I’m going to try to keep this short, sweet, and simple. This is what I believe, what I hope of society.

The thing with this document is that anyone reading it is likely not familiar with everything I am. I would be more than happy to clarify and discuss challenges. You may even expose some shortcomings.

Communism

Communism is, by its simplest and most reduced definition, a society in which there exists only one class.

In the prehistorical era, this class was the hunter-gatherer class. To my knowledge, there was no class difference between the hunter and the gatherer; all were equals in their labour contributions and the distribution of resources.

After the prehistorical era, we’ve had class societies. From early land-owners to slave societies and the Asiatic mode of production, to the feudal state, and then the capitalist state. Each of these came with their own class relations.

Between prehistorical communism and capitalism, the number of classes in society boomed and then waned, perhaps reaching its height during the medieval era. Under capitalism, the class divide is (nominally) clear: it is between those who own private property, and those who work upon it.

Marxian definitions of private property reserved. All of this is more generally Marxian thought, and those genuinely curious will ask me to elaborate rather than attack their first interpretation of what, for example, class means.

Karl Marx argued that after capitalism, there will exist a new form of communism, another society where again there exists only one class. I’m inclined to agree, and hope that such a class will be that of the modern majority. Any alternative warrants genocide and or mass death.

Of the two classes present in modern day society, it is clear: the working class must prevail. Through some means or another, the working class must become the only class.

Or otherwise, perhaps neither capitalist nor worker will prevail. Perhaps in the world of tomorrow every person will be a hunter-gatherer in the post-apocalyptic society.

And of course, the reserve possibility that class society explodes once more. Debatably, the middle-manager and their position in society as it relates to the corporate overlord may already resemble medieval class relations. The capitalist / worker dichotomy described my Marx may already be a thing of the past.

Regardless, a communist future consisting entirely of workers is not only conceivable, but believably possible and achievable in our lifetime.

Not communism

I’ve come to believe that bureaucracy is counter to the cause. A full working state machine may well define its own relations with the means of production. This is my outlook on the USSR and supposedly to the earlier CCP, although I am not well read on the latter.

Those who taught me Marxian economics and those that gave me my modern philosophies may have described the USSR after the death of Lenin and up to its dissolution as a “degenerated workers state”. It seems fairly evident that when bureaucrats take control of the means of the production by placing it into the ownership of a state, those bureaucrats have fundamentally changed their relationship to the means of production. They become no longer workers and civil servants, but the new ruling class. This happens regardless of whether they control the means of production in the name of the workers they formerly were.

Although I had been told some things by the cadres of the organisation I was part of, I did not fully understand them. By reading a document they considered foundational, [[Lenin’s ‘The State and Revolution’]], I found only that their demagogue’s unfinished thoughts lent to such a bureaucratic state. Assurances that the USSR’s turn to the bad was a combination of the preceding feudal state of Russia and a lack of a global revolution fell short. Perhaps it was these points, and also the insistence of Lenin on consolidating the means of production into the worker-run state.

Vania’s struggles with Councilism tackle the political point where perhaps the Mensheviks should have won. I must admit - I have not remembered much of what the Mensheviks stood for nor what they would have done had the Bolsheviks not taken power.

The Real Soviet

The slogan “All power to the soviets” falls short when the actions are placing all private property in the control of the state. Power is ultimately determined by the control over the means of production. The state is not the soviets. It may act in the name of the soviets, it may initially be constructed of, by, and for the workers of the soviets.

I prefer to use the English terms nowadays. They remove my language from that of dogmatic communism and towards my own practical dogma. A soviet is a workers council, a phenomenon that died in the 20th century alongside many labour laws, but I urge we bring back.

A workers council is nothing more than the workers of a particular workplace getting together to discuss matters of work and organisation. In the old workers council, this could be in opposition of the capitalist they served, or perhaps it was just for a post-work debriefing and to have some beers.

