against the labor of the weak, the communists can give no answer. ”

“ Both can be Communist and should be communist, when the active workers in either sphere are really communists, are really members of the proletarian mass party. Yet in one as well as in the other (and, for the matter of that, in any sphere of activity) , under the system of capitalism and during the transition period from capitalism to Socialism, it is impossible to avoid those difficulties which are inherent in their present organization. It is for the proletariat to solve the problem of utilizing for its own ends its assistants, press or political, of a bourgeois turn of mind ”

“ I believe that communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements. ”

“ The Communist program of immediate action, that the big landed estates, the banks, and all the resources and industries of the country be nationalized meets with the heartiest approval of the people in country after country. ”

“ If I chose I could mention here a thousand other things, but the above named common institutions will be sufficient. Now all these institutions are nothing but Communism. For Communism is nothing but the principle of the common interests of society. In every-day life everybody looks out for his own interest, even at the cost, of his fellow-men; here cold, ugly egoism is dominant. The large cotton mills have ruined thousands and thousands of weavers; but who cares for hundreds of honest, industrious, happy people who are ruined by one mill? ”

“ The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justification. ”

“ Thus, by the action of the proletariat, Communism ceased to be a vague philosophic speculation and became a party, a living force. Thus, Socialism arose from the French Revolution under the combined action of two forces, the force of the idea of right, and the force of the new-born activity of the proletariat. ”

“ If, therefore, the choice were to be made between Communism with all its chances and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism, would be but as dust in the balance. But, to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communism at its best with the régime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made. ”

“ They represent the victory of common interests over hideous Egoism.
To turn institutions of common interest to the use of all is the tendency of the age, and however people may curse at Communism they are bound to obey its mandates. Everywhere common interests press their claims, and Communism, proudly elevating its head, marches on triumphantly with all conditions of human life in its train.
He who declares himself an enemy of Communism declares himself an enemy of common interest, an enemy of society and mankind! ”

“ Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of a total social change, that portion, then, called itself Communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of Communism; still, it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working class to produce the Utopian Communism, in France, of Cabet, and in Germany, of Weitling. ”

“ Our Communism is not sectarian, but truly universal, and compatible with the highest degree of liberty which is at all attainable. The most correct term for our Communism would, perhaps, be Collectivism, as it is now called in France. ”