What Is Communism?

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December final month Soclalist Action fund drive to make subscription goal City Goal New Renew. Total Pet.

Milwaukee 1 12 0 12 120% New Brunswick 5 0 5 100% Los Angeles 25 1 0 10 20 80% Boston 7 5 7 58 77% Baltimore 6 0 4 4 45 75% San Francisco 250 154 17 171 68% Detroit 10 3 3 6 60% New Haven 5 2 3 60% New York 55 13 17 30 55% Portland 15 6 40% Twin Cities 25 5 36% Chicago 50 10 11 22% Kansas City 5 20% Philadelphia 20 15% Cleveland 15 7% Bath, Me. 0% Cincinnati 0 0 0% Other 25 13 19 76% Total 650 320 8 400 62% Should be 494 76% SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1991 13 We have all been bombarded with the news that "communism" is dead. The common sense proof of these obituaries is the demise of the organizations called "Communist Parties" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

We are confronted with a corpse, to be sure. But as any reader of murder mysteries knows, sometimes bodies are misidentified. In the particular case we are concerned with, it turs out that both the deceased and the apologists for capitalism have had their own reasons for giving the wrong name to the corpse-both when it was alive and now that it has passed on.

To solve the mystery and determine if "communism" is actually still walking around alive, and to figure out why the body has been deliberately given a false identity, we need some identifying features. There are two descriptions of communism-an older one, which is somewhat general, and a more modern and specific one.

The general description is of a society where the means of production are owned in common. Society is not split apart into classes where each class has a different relation to the means of production.

This distinction sets communism apart from all the societies that have developed in the history of civilization so far. For example, ancient Greece and Rome were slave societies, where slaves worked for landlords. The landThe flow of new subscriptions and renewals coming into the Business Office slowed the latter part of October and the first part of November, but began to pick up at the end of the month.

Boston made a big jump forward. And Milwaukee and New Brunswick are the first to go over 100 percent. (Actually Baltimore did this earlier, but then raised their goal from 35 Nov. 25 lords owned the land, the tools the slaves used, and the slaves. There were other classes, too, such as merchants and artisans, but they were not as important to production.

Under feudalism, there were landowners and serfs, as well as other classes. In old China, India, and the ancient cultures of the Middle East (like Egypt), there were still other types of classes, with specific relations to the land and waterworks used for irrigation.

Under capitalism, the two main classes are the capitalist owners of industry and the moder workers.

In every class society, the different relations the different classes have to the means of production (between those who own them and those who do the work, for example) are at bottom relations between the classes themselves, between separate groups of human beings.

In each different type of class society, there is a dominant class (or classes) which skims the surplus of production for itself, and a class (or classes) which do the work, but get the hindmost.

That is, class societies are inherently unequal. Within them there are constant struggles between the classes over the division of the fruits of labor and nature. To prevent such societies from splitting apart, all class societies have been marked by the development of a special organ, final month to 50, and have once again raised it to 60.)

Sixteen subscriptions were sold at the San Jose, Calif., meeting of NOW Young Feminists, and many good discussions were had with these young fighters. Several new subscribers were interested in having Socialist Action supporters speak at their colleges. And supporters of the paper made important contributions to the conference itself.

Although we are getting back into rhythm, we did lose some composed of armed men (usually men and not women) who "keep the peace" between the classes.

This special organ is called the state.

The state presents a facade of standing above the classes, but it really is the organ of the dominant class, and enforces the laws that codify the unequal relations between the classes. Thus, the dominant class is also the ruling class.

Communism, in addition to being a classless society, is also a society without a state—without this special organ of coercion.

Another feature of communisn • me absence or me oppressio of women, something which arose with the development of classes. Before the advent of class societies, there were tens of thousands of years of primitive societies in which tools were held in common and the proceeds of hunting, fishing, and gathering were shared in common.

These societies were restricted to small units like tribes, and could go to war over resources if they ran up against each other.

One people sometimes didn't even recognize other groups as fellow human beings (we still have a way to go on this score today). But within each group there was a form of communism.

Such communism is called primitive communism, because it was based on a very low level of productivity. In fact, usually it was hard to produce enough to ground, and are behind where we should be. This means we all have to finish up the drive this month with a burst of energy to make the full goal of 650. A final wrap-up report will be in our next issue.

One more thing: As a holiday bonus, all who subscribe or renew for at least a year will get a FREE book-either "Gorbachev's USSR: Is Stalinism Dead" or "Nicaragua: Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution."

And why not give a subscription to Socialist Action as a holiday gift? Your friend who receives the gift will also get a free book! (See the subscription blank on page 3).

By Sheppara meet the needs of the group, and there was no surplus left over for a dominate group to appropriate.

Class societies developed when production reached the point where such surpluses could be produced, but were not yet enough to satisfy all the wants of every member of society.

Since the rise of class society, however, the idea of the elimination of the inequalities of class society and a return to communism has continued to exist in various forms. It is found in the idea of the coming of the Kingdom of God on Earth in Christianity, and in other nooks and crannies of religion-which, however, has been used overall to justify the inequalities, cruelties, and oppression of class societies.

It is found in schemes for utopias, and even in attempts to set up communistic colonies. As a wish, a dream, and a hope communism has been around for a long time.

When capitalism was just beginning to arise, and before there was a workers' movement tops $20,000 mark As 1 write, construction is almost done on the new offices for Socialist Action newspaper, our national departments, and our San Francisco branch. Our new bookstore and meeting hall will be unveiled to the public on Saturday, Dec. 21. If you re in the Bay Area, come on by to Socialist Action's open house!

We got off to a slow start on raising the $24,000 fund drive Socialist Action needs in order to make our next steps forward In the meantime, despite a slow start, the amount pledged to the fund has jumped forward significantly this month and we now have over $20,000 in pledges.

One of these increases comes from an unemployed supporter in Toledo, Ohio. He's sending us $50 early in December as soon as his checks come in.

An oil worker in the San Francisco Bay Area, who already pledged and paid $500, has pledged an additional $200. It seems she won a lottery at work and thought of putting the windfall to work to belp Socialist Action.

Just as volunteer supporters are donating their skills in helping to build our new headquarters, we are voluntarily funded by workers. If you have not already done so, please send us a contribution. Every amount is important, from tbe $5 to the $1000 that people have pledged so far. Do what you san to help.

And now is the time to contact everyone you kaow who might want to make a pledge to the drive, Please send all pledges in by Dec, 15, to fight for our interests against the capitalists, there appeared a number of utopian socialist (we are using here the words "socialist" and "communist" interchangeably) visions of societies that would overcome the evils of the capitalist system, which were already apparent.

There were three great utopian socialists of this period-Robert Owen, Henri Saint-Simon, and Charles Fourier. They wrote extensively on the horrors that early capitalism inflicted on working people. Their socialistic or communistic schemes were not meant to be merely fantasies, but proposals to build a better society.

These great utopians were an anticipation of the modern idea of communism, developed with the rise of the movement of the working class. This new communism announced its birth in a pamphlet, "The Communist Manifesto" written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. We will describe this development in more detail next month.

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Learning About Marxism

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