Regardless, I believe this organisational tool to be the most potent. In far left circles, it is often believed that the workers are the best to concern about the matters of how they work. Managerial positions are naturally disconnected from the work itself. Although managers may formerly be career workers in the position they managed, they easily become detached from it once promoted. Managers hired for knowledge of a workplace given to them by education may be competent but still detached from the workplace itself.

I am not well educated in exactly how worker cooperatives are run, but an organisation where workplaces are organised by those who do the work itself are attractive as horizontal structures without hierarchy. Workplaces with reformed worker councils may well be worker cooperatives, or otherwise incredibly similar.

Democratic Socialism

Marxian outlooks describe the state as the class mediator. Without a doubt, the modern state is under the heavy influence of the ruling class. Nothing happens without someone doing it, and those with money happen to be able to give that money to people in exchange for them doing things. One of these things is producing news and media. By controlling this, the working masses are easily swayed to act against their own class interests.

It is the flaw in our modern democratic systems. The foundational idea is that everyone who can vote will vote for their own interests. This has not been true for perhaps as long as universal suffrage has existed.

The clarification here is that people may be voting for their own interests, but the things they are interested in are informed by a media owned and servicing the ruling capitalist class. The ruling classes would rather the working class be interested in bigotry and racism. They serve as ever effective distractions from real economic issues.

I am not opposed to fighting for real economic issues within the system of capitalism. Democratic socialism, that is in its modern sense of a generic economic left, is an achievable and believable goal. Such solutions hope to improve the economic position of the working class while working within the modern capitalist system and it’s state organisations.

As many leftists have pointed out, democratic socialism however imaginable does not tackle the underlying issue of capital and how it is distributed. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.

That is why my approach to a solution within a modern state or economic system always struggles to contain its radicalism. To achieve anything meaningful long-term, we must tackle the organisation of wealth rather than its symptoms or the mediator that has evidently failed under the pressure of the influence that the organisation of wealth affords.

Democratic Centralism

The political organisation I was part of organised itself on the grounds of democratic centralism. It was a very commendable organisational system, although it had its flaws. At its core, it was barely a hierarchical system. The leader of our branch maintained his leadership position through charisma and political education.

This did create an implicit hierarchy, one where every member looked up to the charismatic leader that only the equally confident dare challenge.

Their organisational system, democratic centralism and its system of delegations, is inspirational and a much more real democratic system than those imposed by modern states. It’s flaw is its centralism, the insistence that we all follow the directive at the top regardless of our own political beliefs. Perhaps if I was more involved, I would have come to voice my concerns to my local charisma leader, who may have taken my concerns to a central council.

Worker Organisation

My ideal society would rely on no government and especially no state. Policing can be done on a local level, especially once living standards are amicable for all members of society.

Actual economic organisation is a real concern. My current favourite idea is that of worker organisation, or what I consider to be truly giving power to the worker councils.

Once worker councils are formed, they may among themselves form a number of regional councils to concern themselves with planning at a larger scale. Perhaps a certain workplace or set of workplaces requires a new piece of infrastructure, at which point forming a council to act on such a need becomes imperative.

Regular regional councils will no doubt emerge in some form another, and regional councils may themselves need to co-operate nationally. And national councils, furthermore, to form a global cooperation.

The members of these councils are not career politicians or charismatic leaders but instead a delegate of the worker council. No doubt they will be the most motivated and charismatic of the group, but I feel that workplaces are more competitive places than political organisations. There is no individual leader position, merely the person who the council decides should go to the bigger council to get things done.

In our digital age, cooperation between workplaces is streamlined. Regional and national councils may find their role in centrally planning global exchange and trade. The trap is the full time job, these councils must always constitute of workers who must, once the council is adjourned, return to their workplace.

It is worth mentioning that the modern 9-5 could never give workers such time to consider politics and organisational matters. I hope it otherwise goes without mentioning that this system would have significantly reduced working hours alongside a reduced working week. For the better wellbeing of the workers, and so that they have apt time to engage in delegation and democracy.

