GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THEORY OP COMMUNISM 683
revolution establishes in the first instance, a society which
is itself founded on a class basis, the society which it
ultimately envisages will
classes. Thus communists
be based on the abolition of
hold that the battle they are
fighting, though outwardly waged on behalf of a dispossessed
class, is really the battle of the whole of mankind;
and it is this conviction, held with the intensity born of
an ideal disinterestedly pursued, which generates the self-
sacrifice and self-devotion with which a superficially arid
and doctrinaire doctrine is embraced.
But though the emancipation of humanity and the
abolition of classes is the communist's ultimate aim, it is
one which cannot, in his view, be realized for many years.
The revolution of the proletariat may pave the way to
such a Utopia, but it does not miraculously bring it into
being. We are thus led to the conception of*two distinct
stages of revolutionary progress, a conception anticipated
by Marx and adopted by modern communists; (i) a
transitional, revolutionary stage based on the domination
of the State by the working class; (a) -a communist,
classless stage, in which the State as a repository of authority
has vanished. It will be convenient to consider each of
these two stages separately.
(i) The Revolutionary Stage. Communist Theory ofthe
State* Communists hold that no fundamental change
can be made in the structure of society without important
modifications in the State. The experience of the past, and
especially of the Paris Commune of 1871, has taught them
that the working classes cannot simply takeover the machinery
of the existing capitalist State and use it for their own
purposes. The existing State ma hii*r fa y they maintain,
essentially unsuited for revolutionary purposes; its officials
are unreliable, its procedure ineffective, and its nature
incapable of being changed by a mere change of masters.
The conquest of political power by a workers 4
party is,
accordingly, of little value, so long as the capitalist remains
in possession of the instruments of production. The