Statement from the Editors: More about the Atlantic Regional Communist Party (ARCP) can be found here.
In 2025, we will have reached a quarter of the way through the 21st century. Someone born in the year 2000 will, in those short 25 years, have experienced multiple “once in a lifetime” events. These include worldwide recessions at an increasing frequency, a global pandemic that has claimed millions of lives, massive floods, wildfires, ever-worsening heat waves, and multiple U.S.-led or U.S.-directed wars in the Middle East, including most recently, the intensification of the ongoing Palestinian genocide by “Israel” which has laid bare the global resurgence of open fascism.
All the while, this 25-year-old individual has seen their wages stagnate in the face of inflation, making even the most fundamental necessities of life, such as groceries and stable housing, increasingly unaffordable. In short, things are pretty bleak.
But why is this? Why are things the way they are? Are these just random and unrelated events that make the lives of the vast majority of people more difficult? Is there little or nothing we can do about it?
Or, is there a thread that connects all these problems and crises together?
Marxists understand that the global capitalist system is that thread, and that the solutions to the myriad crises facing us will only come about by unravelling it and building a new social and economic system. Marxism is a method of analysis that allows us to bring the true nature of capitalism into focus, demystifying how our world works, and stripping back the layers of capitalist propaganda we have been fed our whole lives.
“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”
Vladimir Lenin, What Is to Be Done (1902)
What is (and isn’t) Marxism?
Someone looking to bourgeois (capitalist) politicians, media outlets, and academic sources to find an accurate and fair description of Marxism, Communism, or left-wing ideas in general will have a difficult time. In most popular media, Marxism is either depicted as an outdated ideology that has nothing to offer a modern world, or as a dangerous “authoritarian” dogma that seeks to rule over people with an iron fist. But are these depictions anywhere close to reality?
Marxism is, of course, named after Karl Marx, the 19th century German political theorist, social scientist, and economist who (literally) wrote the book on capital.
His life’s work was explaining what capitalism is and how it relates to politics. Along with his long-time collaborator and comrade Friedrich Engels, he laid the foundations of what we call Marxism today.
However, this does not mean that Marxism begins and ends with the works of Karl Marx himself. Marx and Engels openly built off the work of figures such as Adam Smith, GWF Hegel, Robert Owen, and many others.
Since Marx and Engels’ time, a long list of theorists, activists, and revolutionaries have expanded Marxism and adapted it to different contexts and times. The strength of Marxism lies not in the perfect wisdom or character of one person, but in its ability to analyse the world using scientific methods that illuminate the fatal contradictions in capitalism.
Understanding capitalism gives us the opportunity and the ability to chart a course towards a better future. Marxism is not a dogma but a guide to action. Marxism is the theory for the education of the working and other oppressed classes, and its usefulness is its scientific philosophy and methodology; not the personal opinions of Marxists or even Marx himself!
Scientific Socialism
Marxists often get accused of being naïve utopians, but in fact much of Marx and Engels’ early work was critiquing utopian socialists such as Robert Owen and Charles Fourier. Marxists do not imagine a perfect socialist society and then attempt to impose that ideal onto the current reality. Instead, we use scientific methods (evidence, research, critical analysis, etc.) to help us understand the world as it is now, and how we can change it.
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”
Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach (1845)
When Marxists talk about socialism, we are referring to a political and economic system formed after capitalism has been overthrown by the working classes, but where aspects of capitalism still remain and are being gradually eliminated by the new socialist state. These lingering elements of capitalism include, but are not limited to: commodity production; the necessity of money; and reactionary ideologies such as individualism, national chauvinism, misogyny, and racism. The overthrow of the capitalist class and the establishment of socialism is, however, the first step towards resolving these lingering contradictions.
To achieve this socialist transitory stage requires the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat. This is not a dictatorship of one person over all others, which would be antithetical to Marxism, but the overthrow of the current dictatorship of the bourgeois class of the few and the establishment of supreme power in the hands of the revolutionary proletariat of the many. There is no “one size fits all” solution. Socialism develops according to the unique conditions of each region.