Utopian

Utopian as a term is best used in the sense where it refers to communists who actually dream of a utopian communist society rather than a practical one. My usage of the term only takes inspiration from this, instead being used as a general topic of discussion. The topic being how communist ideals are difficult to realise.

The easiest communist ideals to realise are those that may not ultimately lead to communism. Bolshevism (Leninist and or Trotskyist), for example, relies on the notion of the state withering away once it has taken the means of production through some method I am not aware of.

My communist ideal is utopian in this sense. It relies on the modern working class first forming the working council, for the capitalists to already be gone, and for workers to understand in and engage with the democratic planning process. Getting from our society to this society relies on efforts unimaginable.

A State that Withers Away

To resolve the utopianism of my own communist ideal, I once had this idea of how a cadre organisation could form a revolutionary government that is actually posed to systematically wither away. Rather than just promising it, it is a genuine inevitability of what the organisation does.

The design is a cadre organisation (perhaps organised like the one I formerly associated with) to take control of the government in its modern form, as a state mediator. This cadre organisation must not be exactly democratically centralised. All it must do is enforce this specific plan.

A genuine “all power to the soviets”. A cadre organisation in control of the state must use it for its intended purpose: as a class mediator between the working class and the capitalist class and nothing more. It is to use its machinery to seize the means of production and put it directly in the hands of the workers - and not a bureaucratic machinery. It is to use its power and influence to educate the worker in the means of the worker council and decentralised planning through the regional, national, and global councils, or otherwise how to organise the trade necessary for society.

Another important aspect of such a state is to discard organised police. To keep a centralised, national police force is to risk only moving the monopoly over violence from a state most influenced by capital to one most influenced by a political group of cadres. I propose that a cadre-controlled state instead organise the masses in revolt against the capitalist. Revolution need not be violent, such a state could simply educate workers on how to take control of the means of production they already work at, and perhaps provide them the means to defend themselves against the resistance of the capitalist. This resistance should be weak, if all goes smoothly.

This state, one which explicitly exists to empower workers and not itself, runs out of things to do as it ensures the transfer of the ownership over means of production from the capitalist to the worker. This state should be focussed so intently on nothing but its role as a class mediator. Once its work ensuring the elimination of one class is complete, it will have nothing more to do, and will be done.

The roles of civil servants and other forms of government remain, but they are made working class and not bureaucratic. There may exist workplaces dedicated to connecting other workplaces, to facilitate trade. The danger is to ensure that such workplaces hold no real power, which should be done by the throwaway of the police and any monopoly over violence.

Policing is to be done by the community as a whole, and never a privileged group of police.

What is there to do

I must admit I am not entirely convinced by my own ideas of a state that truly withers away. It relies on a cadre organisation that is willing to decide and organise on these ideas, and is willing to throw its own role away once the state’s purpose is filled.

Perhaps I will discuss these ideas with the revolutionary communist party of the UK. Perhaps I will engage with a surprisingly receptive audience, or I will expose a reverence of Lenin, or I will be challenged further on my ideas and revise them once more.

I am a selfish actor. I am privileged enough to have the option to abandon the working class and live my life as a highly paid worker under capitalism, spending the time I have in my life fulfilling myself on creating the fiction of Xeiat.

I am also a minority, and the ever present dread of what the capitalists will turn this world into has already prompted me to act. I cannot sit idly by as neo-fascists take the world and establish the 21st century’s concentration camps which I am ripe to join alongside people so unfortunate to be born under governments more hostile than my own.

I have these ideals, that of communism, non-communism, the real soviet, worker organisation, etc. I will struggle to contain them when discussing politics. But when presented with real threats, I will follow whatever organisation of peoples seems to be the most promising for real change, perhaps while promoting the radical elements required for something more permanent.

The UK green party is adorable. Its members and politicians are working class, a stark contrast to the consistent assortment of landlords, business owners, and shareholders that constitute the other UK political parties. A victory for the greens brings the state closer to the hands of the workers. While I believe it not to be a permanent solution given the underlying organisation of wealth that makes Reform UK so prolific in the first place, it is certainly a society I can live in.