Class Struggle or Party Moral

The fact that there is no absolute “pure” morality, that morality is always a class morality, that it depends on the person who applies it and the person to whom it is applied, that it depends on the given social conditions and balance of power, is a realization that historical materialism has taught us. Morality in capitalist states is that which is in the interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie, and serves to cloak the exploitation and enslavement of the proletariat in a “moral” cloak. Bourgeois morality - in accordance with the economic basis of capitalist production, private property - has as its main purpose the defense of the “rights” of the owners of private property, the exploiters. In accordance with the anarchic form of capitalist production, it is based on the individual. In times of intensified class struggle, the class character of bourgeois morality and bourgeois law is more evident than in times of calm development.

The proletariat must free itself from the illusion that the prevailing bourgeois morality is its general, true, “correct” morality. It must recognize the class character of bourgeois morality and, in the struggle with its opponent, develop a proletarian morality and confront it with the morality of its opponent. Proletarian morality can only be oriented towards one basic idea: What serves to drive the proletarian revolution forward? What is in the interests of the proletarian class? Proletarian morality cannot be based on the individual, but on the class, on the proletarian class.

Marx and Engels had already recognized this basic idea when they wrote the Communist Manifesto. However, the workers themselves were still too much under the spell of bourgeois ideology and still dreamed of a “general, true” morality. The words of the inaugural address, which Marx wrote 17 years after the Communist Manifesto on behalf of the International Workingmen's Association (the First International): “The International Workingmen's Association and all societies and individuals belonging to it recognize truth, right and morality as the basis of their conduct towards one another and towards all their fellow men (thus also towards the class opponent) without regard to color, creed or nationality,” reveal the concession Marx had to make to the ideology of the proletarians at the time, and have caused enough damage in the workers' movement. Thus, when the chairman of the Austrian Social Democratic Party leadership, Kahler-Reinthal, was arrested in 1887, he handed over all documents to the police and also gave them the names of all participants of the previously illegally held party conference in Mürzzuschlag, since, according to the inaugural address, he “had to tell the truth.” It took a long time for the workers' movement to throw off the shackles of bourgeois morality and for a proletarian morality to develop.

Proletarian morality is also a class morality. A classless morality is only possible after the abolition of classes in general. As long as there is a proletarian class, proletarian morality will be and must be a class morality. In the struggle with its class opponent, the proletariat must not allow itself to be clouded by phrases such as truth, justice, equality, brotherhood, love of humanity, etc., but must wage this struggle by all means, if necessary, even by violence, lies and terror. But, mind you, only in its struggle with the class opponent, i.e. the one who confronts it as an opponent on the basis of its economic situation and social function, but also the one from its own ranks who confronts it as an opponent despite its economic situation and social function. Within the fighting proletariat's own ranks, however, a struggle must not be waged by these means. The main principle within the proletariat must be: solidarity. Not working towards the domination of the individual over the masses, but towards the community. But also not suppression of individuality, but the highest possible enhancement and elaboration of individuality for the community. This is the core of the difference between bourgeois and proletarian morality. Bourgeois morality defends the rights of the individual to rule over the masses; proletarian morality should and must defend the right of the community to individuality.

The boundary between the proletarian class and its class opponent, which determines the forms of struggle, which determines “morality”, is not simply the economic dividing line between exploiters and exploited. Rather, it depends on the attitude of the individual to the proletarian revolution, to the requirements of the proletarian class. It is not only the economic affiliation to the class that is decisive, but whether proletarian class thinking and class will are present or not. Accordingly, the dictatorship of the proletariat can never mean the dictatorship of the proletarian masses; nor, conversely, the dictatorship of a particular proletarian party; but always only a dictatorship of the class-conscious proletariat, of that part of the proletariat which fights for the requirements of the proletarian revolution.

