By JAMES KLUGMANN

‘an you explain,” said a Catholic
recent Christian Marxist discus-
“how it is that Marxists, atheists,
‘no belief in a life after death, are
prepared to sacrifice and suffer,
‘even die for what they believe?
can you, without faith, be pre-
for a cause?”
is a revolutionary faith.
onaries who are Marxists do

t in its place.
his is no superstitious faith in some
omnipotent power nor passive
on of some inevitable end. It
h, a reasoned belief in man, a
at men and women can make

‘no fantasy. It is based on the
Hafities of science and tech-
m the possibility of a radical
in the social order, and a

unte: ed, given and transmit-

the past. ;

rruggles within capitalism pre-
‘way for a revolutionary So-
nge; Socialist revolution lays

is for building a Socialist

and Socialism prepares the

Communism®.

y do we see, compared with So-
‘a Communist society? Where
difference, where the advance?

h the construction of So-

ism, production rises, meeting step

‘step the shortages inherited from

m and (though this may well

oe long, difficult process) moving

vel lly toward the production of an
nce of goods.

n society will produce, first in

simple requirements (like food,

~, normal clothing, household
transport, etc.), and then in the

complex, enough to meet all the |

-hormal needs of the people.
| these days of rapid technical ad-
‘this is no longer so hard a con-

to grasp.
le problem lies not in calculating
ty that Communism could pro-
it in surviving and overcoming
t cdship and suffering, the vast
; of famine and hunger, the dang-

‘total destruction in-nuclear war, '

exist so long as imperialism

do we see the difference be-
tween Socialism and Communism in
the field of distribution?
“The watchword of Socialism is sum-
Med up in the phrase: “From each
“Actording to his ability to each ac-
cording to his work.”

cares for the old and the

and the sick, and, for the rest,

| es ou give to society so they may
= pared with capitalism, where, in
terms, those who serve society

t get most rewarded, and those '

ho work hardest get least, this is in
@ gigantic advance.

as under Socialism, production

ally moves toward abundance,

‘Socialist watchword is itself out-

and replaced by the watchword

munism “from each according

bility, to each according to his

_ Men and women give to society as

‘they can, and take now according to

their needs, as pictured so vividly in
William Morris’ “News from No-
where,” his vision of a Communist
Britain.

With automation, cybernation, ever
new sources of power, step by step
under Socialism and then Communism,
machines can take over the repetitious,
soul-destroying labor that is still the
lot of the ty who live in the
world of imperialism( and must con-
tinue, though ever-increasing, in the
early days of Socialism).

Men and women will be freed from
what is sometimes an almost animal
life, and with education extending, be-
come more and more free to exercise
their own particular skills and talents.

First, exploitation ended, the old rul-
ing classes will cease as classes to
exist. Then as the essential differences
of industry and agriculture dwindle
away and the age-old division between
manual and mental workers becomes
outdated, Socialism will pass into Com-
munism—completely classless society.

Is this a dream? One can almost see
the cynical almost clinical smile of the
professional sceptic whose vision is
blinkered by his narrow experience of
capitalist society.

“Communism is a vision, an escape,
a fantasy,.a never-never land.” You
can wait for that shortest and falsest
of phrases, excuse for so many evils,
alibi for so much inaction—‘“You can’t

change human nature!”

But, like all phenomena of nature,
society and thought, human beings,
too, are in pérpetual change.

Within each boy or girl, woman or
man, who is not mentally sick, there
is an almost inexhaustible capacity to
create, innovate, a fund of talent in-
finitely varied, but of incalculable
potential.

Capitalism, imperialism, narrow and
distort the lives of most of those who
live under their domination. The major-

Doing and
dreaming for
Communisin

ity do not even have the chance of
coming to recognize their own capa-
ay, let alone of giving expression to
t.

Socialism helps men and women to
release their capacities; Communism
means the far fuller development of
the all-round capacities of men.

It is true enough that under capital-
ism men and women do not, in general,
have a social outlook. By its very na-
ture and class structure, imperialism
divides, sets men against each other.
Socialism does not overnight bring
men to a fully social outlook.

It is true, too, that a Communist
society, where people freely take ac-
cording to their needs, where the old
machinery of State (police, army and
security) withers away, presumably
must have a new sort of man and wo-
man with a new outlook.

But it is precisely in the bitter and
complex struggle of banding them-
selves together against imperialism,
developing their unions and national
liberation organizations, their Socialist
and ‘Communist Parties, organizing the
revolutionary change of society, build-
ing Socialism with all the problems in-
volved, that men and women—chang-
ing nature and society — change their
own nature, and fit themselves for
Communism.

From the depth of the scarcities, op-
pression, commercialized culture and
organized immorality of capitalism, it
is hard to envisage the new world and
the new outlooks of Communist men
and women. 5

It is hard, for instance, to explain
that it is possible to pass from a soci-
ety where work is well-described as a
four-letter word, to a Communist
society where as Marx and Engels said,
and William Morris saw so well, work
becomes a pleasure and not a burden,
and life’s prime want.

Is it so hard to imagine that first
under Socialism, but still more under
Communism, with the dull, mono-
tonous work done by machines, and
with all social work for the benefit of
all, and with no danger of unemploy-
ment, the frontier between the work
performed for society and the work
performed for self, will more and more
fall down, and work will become a
pleasure and a need?

Art and culture, now under capital-
ism so often seen as separate from
(often a relief or escape from) daily
life and daily work, will under Com-
munism, as Morris always felt, become
more and more an integral part of
life or work. A factory, said Morris,
could be beaytiful.

Socialism ‘ill not at once overcome
all racial prejudice or narrow national-
ism, but it will provide a framework
within which they can be conquered.

With exploitation ended, the deep
economic inequalities between differ-
ent countries step by step overcome,
gradually, very gradually, and not
without setbacks, the hatred between
race and race, nation and nation, bred
in class society, will eventually be left
behind.

In a Communist world, one day,
frontiers will: be seen as quaint mark-
ings of topographical interest, the
world will move toward a single unit,

with a single economic plan — not a
grey standardised “1984” American-
type nightmare of a soulless world, but
a peacefully contending, endless vari-
ety of forms of work and art’ and
culture. i

and talents are no longer turned in-
wards against each other, but against
unending nature, and for the benefit
of man.

Would such a world stagnate? I
cannot share the anguish of some
superior people who flinch at the
thought of a four-hour day, shudder at
the end of war, see in the end of suffer-
ing the end of art.

On the contrary, in a sense, with @

ane
ite
ihe
ihe

BE
3
“
i
iH

the present, to make the future. The
daily struggles of a revolutionary on
wages or hours, education or health, or
peace, or freedom are steps toward the
revolutionary change in society which
lays a basis for building Socialism and
passing to Communism. The vision of
Communism strengthens the daily
struggle. | “
d the vision in its turn is not ah
airy Utopia, a frail fantasy, an escape
from the “now” into the “then.” ;

For the Communist world of brother-
hood depends on revolutionary change
in society, on the patient, difficult
building of Socialism, on the radical,
revolutionary change that itself will
never come without clarity, education,
organization, daily struggles, mass
movements, organized Socialists ‘and
Communists, a Communist Party.

Doing and dreaming have to be com-
bined!

I seem to remember, years ago, a
letter to the Daily Worker, predeces-
sor of the Morning Star, from a cor-
respondent, very indignant. “You
Marxists,” he wrote, “are imposstble.
You boast that you can see the shape
of the future. And then you work day
and night to make it all come true.
This is cheating!”

In fact, it is the very essence of
Marxism — “Men make their own
history.”

(Reprinted from the Morning Star)

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 18, 1969—Page 5