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the first volume of Capital. Marx was then the only man in the world who had made
such an exhaustive study of the conditions of the working class and had so
profoundly grasped the whole mechanism of capitalist society. In the whole of
England there was not another man who took the infinite pains of making such a
thorough study of all the reports of the English factory inspectors and the researches
of the parliamentary commissions which had been investigating conditions in
various branches of industry and different categories of the city and the country
proletariat. The information which Marx possessed on this subject was
comprehensive and incomparably wider than that possessed by the workingmen-
members of the committee. He knew conditions in each trade and their relation to
the general laws of capitalist production.
The gifts of a great propagandist are shown in the very structure of the
Address. Just as in the Communist Manifesto, Marx began with the class struggle as
the fundamental basis of all historic development and of all political movements, so
did he in the new Manifesto begin not with general phrases, nor with high-flown
subjects, but with facts which characterised the conditions of the working class.
"It is an extremely momentous fact that the misery of the
working class in the years 1848-1864 has not lessened, in spite
of the unexampled development of industry and growth of trade
during this period."
And Marx referring to Gladstone's speech in the House of Commons pointed
out that despite the three-fold increase of the trade of Great Britain since 1843,
human life in nine cases out of ten was nothing but a hard struggle for a mere
existence. In fact, criminals in prison were getting better nourishment than many
workers.
Constantly referring to the investigations of the parliamentary commissions,
Marx drew a picture of undernourishment, degeneration, and disease among the
masses of the working class. At the same time he called attention to the fabulous
growth of the wealth of the propertied classes.
Marx thus arrived at the inevitable conclusion that, notwithstanding the
assertions of the bourgeois economists, neither the perfecting of the machine, nor the
application of science to industry, nor the opening of new means of communication,
the discovery of new colonies, emigration, the creation of new markets, nor free trade
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were likely to eliminate the misery of the working class. He therefore concluded
further, as in the Communist Manifesto, that while the social order rested on the old
foundation, any new development of the productive powers of labour would only
widen and deepen the chasm which divided the classes and would bring to the fore
even more strikingly the already existing antagonism.
Having pointed out the causes which had contributed to the defects of the
working class in 1848, the defeat which had brought in its train the apathy that had
characterised the decade from 1849 to 1859, Marx also directed attention to a few
conquests made by the workers during that period.
First, the ten-hour day law. He proved that, despite all the assertions of the
hangers-on of capitalism, the shortening of the workday enhanced, rather than
impaired, the productivity of labour. Moreover, Marx pointed out the triumph of the
principle of government interference in economic relations over the old ideas. He
further concluded, as he had in the Communist Manifesto,that production must be
subjected to the control and the direction of society as a whole, and that such social
production lay at the very basis of the political economy of the working class. The law
pertaining to the ten-hour day was not merely a practical victory, it indicated the
victory of proletarian political economy over the political economy of the bourgeoisie.
Another achievement was the co-operative factories which were being built on
the initiative of the workers themselves. But, unlike Lassalle for whom co-operative
associations were the starting point of the transformation of society into a state of
socialism, Marx did not exaggerate their practical importance. On the contrary, he
used these co-operatives to illustrate to the working masses that large scale and
scientific production could proceed and develop without a class of capitalists to
exploit the toilers; that wage labour, like slavery, was not anything eternal, but that,
in point of fact, it was a transitional and lower form of work which ultimately was to
give place to a system of social production. Having made all the communist
deductions, Marx pointed out that while these co-operative associations comprised
only a small number of workers, they could not better the conditions of the working
class in any way.
The network of co-operative production would have to spread all over the
land before capitalist production could be superseded by communist production. But
having put the problem thus wise, Marx hastened to note that such a transformation
would be impeded by the desperate opposition of the ruling classes. The landowners
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and the capitalists would use their political power to defend their economic
privileges. Hence, the first duty of the working class was the conquest of political
power, and, to accomplish this, the workers must create political labour parties in all
the countries of the world. There is only one factor of success that the workers have
at their command. This is mass, numbers. But this mass is strong only when it is
compact, united, and when it is guided by knowledge and science. Without
compactness, without solidarity, without mutual support in the struggle for
liberation, without a national and an international organisation the workers would be
doomed to failure. Guided by these considerations, added Marx, the workers of
various countries decided to form an International Workingmen's Association.
Thus did Marx with his amazing tact and skill again arrive at the basic
conclusions he had once reached in the more fiery Communist Manifesto: the
organisation of the proletariat along class lines, the overthrow of bourgeois
domination, the proletarian seizure of political power, the abolition of wage labour,
the passing of all the means of production into the hands of society.
Marx concluded the Inaugural Address with another quite important political
problem. The working class must not confine itself to the narrow sphere of national
politics. It must follow assiduously all the questions of external politics. If the success
of the whole cause depends upon the fraternal solidarity of the workers of the world,
then the working class would not fulfill its mission, were it to allow the ruling classes
who are in charge of international diplomacy to utilise national prejudices, to set the
workers of one country against the workers of other countries to shed the blood and
destroy the wealth of the people. The workers must therefore master all the mysteries
of international politics. They must watch the diplomatic acts of their governments;
they must resist, if need be with all the power at their disposal; they must join in one
sweeping protest against the criminal machinations of their governments. It is time
to bring to an end a state of affairs which, while punishing crimes when perpetrated
by individuals, permits stealing, robbing and deceit in international relations.
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