Part II
4. Propaganda
The communist laid especial emphasis upon education and propaganda. It goes without saying that all mass media of communications would be owned and directed by government. In order to ensure reliability and exercise effective control over the personnel, the Second World Congress passed a resolution in 1920 that “the party press must be edited by reliable communists who have proved their loyalty to the cause of the proletarian revolution.” (8) Institutions which desire to join the Commintern should, according to the resolution, remove the reformists from the responsible positions. It is interesting to note that based on dogmatic analysis, the Marxists were convinced that thanks to the recurrent crises with which the bourgeoisie were confronted, they had to appeal to the proletariat for help. The bourgeoisie would be compelled to supply, in order to survive, political and general education to the proletariat against aristocracy and aid their internecine strife at national and international levels. In doing so, the proletariat force was reinforced by fresh elements of enlightenment and progress. (9) Judging from the contextual situations of the proletarian revolution, the communist propaganda focused on the appeal to the sympathy and support of the working class. It follows that the party press should systematically record and interpret the facts of everyday life in terms of the necessity for proletarian revolution, sufficiently comprehensible to the workers, soldiers and peasants. (10) Whenever the individual adherents of the Commintern could infiltrate, they would denounce not only the capitalists, but also their allies and reformists of every shade and color.
The Marxists were convinced that the mass transformation of human nature could only be realized through the destruction of the bourgeois monopoly of educational institutions and the mastering of all sciences. In the course of revolutionary movement, the proletariat automatically transformed themselves, and acquired practical experience in education. With the seizure of power, the proletariat would take over all educational institutions from elementary schools to universities, with which the working class were to receive expert knowledge in technology, science and military affairs. The cultural revolution was the precursor of the elimination of social strata, since social construction and cultural movement automatically drew fresh elements from various classes to the revolutionary process, from which the mass might free themselves from the parochial craft ideologies and anti-proletarism. Reinforcing this movement, the Marxists fomented systematic hostility to religion, which was stigmatized as “opium of the people”, and the instrumentality of the ruling class. In the word of Engels, religion was “fantastic reflection” in the mind of men of “external force which dominated every day existence." (11) Lenin strengthened the Marx position by saying that religion was the "organs of bourgeois reaction” to camouflage exploitation and the “drugging of the working class.” (12) As communism finds its existence in absolute values, naturally it will not tolerate concomitantly any rival ethical value. However, the political behavior of the Marxists toward religion is not inflexible. In the course of World War II when the collaboration of the masses was demanded, the Soviet elite softened antagonism to religion for the purpose of stirring up patriotism and popular strength. The ephemeral tolerance of religion simply reflects the employment of the customary Marxist tactics to select the expediency most suitable to their needs. In determining the line of tactics when occasion calls for decision, the Marxists usually take into account the contextual situations internally and externally, which include not only the inter-relationships of class forces, the strength of the bourgeoisie and its stability, but also the degree of preparedness of the proletariat and the attitude of the intermediary social strata. As demonstrated by the Commintern program, the correct political behavior should vary with the variations of the concrete context of the situation in which it occurs. This was strictly observed by the Marxists and practised in the change of lines from left to right in every turn of crisis. (13) The case of religion is merely the quintessence of Marxists’ tactics, coincident with their basic predilection for dialectical flexibility vis-a-vis metaphysical rigidity.
5. Respect-value
The value of social respect in terms of discrimination based on race and color was also listed as target for propaganda. As demonstrated by the Commintern program, it would foment movements against imperialist violence in the colonies, semi-colonies and dependencies. It would also carry on propaganda against all forms of chauvinism, and the maltreatment of negros, yellow-labor and anti-semitism. Bukharin pointed out with respect to anti-semitism, “the Russian bourgeoisie raised the junt against the Jews not only in the hope of diverting the anger of the exploited workers, but also in the hope of freeing themselves from competitors in commerce and industry.” (14) In the Marxists’ view, anti-semitism is the amorphous resistance against socialism. Judging from their policy, it is unmistakably clear that the Marxists avail themselves of all racial and national issues to accelerate the disintegration of the bourgeois society. However, it is perplexing to follow the Russian practice in relation to Georgia, which was overrun by the Soviet Government for economic and military reasons. (15) In this perspective, it is not difficult to imagine the discrepancy between the communist theory and practice.
6. Conclusion
The foregoing discussion discloses that Marxism is primarily a myth and method designed to introduce a free society, in which, the proletariat aspire to maximize their values. Marxism is founded on the assumption that all political phenomena emanate from economic and material causes, and imperialism is the necessary product of the capitalist monopoly of the means of production. Hence the Marxists forged capitalism and imperialism, symbolizing the exploitation of the working class and the colonial countries. In substance, imperialism has been in the contemporary era in a state of decline, while capitalism may change its outlook with the techno-scientific development. It is possible to decentralize the units of production, and large aggregate of capital may not in all cases be the essential prerequisite. Moon pointed out in his Imperialism and World Politics that Causes of imperialism are “surplus manufactures” and particularly, “surplus capital”. Modeled after Hobsonian analysis, he suggested the remedy of more wages, more spending, less profit and less investment. It is also possible for the capitalist countries to pursue intensive as well as peaceful extensive expansion. With the shrinkage of global surface, the regions throughout the world have formed a chain of juxtaposition of international frontiers. Capitalism is confronted with strong opposition and xenophobia in colonial and precapitalist countries due to the rising national consciousness and revolutionary movement. Unlimited horizontal expansion may there fore pave the way for communist penetration into exploited areas and alienate the capitalist countries from the populous precapitalist states. While plenty rooms still exist for vertical expansion, the industrialized states may export technical skill and peaceful capital for the promotion of values in precapitalist regions, thereby raising the universal purchasing power of the peoples. Conceivably, President Truman’s Point Four Program envisaged a long-range plan to dissociate the nexus between capitalism and imperialism.
