The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 25, 1924, Page 5

ner ceed aca alee Mee We wv “The idea becomes power when it pene- trates the masses.” —Karl Marx. SPECIAL MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT. THE DAILY WORKER. OCTOBER 25, 1924. SECOND SECTION This magazine supple- ment will appear every Saturday in The Daily Worker. Program of the Communist Internatioral DRAFT ADOPTED AT THE INTRODUCTION, In the revolutionary fight against capitalist domination, the international proletariat must unite the efforts of ite separate detach- ments and merge these detachments into one international proletarian army. The organization, which unites the fighting revolutionary prole- tariat, regardless of state boundaries, nationality, race, creed, sex, or occupation, is the International Workers’ Association, the Communist International. The Communist International, uniting all the Commun- ist parties and constituting in itself the militant world party of the proletariat, aims at the emancipation of labor from the yoke of capi-~ tal; it openly advocates the violent overthrow of the bourgeois order by means of the Communist revolution, and thus continues the revo- lutionary tradition of the Communist association, and the First Inter- national founded by Marx. It entirely and unreservedly maintains the standpoint of revolutionary Marxism, which found its most com- plete expression in Leninism which is pure and simple Marxism of the epoch of the direct proletarian fight for the conquest of power. The Communist International is fighting on this basis for clarity in the dlass consciousness of the masses by placing its dialectic material- ism in opposition to the teachings of the bourgeois ideology, and thereby leading the fight against any kind of bourgeois influence over the proletariat, such as religion, idealistic and non-materialist dialectic Philosophy, the doctrine of harmony. between capital and labor, socialistic opportunism—thereby consistently maintaining the basis of the class struggle. The Communist International formulates. its entire fundamental principles, aims and fundamental methods for struggle on this basis, and in the program, which unites millions of toilers, explains the position of the Oppressed under capitalist rule, and shows them the way to victory over the bourgeoisie, and to the construction of the Communist society. I. Capitalist Wage Slavery. 1. General Characteristics of Capital- ism as a System of Exploitation. At the present time almost the whole globe is under the rule 6f capi- talism. Only in the Soviet Union has the domination of capital been super- seded. This rule is based upon private property and the production of com- modities for the market. A small group of persons is in pos- session of the monopoly of the means of producing these goods, and of -the means of distributing them, this group is the capitalist class. This monopoly assures to this class an un- divided economic domination over millions of proletarians, whe possess no means of production, an¢ wno are forced to-sell their labor power. The relation of wage-labor to capi- tal forms the basis of bourgeois so- ciety. The ‘economic domination of the “bourgeoisie is secured by its political rule, and by its state organization, which secures it a monopoly over arms and all other means of applying physical force. The rule of the bourgeoisie is also secured culturally, for it possesses the monopoly of education, which is in the hands of the capitalists, The working class, economically op- pressed, subjected politically and cul- turally, is the wage-slave of capital. The working class, which forms a constantly growing section of the pop- ulation, thus serves as a living source of profit to the bourgeoisie, which ex- ploits its labor. 2. Contradittions in the Development of the Capitalist System. The hunt for profits forced the bour- geoisie to develop its productive pow- ers continuously and increasingly, and to extend the sphere of operations of capitalist production. The fundamen- tal contradictions of the capital sys- tem, however, reveal themselves at the same time with ever growing dis- tinctness; these defects inevitably lead to the complete breakdown of the capitalist system. Capitalist society, built upon the ex- ploitation of an overwhelming major- ity of the population by an inconsider- able minority, is torn in two, and its. whole history is one of conflicts be- tween the classes. The rule of private eroperty imparts an anarchic character to production, and leads to blind production regulat- ed by no conscious power. This is shown on the one hand in the severe conflicts between various competing concerns and groups of concerns, caus- ing an enormous waste of energy; on the other hand the unregulated pro- duction—absence of proportion be- tween its various branches, and the result of this anarchy of production— the contradiction between the increas- ed production and the restricted con- suming ability of the proletarian mass- es—causes periodically recurring cris- is, accompanied by destruction of pro- ductive forces and mass unemploy- ment among the proletariat. The struggle of the capitalists for world domination leads to a special form of competition among the capital- ist states, finally expressed in wars which are inevitable accompaniments of capitalism, as are crises and unem- ployment. The extension of. capitalist produc- tion, involving the development of productive forces, is accompanied by the decay of pre-capitalist economic forms in the competitive struggles, the decay of a part of the peasantry, by the disappearance of handicrafts, by the economic defeat of small and middle capital, and by the open plun- dering and merciless exploitation of the colonial countries. This process leads on the one hand to an accumula- tién of capital, to its concentration in the hands of a few millionaires, and is, on the other hand, accompanied by a tremendous increase in the num- bers of the proletariat which, having passed thru the severe school of the capitalist system, become the deadly enemy of the bourgeoisie and its sys- tem of society. The process of the concentration of capital, and cf the extension of the capitalist system, constantly repro- duces the fundamental contradictions of capitalism on an ever-increasing scale. The competition among small capitalists , only to be replaced by that among big capitalists; where competition among big capitalists comes to a standstill, it widens its radius and becomes a competition be- tween the gigantic associations of the millionaires and their states; the cris- es change from those of local and na- tional character to crises extending over a number of countries, and final- -* FIFTH WORLD CONGRESS. ly to world crises; the local wars are replaced by alliances and world wars; the class war develops from jsolated actions of single