Communism is a future stage of development under which the last remnants of capitalism and class society have been eliminated globally, and the need for a state to manage the many contradictions of capitalism has disappeared.
Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical materialism (diamat) is the core philosophy of Marxism. From this philosophy comes a scientific framework for understanding changes in the world, and more importantly, for enacting change ourselves.
Dialectical thinking is rooted in the principle that all things in existence are constantly interacting with one another, and that these interactions are the basis for change. Dialectics is based on logical constructs that contain two or more aspects that oppose, act on, and require each other for existence. In Marxism, these constructs are most often called contradictions.
Contradictions are in all things and are in constant motion. Nothing exists in isolation from everything else, and all things are in a state of constant change. If we want to understand something (be it an animal, a piece of music, a political ideology, or a global economic system), we have to understand the internal contradictions within that thing as well as the external contradictions. Internal contradictions are the basis of the thing while external contradictions are the outside conditions and forces interacting with it.
“In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.”
Mao Zedong, On Contradiction (1937)
The internal properties of an egg will determine if the egg hatches into a bird or lizard, while simultaneous external conditions that surround the egg (like temperature and location) will determine whether it incubates and hatches, is cooked, is eaten by a predator, or simply rolls from the nest and is broken.
Fundamentally, a contradiction is composed of two or more aspects. The contradiction of capital and labour has two main aspects: the capitalist class and the working class. Both classes are required for the other to exist, but both classes are opposed to one another.
These opposing classes are engaged in a long struggle for dominance. Capitalists fight to maintain their control, and workers fight to gain control. When a social revolution occurs, the capital-labour contradiction inverts in favour of the workers, the workers become the ruling class, and suppress the capitalists
It will then be the job of the workers to gradually eliminate the conditions for class society until no class divisions exist. The capital-labour contradiction will finally be resolved.
Materialism
In philosophy, the word “materialism” carries a different meaning than its common everyday usage. Here, materialism does not refer to someone being materialistic, i.e., only being concerned with physical possessions or wealth. Instead, materialism is the understanding that the universe we live in is made first and foremost of matter. Our thoughts and ideas originate from and are only possible because of matter.
This doesn’t mean that materialism is completely deterministic. We still (mostly) have control over our thoughts and actions. However, the choices we make are shaped by the material conditions we find ourselves in. The relationship between thought and matter is, like all relationships, a dialectical one, but matter is the primary actor. A carpenter makes the choice to act and turn a block of wood into a chair, but this is only possible because the physical properties of wood allow them to do so. No matter how skilled the carpenter, they cannot build a chair out of air because the physical properties of air do not allow it.
Historical Materialism
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)
Historical materialism takes the principles of dialectical materialism and applies them to the development of society over time. Marxism identifies class struggle as the fundamental motive force behind human social development in class societies.
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
Karl Marx, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
By taking a scientific study of human history, we can see how the conflicts between different classes in a society, shaped by changes in the mode of production (how a society fulfills the material needs of its population), resulted in changes to the overall structure of that society.
For example, near the end of the Middle Ages, the development of mechanised production and an increase in global trade allowed for a small class of European merchants to grow their wealth and political power. Eventually these protocapitalists grew powerful enough to challenge and even overthrow the feudal nobility, giving rise to modern capitalism and the liberal state. But, by creating a new ruling class in the form of the bourgeoisie (capitalists), capitalism also created a new global working class (the proletariat). In doing so, capitalism, as Marx put it, created its own gravediggers, since the proletariat has nothing to gain by their continued exploitation under capitalism.
Historical materialism gives us the tools to understand historical events and observe general trends in present-day developments. It is not however a crystal ball that lets us predict exactly what a future socialist or Communist society will look like. We do not know, and cannot know, what shapes art, music, religion, sports, or many other parts of human society will take under a yet-to-be realised new socioeconomic order.
“Marxism comes to the world as an historical fact, and it comes in a cultural nexus. If, for instance, Africans or, let us go back to Asians; when the Chinese first picked up the Marxist texts, they were European texts. They came loaded with conceptions of the historical development of Europe itself. So that method and factual data were obviously interwoven, and the conclusions were in fact in a specific historical and cultural setting. It was the task of the Chinese to deal with that and to adapt it and to scrutinise it and see how it was applicable to their society. First and foremost, to be scientific, it meant having due regard for the specifics of Chinese historical and social development.”