As indicated previously, the Marxists visualized a world power process, to which the individual proletariat can have access; in substance, their attention is focused on the dictatorship by one class. (16) The agrarian proletariat, the technical intelligentsia and other social classes played the auxiliary role under the leadership of the working class in the envisioned revolutionary movement. In relegating the agrarian proletariat to an inferior position, the Marxists paradoxically admitted that without its support the accomplishment of revolution was improbable. In the Fifth World Congress of the Commintern, it made the following resolution, “the proletariat can neither conquer power, nor build the Soviet regime, unless it has over a long period, sought to neutralize certain elements of the peasant class, and win the sympathy of others.” In doing so, the Marxists are in a difficult position to rationalize the significance of a social class and the denial of its proper share of leadership. Presumably the Marxists’ strategy lies in placing full confidence in a single class in order to stir up its fanatic enthusiasm, and to organize loyal cadres. With enormous power in the possession of the working class, and with a view to consolidating their power position, they will naturally apply drastic measures to the control of the vast mass. As the Marxists put it, “the dictatorship of the proletariat is a hard-fought fight against the forms and traditions of the old society, a fight that is both bloody and unbloody, both violent and passive, both military and economic, both educational and administrative.” (17) The dictatorship of working class would inevitably tend to dictate the interests of others, and the immediate consequence of a revolution merely exchange despotism for tyranny. The control of power by the working class appears to be necessary for a long period during which the proletariat hold power in order to “overcome class-division”. It is naturally uncertain when the class division can be eliminated, the contextual meaning is subject to distortion.
Insofar as the present state of industrial development is concerned, only a handful of the states are industrialized. In precapitalist society, it is anachronistic to over-emphasize the work-people, who merely constitute a modicum of the total population. Due to the high percentage of illiteracy, inexperience in administrative affairs, and the traditional apathy to politics, the monopoly by the industrial workers of economic, social and political means would inevitably result in anarchy. It may well be pointed out that the Marxist’s rationale that in consequence of the dispersion in space, the agrarian proletariat found it difficult to arrive at agreement and were indisposed to independent movement, seems to be a more dogmatic than scientific analysis. It is not the kind of work that moulds the peasants into indisposition and recalcitrance; geographical dispersion has usually little to do with their behavior.
Within two generations Marxism has been degenerating from a theory of history designed to promote social values to a technique for power. This was amply demonstrated when the Soviet Union came into power. (18) In access to voting, the voters receive a ballot listing the candidates designated by the public authority. (19) Private wealth is subject to socialization, and the means of production, factory, workshop and land are all converted to public property. (20) In the field of enlightenment, educational institutions become intermediaries to spread Marxism; rival ethical values are banned in society. Under the palliatives of national welfare and ambiguous public policy, the sharing of free press and free movement is reduced to a minimum. (21) The communist agitators not only desire to foment class antagonism, but also to manipulate the issues of race, nationalism, and minority groups for the purpose of strengthening the struggle against imperialist interests. In colonial states the proletariat will wage fight against exploitation through peasant revolution, and in backward countries, against capitalist oppression for national independence. Accordingly, agitation spreads to every corner of the globe.
(8) Harold Laski op. cit. supra
(9) U. S. Congress op. cit supra
(10) Second World Congress, Third International, 1920
(11) U. S. Congress, op. cit
(12) Ibid
(13) Harold Lasswell, Leits and Associates, Language Politics, p. 324
(14) Ibid|
(15) U. S. Congress, op. cit.
(16) cf. The Commintern declared, “the dictatorship of the proletariat implies that the industrial workers alone are capable of leading the entire mass of the toilers.”
(17) Lenin Works, vol. xvii (Russian Ed.), p. 136, Stalin, Leninism, p. 112 quoted by U. S. Congress, op. cit. supra
(18) Taracouzio, War and Peace in Soviet Diplomacy, p. 287
(19) New York Times, March 12, 13, 1950, relating to the Soviet general election. The citizens elected 67 Union Deputies and 631 Nationalities Deputies to the bicameral Soviet Union Legislature. In each district, the candidates have been chosen by “the Stalinist bloc of communists and non-party people.” The Times predicted that more than 100,000,000 Soviet citizens would go to the polls.” In the 1946 election, Pravda recorded 99.7 qualified Voters who cast their votes.
(20) Under the Soviet Constitution of 1936, the major instruments of production belong to the state, the subsidiary instruments can be the property of collective farms, and individual farmers may own a house, allotment, agricultural instruments, cows up to three and unlimited number of pigs and poultry. All earning of wages are the private property of the citizens, and under the protection of the state.
(21) James Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 99