Plechanoff, Engels and Kautsky (1921)

Quotes from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “The Bourgeoise destroyed the feudal conditions of property; the proletariat will put an end to the bourgeois conditions of property. Between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a struggle, an implacable war, a war to the knife, is as inevitable as was in its way, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged estates. But every class war is a political war. In order to do away with feudal society the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. In order to do away with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. Its political task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events themselves, and not by any abstract consideration.” 

G. Plechanoff.

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   “The entire development of human society from the position of savagery began from the day when the labour of a family resulted in the production of more than was necessary for its support, from the day when a part of the labour was no longer expended on mere means of living but was transformed into means of production. A surplus of labour product over and above the cost of the maintenance of labour, and the creation and increase of a social production and reserve fund out of this surplus was, and is, the foundation of all social, political and intellectual development. In history, up to the present time, this fund has been the property of a certain superior class which has, with its possession, also the political mastery and spiritual supremacy. The approaching social revolution will make this social production and reserve fund—that is, the entire mass of raw material, instruments of production, and means of life— for the first time really social property, in that it will put an end to its monopolisation by the superior class and make it the common possession of the entire society.”

Engels.

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   “But however necessary were the capitalist system and the conditions which produced it, they are no longer so. The functions of the capitalist class devolve ever more upon paid employees. The large majority of the capitalists have now nothing to do but consume what others produce. The capitalist to-day is as superfluous a human being as the feudal lord had become a hundred years ago.”

K. Kautsky.