Walter Rodney, Marxism and African Liberation (1975)
Oppression and Exploitation
Oppression and exploitation manifest in innumerable ways under class society. They are inextricably connected to and caused by the stratification of society into different classes. The purpose of oppressions may differ, but they all ultimately serve to benefit the ruling classes of said class society. In the present age these oppressions and exploitations serve capitalists in capitalist society.
Economic Exploitation
“Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime. That’s why I poop on company time.”
A common refrain
Economic exploitation—at its most fundamental—is extracting more value from a person’s labour than they are paid. Under the capitalist wage system, a restaurant worker might make 15 dollars per hour. However, in that hour as a result of their labour, they create 100 dollars of value by assembling and cooking meals.
Instead of receiving the full 100 dollars of value, the capitalist who owns the restaurant (the means of production), pays the worker only the promised 15 dollars, uses a portion to cover facility costs, and pockets the rest as profit. This profit is called surplus labour value and was created by the labour of the workers. The boss keeps wages as low as possible while ensuring workers remain unaware of this thievery.
You, as a worker, may feel like you are being cheated every day at work. This is because you are. At a fundamental level, we all understand this!
The economic exploitation of the worker—the extraction of surplus labour value—is the fundamental rule of capitalism. Without exploitation, the capitalist makes no profit. With no profit comes no capital accumulation, which is the entire goal of capitalism: endless profit.
The exploitation “of man, by man” works simultaneously with the exploitation of the land, oceans, and air as class society necessitates the extraction of raw materials without regard to what nature, and by extension ourselves, need to survive.
National Liberation, Decolonization, and Land Back
Marxists are internationalists. The liberation of humanity cannot happen unless all nations are free from colonial oppression and imperialist exploitation.
National liberation and self-determination includes the right to secession from oppressive regimes. This includes Indigenous nations within settler-colonial states such as: Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel.
In settler-colonial states the contradiction between the colonised nations and the colonising nation is the principal contradiction (the contradiction which informs all others), and not the contradiction between the (majority settler) working classes and the capitalist class (although this contradiction remains important). When this is the case, settlers of the dominant colonial state must embrace the concept of Revolutionary Defeatism by working tirelessly to ensure the defeat of their own settler-colonial nation state and liberation of indigenous nations.
It is the responsibility of all communists on this continent to combat settler chauvinism wherever it emerges among the masses, within our organisations, or within our party programmes.
“Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation fights the oppressor, we are always, in every case, and more strongly than anyone else, in favour, for we are the staunchest and the most consistent enemies of oppression. But insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism, we stand against. We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone strivings for privileges on the part of the oppressed nation.”
Vladimir Lenin, Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1904)
Against Racism and White Supremacy
Marxists are fundamentally opposed to racism and are at all times against white supremacy. This also means white Marxists make a conscious effort to challenge their own racism.
White supremacy is tied to capitalist exploitation and manifests through anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, Sinophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bigotry. These chauvinisms are used to continually divide the working class and convince the privileged—in Canada primarily the white settler class—to view people of other races and nationalities as their enemy rather than the capitalists who exploit them.
Against Patriarchy and Misogyny
Marxists reject misogyny and patriarchal social relations and systems. This includes opposing sexist attitudes towards women and other oppressed genders, but also in seeking to abolish patriarchal institutions such as the nuclear family. Of course, this must also mean working against patriarchal and misogynistic attitudes and systems within our own organisations.
Marxist feminists understand that the liberation of women and all oppressed genders is not a separate issue from economic exploitation and other forms of oppression. The accumulation of private property was accelerated by tethering it to male lineage, where men in a family contributed to the fortune by their labour, to be passed down through the eldest son. Reproductive labour, that which reproduces the conditions for production (making food, keeping house, raising children), was placed on the shoulders of women as unpaid labour.
