Spark
The Only Way Forward
January 5th 1876
Marxist-Leninist Economics
The two decades of socialist planning in our People’s Republic have produced truly remarkable advances in terms of productivity. The old Workshop of the World pays homage to our Republic’s dignitaries, backed as they are not only by the socialist spirit but also by the free labor of our people. The levee Armies of Kings and Emperors, as we have seen, quail before the might of a popular army backed by modern arms production. However, we have been able to ascend so far in the eyes of the bourgeoisies of the world because they recognize in us the fulfillment of their ideals. The production of ever more means of production, the organization of the productive machine into a military machine, these are the economic and political aims of the bourgeoisie, hampered though they are by their own exploitative productive relations. Mighty as our society has become, it has grown on bourgeoisie terrain. The aim of the Marxist-Leninist faction in its economic policy is to establish a fundamentally new paradigm for the Republic, a really socialist mode of production.
This is not to disparage the work of our faction’s historical forbears. In our thought we continue to draw much from Marx, and from Engels. And the work they have done, accumulating capital in the Republic, was perhaps necessary. The old half-feudal states of Germany, kept in subjugation by nearly totally-feudal Prussia and liberated only recently, could not be the industrial and social center needed by a socialist republic. But the period has changed. What is needed now in Germany is not the eternal expansion of production—expansion which, as Marx himself pointed out, can only lead to just the sort of crisis of overproduction we see brewing today.
What is needed is the subordination of production to the needs of social revolution, within and outside the current borders of the Republic. Make no mistake: our faction is for the continued expansion of production, but not expansion for its own sake. No, we favor expansion of production because such expansion, if carried out in the ways Comrade Lenin has identified, will help bolster the international revolution and the birth of a truly socialist society in the Republic. We favor diversification of the economy in all regions of the country, not only to protect from slipping into the capitalist business cycle, but also to encourage eclectic work experiences. We want, to paraphrase Marx, our worker comrades to be able to fish in the morning and sole shoes in the afternoon. We also want worker comrades who are conscious of their central role in building the socialist society, by becoming conscious actors in politics. Therefore, we not only want eclectic work experiences in the working day, but also a shorter working day so that worker comrades may be free to organize political discussions and prepare for them with full minds. A shorter working day will also decrease the number of workers unable to engage in productive labor.
The shorter working day must also be accompanied by increases in the standard of living: we are not capitalists who say workers can spend their free time how they wish when in reality they are free only to starve. This is yet another reason to favor economic diversification. By making a wide variety of consumer goods available to the people, we free them from a hand to mouth existence. By allowing them to organize for their own consciousness-raising, we encourage the deepening of real revolutionary consciousness, consciousness that can spread over the border into capitalist states. Our class-conscious brothers abroad will then be more likely to call for our aid or rise up on their own. Finally, where even a shorter working day and a larger production of cheaper consumer goods will not suffice, our faction will expand state aid to our brothers to accomplish the same aim.
A vote for the Marxist-Leninists is a vote for less work that is also freer and happier, that provides great material benefit and opportunities for ideological development. With our faction heading up the Republic, a life, a real, human life, shared in solidarity with all citizens of the Republic, will be guaranteed for all. Vote Marxist-Leninist.
- Comrade Zimmerwald