Proletarian morality demands that every means be used in the struggle with the class opponent, but to fight within the proletarian class with open sights. Bourgeois morality fights with all means, but not only against the opponent, but also within its own ranks, in order to assert the rights of the individual to rule over the masses. Too little attention is paid to this fundamental difference. The undeveloped proletarian ideology, the proletariat's adherence to the old, traditional bourgeois and feudalist ideology (divine right) meant that these principles of the bourgeois world, the principle of divine right, the authority of the leader, the rule of the individual over the masses, also prevailed within the proletarian organizations. The proletarian organizations, which were supposed to be the gravediggers of capitalism, thus became components and pieces of this capitalism. Only very few class fighters saw and paid attention to this trend. The masses of members in the proletarian organizations were the springboard and the stepping stone for the development of individual leaders. The basic tendencies of bourgeois morality were applied within the proletarian organizations. The parliamentary proletarian organizations and trade unions, both those of the 2nd and 3rd Internationals, are still based on this principle - leader against masses. These basic tendencies continue to have an effect: Leader over party, party over class; in place of the class dictatorship, i.e. dictatorship of the class-conscious section of the proletariat, comes the party dictatorship, which is ultimately a dictatorship of a few party leaders, of a single central authority over the entire proletariat. Class morality is replaced by party morality. It is no longer the interests of the proletarian class that are decisive, but the interests of the party. And lies, deceit, violence, terror are not only means of struggle against the class enemy, but also against the proletarian fellow fighters, unless they swear allegiance to the same party flag. And if differences arise within the organizations themselves, or if a leader's authority is attacked, these means of struggle are used against one's own party comrades. This line can be traced continuously in the development of proletarian organizations. Even at the beginning of the workers' movement, the struggle between the individual tendencies was conducted in the shabbiest manner. In Peukert's memoirs, for example, one can read how Wilhelm Liebknecht, Bernstein, Most, etc., found no means too shabby, not even the suspicion of informers and police denunciations, not to try to discredit and neutralize uncomfortable opponents within their organizations in this way. Lenin, for example, is known to have publicly described a speaker at a meeting as an informer and police agent; later, when confronted, he had to admit that he had deliberately made an untrue accusation just “to save the meeting”. The treachery of the Social Democrats and trade unions during the war, how they sent inconvenient party members to the trenches or had them arrested, how they stifled strikes by all means, has only recently been brought back into the bright light of day by the Ebert trial in Magdeburg. Their treacherous and openly anti-class role from the November Revolution to the present day is still fresh in everyone's memory. They always had only one interest, their own party, and, confusing the party with their own person, to gain the greatest possible advantages for themselves at the expense of the proletariat. Party morality over class morality.

The history of the rule of the Bolsheviks in Russia also shows that an organization that exercises a party dictatorship must always display the basic lines of the old, bourgeois morality in its actions. The persecutions of the left in Russia, the violent suppression of all opposition within its own ranks, the treacherous actions of the Bolsheviks against the Makhnovizi, all this shows the swampy flowering of party morality in the brightest light. And the CP in Germany has often proved, when they denounced comrades of ours who spoke at their meetings as informers or threw them out of the meeting, or beat them up, that their threat to “put us up against the wall when they have the power” is to be taken quite seriously. Here too, party morality against and above class morality. All the old parliamentary organizations stand on this ground and are thus parts of the bourgeois state itself.

When the proletarian revolution took its first steps in the spring of 1919, it fundamentally broke with this bourgeois morality. It contrasted parliamentarism with the councils, against the parliamentary organizations and trade unions, the basis of the councils, the factory organizations of the proletariat, which embody the principle “from the bottom up”, have no place in their ranks for leadership authorities, signify the death of party rule and party morality and are the basis of class dictatorship and class morality. To propagate this idea, as the shock troops of the revolution, the most energetic pioneers have united to form the Communist Workers' Party. The KAP is not a party in the old sense, in which a few leaders fight for control over the party and over the proletariat. On the contrary, it is a strike force of the revolutionary proletariat against all the old proletarian-bourgeois organizations that are built on this principle. And the KAP has to prove its right to exist not by arrogating to itself the rule over the Union or over the proletariat, but by the fact that the KAP comrades are the most zealous workers in the Union and for the Union. The AAU and the KAP are the heart and brain of the revolution, they must not, if they do not want to falsify their very own meaning, write party morality on their banners and strive for party dictatorship. Class morality against party morality, class dictatorship and not party dictatorship must be their slogan.