groups of workers, first to a national struggle, and then to an international strugele of the world proletariat agdinst the world bourgeoisie. The inevitable aggravation: of ‘class antagonism is accompanied’ by a sim- ultaneous consolidation of the antag- onistic class forces. On the one hand, the capitalist bourgeoisie forms its as- sociations, secures its state power, and organizes its armed forces; on. the other hand, the. working class, brought into one camp and united by the me- chanism of capitalist production itself, creates its own powerful organiza- tions, which are sooner or later trans- formed into weapons of the prole- tariat in the war against the bour- geoisie and its main support—state power. The natural course of capitalist evo- lution thus inevitably sharpens the contradictions of the ‘capitalist sys- tem, and finally renders the existence of the system itself impossible.. The living force which overthrows the capitalist system is the proletariat, which revolts against its bondage, an- nihilates the regime of capital, and organizes the systematic economics of socialism, the premises of - which are created by capitalism itself. These pre-requisites of the new form of society which have to replace capi- talism, are: the concentration of the means of production, the powerful capitalist technique, the science creat- ed by capitalist evolution, the work- ers’ organizations which will be able to furnish the first organizers of the new order of society; finally, the Marxian theory, the greatest weapon of the proletarian struggle, which is becoming a powerful force, as soon as it captures the masses. 3. Imperialism the Last Stage of Capitalism. The last decades of the rule of capital are characterized by special features of evolution, rendering the internal contradictions intensely acute, resulting in the unheard-of war crisis of 1914, and leading to the mighty revolutionary crisis (beginning with the Russian October, 1917, revolution) and the general capitalist crisis. Capitalism became world capital- ism; a universally dominant force. The survivals of the social relations of the past— primitive Communism, feudal relations, chattel slavery, mer- chant capital, the simple exchange of commodities of the handicraftsman, peasant barter and commodity ex- change—all ‘these forms, scattered in the various parts of the globe, are be- ing destroyed partly by force, and partly by “peaceful” means, and sub- jected to the rule of big capital. The numerous private undertakings competing with one another and de- stroying each other in this competi tion, have been replaced by mighty associations of industrial magnates (syndicates, trusts, cartels and com- panies consolidated by the banks.) This new form of capital, in which banking capital amalgamates with industrial capital, in which the posses- sions of the large landowners also become a part of the general organ- ization thru the agency of the banks, where there are cliques of enormously rich financial oligarchies almost pos- sessing the character of hereditary dynastie’, bears a sharply accentuated monopolist ‘character. Free competi- tion, which has taken the place of the feudal monopolist economics, now changes into a monopoly of finance capital. This organization of capital, essen- tially monopolist in character, and fre- quently causing separate groups of the ” \ bourgeeimie of diflereas oramches of industre % write, also gives rise te substantial chamges: in the type of competitive struggia.. Instead of com peting by means of Yew prices, tthere is a growing tendency to use force openly: boycotts and other forms of pressure within the country itself; high protective duties, tariff wars, the employment of armed force backed by state. power—in international rela- tions. This increasing acuteness of competition is, in international eco- nomic relations, largely due to two facts: first to the general division of the colonies among the greatest capi- talist states; secondly, to the extra- ordinary increase in the export of capital, accompanied by the increased endeavor to occupy an¢ control the territories fully to which the exported capital flows. Under such conditions state power and its armed forces assume a 8:2 cial significance for the bourgeoisie. The policy of tinance capital is direct- ed to rapacious activity of the utmost intensity . (imperialism), requiring enormous reinforcemeuts for armies, air fleets, and every description of means of annihilation. The gigantic development of competition is one of the causes of the increasing acuteness of the competitive struggle which ends in disastrous wars. The process of the centralization of capital on a world scale has thus led to the creation of great powers of finance capital, which have become the center of the capitalist pressure ex- tending thruout the world, of the capi- talist predatory raids, and of the ex- ploitation and enslavement of enorm- ous numbers of proletarian, semi-pro- letarian, and peasant elements. The weaker bourgeois states exist in direct or indirect dependence on these mighty powers, and are at their mercy. A definite object for enslavement and exploitation is supplied by the colo- nies, which possess hundreds of mil- lions of working and exploited inhabi- tants. There are two main forces being organized under the hegemony of the proletariat against the mighty organ- ized forces of finance capital; the workers of the capitalist states, and the peoples of the colonies oppressed by foreign capital. The basic revolu® tionary tendency is, however, tempo- rarily paralyzed by the cofruption of a considerable section of the Europ ean and American proletariat by the imperialist bourgeoisie. The our- geoisie of the most powerful imperial- ist states, which have reaped enorm- ous profits by plundering colonies and semi-colonies, have raised the wages of a section of their own workers out of the booty of their plunder, thereby interesting these workers in allegiance to the imperialist “Fatherland” and in. its plunderings. This systematic bribery has taken special effect among the labor aristocracy (the workers in the particularly privileged trades, the highly skilled workers, the workers in state and municipal enterprises, and so on), and among the leading bureau- cratic elements of the working class, social-democracy and trade unions, which have become absolute tools in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The keen competition among the most powerful of the great powers for the possession of the colonies led to the world war of 1914, This war shook the foundations of capitalist economics to such an extent, rendered the posi- tion of the working class so much worse, destroyed go many imperialistic illusions among the proletariat, that it introduced a new historic phage in the disintegration of capitalist produc- tion, on a world scale. ‘(Continued on Page 8.)