The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional
property-relations; no wonder that its development involves the most radical
rupture with traditional ideas.
But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class, is
to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy, to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the
State,6 i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total
productive forces as rapidly as possible
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic
inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by
means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and
untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves,
necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a
means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will of course be different in different countries.7
Nevertheless in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally
applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public
purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national
bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of
the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State: the
bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally
in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition
of all the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of
the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s
factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial
production, &c., &c.
Some BLM leaders are demanding taking priority from white owners and giving to blacks. Just as they did in South Africa and Rhodesia.