Class Struggle

Antagonisms, conflicts and struggles between classes with fundamentally opposing economic interests, specifically the struggle of the oppressed and exploited classes against the oppressing and exploiting classes in class society, the basic means of resolving the contradictions between oppressing and oppressed, exploiting and exploited antagonistic classes. If there are classes, there must be class struggle. Engels pointed out that all past history, with the exception of its primitive stages, was the history of class struggles. Mao Zedong also pointed out that classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years. Class struggle is the manifestation of irreconcilable class interests, the immediate driving force of the development of class society.

The root cause of class struggle is the fundamental contrast of material interests. When a society is divided into exploiting and exploited classes, the exploiting classes always use the means of production they own and their dominance in the system of production to oppress and plunder the exploited classes, and also exercise control politically and ideologically, while the ruled classes have to resist and fight for their existence and freedom from their servitude. Class struggle is the embodiment and inevitable result of the movement of the fundamental social contradiction in class society. The very moment civilization begins, production begins to be founded on the antagonism of orders, estates, classes, and finally on the antagonism of accumulated labor and the living labor, no antagonism, no progress; this is the law that civilization has followed up to contemporary times. Therefore, in class society, class struggle is necessary and unavoidable, it has an objective existence independent of man’s will.

The development and replacement of society is the result of the contradictory movement between the productive forces and the relations and the contradictory movement between economic foundation and superstructure determined by it. In class society, when the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure develops to a certain extent, it will inevitably manifest itself through class struggle. The ultimate cause and the great driving force of all important historic events is the economic development of society, the changes in the modes of production and exchange, the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and the struggles of these classes against one another. Class struggles run through class society from beginning to end and is the immediate driving force of development of class society. Engels pointed out that ever since the dissolution of the primaeval commune, the struggle between the different classes, of which every society is composed, has always been the major driving force of historical progress. The dynamic role of class struggle is highlighted in the process of qualitative change of social formation, from one social formation to another as well as in the process of quantitative changes of internal development within the same social formation. Moreover, class struggle is the only way to eliminate classes. The history of class society shows that no reactionary class will spontaneously withdraw from the arena of history, and the elimination of the exploiting class can only be achieved through class struggle.

Class struggles will present different characteristics at each stage of history, and the forms of class struggle are diverse. In the history of class struggle of mankind, there are struggles of slaves against the slave-owners, of peasants against the landlords, and of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the essence and forms of which vary greatly. However, the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie is the greatest and most consistent class struggle. The proletariat will destroy all exploiting classes, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, achieve that the people are the master in their own house, and finally enter communist society in which there are no classes. The existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production; the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. This is the law and trend of the development of class struggle. In capitalist society, the forms of struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie are diverse, and it includes mainly three basic forms: economic, political and ideological struggle. Economic struggle is the struggle against capitalists carried out by the proletarians in order to maintain its economic interests and aims to improve their conditions of labor and life. Strike is the principal mode of economic struggle, which is the primary or basic level form of the struggle of the proletariat. Political struggle is the struggle of the proletariat for the fundamental purpose of overthrowing the political rule of the bourgeoisie and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is the fully developed form of class struggle with means such as political strike, demonstrations, parliamentary struggle, armed uprisings, etc. Violent revolution for the conquest of political power is the highest form of political struggle. The ideological struggle is the struggle of the proletariat in the ideological sphere, whose main task is to arm the working masses with scientific socialist thought and to resist the influence and erosion of all kinds of bourgeois ideas on the workers. These three forms of struggle are interconnected, complementary, interwoven and indissoluble, among which political struggle plays a leading role and has a leading position and is the most principal form of struggle. All class struggles are bound to develop into political struggle and struggle for the conquest and fortification of the political power, while economic and ideological struggles need to be subordinated to the political struggle and serve it.

In China, with the basic accomplishment of the socialist transformation of the private property in the means of production, fundamental changes have taken place in the social structure and the state of economic struggle, above all, the exploiting class no longer exists as a class, the struggle in its complete form between antagonistic classes has vanished, most of the contradictions existing in the socialist society do not have the nature of class struggle, and class struggle is no longer the principal contradiction in the society. However, due to the influence and role of various international and domestic factors, certain social contradictions of a class-struggle nature may still exist in various spheres of economic, political, intellectual-cultural as well as social life. Therefore, in the socialist society the class struggle as a social phenomenon will exist for a long time to come within a certain extent and may intensify under certain specific conditions; however, in the socialist society the general trend in the development of the class struggle is towards a gradual weakening. and with the continuous development of human society, the elimination of classes and class struggle will become a historical necessity.

Lenin held that only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and true recognition of Marxism should be tested.

Nevertheless, there were bourgeois thinkers, theorists and opportunists in history who opposed the Marxist theory of class struggle, and regarded class struggle as a social “disease”, held that class struggles were “deplorable results of excesses”, “misunderstandings” that arose among different classes, and put forth theories and views of so-called “class collaboration”, “class reconciliation” and “not destroying the state power”. Its root lies in the denial of the exploitative nature of the capitalist system and the antagonistic contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which cannot be reconciled at all. Its purpose lies in making the proletariat abandon the class struggle against the bourgeoisie and seeking to limit the class struggle within the scope of ensuring the capitalist system, thus achieving the purpose of preserving the long-lasting rule of capitalism. Of course, the point of view of magnifying class struggle is erroneous too.