This delineation and subjugation of women is a necessary component of private property. Thus, we understand that women’s “liberation” under capitalism can only ever mean liberation for a relatively small number of wealthy, mostly white, and cisgendered women in the imperial core. The past liberal feminist movements have proven this. Despite winning women’s “freedom” to work, the subjugation of women continues as they are often still required to perform unpaid reproductive labour in addition to productive labour.
“The proletarian women’s final aim does not, of course, prevent them from desiring to improve their status even within the framework of the current bourgeois system, but the realisation of these desires is constantly hindered by obstacles that derive from the very nature of capitalism.
Alexandra Kollontai, The Social Basis of the Women Question (1909)
A woman can possess equal rights and be truly free only in a world of socialised labour, of harmony and justice. The [liberal] feminists are unwilling and incapable of understanding this; it seems to them that when equality is formally accepted by the letter of the law they will be able to win a comfortable place for themselves in the old world of oppression, enslavement and bondage, of tears and hardship. And this is true up to a certain point.
For the majority of women of the proletariat, equal rights with men would mean only an equal share in inequality, but for the “chosen few”, for the bourgeois women, it would indeed open doors to new and unprecedented rights and privileges that until now have been enjoyed by men of the bourgeois class alone. But each new concession won by the bourgeois woman would give her yet another weapon for the exploitation of her younger sister and would go on increasing the division between the women of the two opposite social camps. Their interests would be more sharply in conflict, their aspirations more obviously in contradiction.”
Against 2SLGBTQI+ Oppression
A proper Marxist analysis will demand the full liberation of 2SLGBTQI+ peoples everywhere and seeks to abolish homophobia, transphobia, and any other manifestation of anti-2SLGBTQI+ oppression. While it is true that, historically and presently, some socialist states have enacted homophobic and transphobic policies, we regard this as an error and a failure on the part of those particular states, some of which (such as Cuba) have admitted their faults and begun to rectify those mistakes.
People who don’t fit neatly into the restrictive boxes of sexuality and gender expression set forth by capitalist society find themselves at one of the sharpest inflection points! Their existence and desire to express their humanity are an affront to private property’s rigid gendered economic roles. These roles, and their resulting rigid social roles, are forced upon people, often violently.
Non-capitalist societies built on a communal way of living often respect gender diversity where labour is not as harshly delineated. Whether through colonialism’s centuries long attempts to exterminate Indigenous societies or capitalism’s further atomization and immiseration of all workers, both seek to crush gender diversity even as they may pay it lip service. Only through the liberation of all 2SLGBTQI+ peoples will everyone be free, and only through the destruction of capitalism and colonialism will 2SLGBTQI+ peoples be free.
Against Class Reductionism
Many “Marxists”, particularly in the imperial core, treat “economic” class (worker v. owner) as the only factor worth considering, ignoring that struggles like Indigenous/settler or imperial/imperialized struggles (as examples) are class struggles too. “Economic” class is critical to understand, but Marxist analysis does not begin and end there. A proper Marxist analysis includes a dialectical understanding of how various class struggles interconnect and affect one another.
The liberation of colonised peoples, the liberation of women, and the liberation of 2SLGBTQI+ peoples are class struggles. They need to be understood as being inclusive. To focus solely on one and not the other is reductionist and serves to fracture the movement.
Revolution, Reform, and Armed Struggle
“We were told that violence in itself is evil, and that, whatever the cause, it is unjustified morally. By what standard of morality can the violence used by a slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave master? By what standards can we equate the violence of blacks who have been oppressed, suppressed, depressed and repressed for four centuries with the violence of white fascists? Violence aimed at the recovery of human dignity and at equality cannot be judged by the same yardstick as violence aimed at maintenance of discrimination and oppression.”
Walter Rodney, The Groundings with My Brothers (1971)
Marxists are revolutionaries. We do not seek to simply soften the edges of capitalist exploitation, but to overthrow capitalism altogether. While reforms can be beneficial in the short term, the histories of reformist social democracies show that this path inevitably leads to a weakened working class movement, and so-called “socialist” leaders who are more concerned with keeping the status quo than fighting for liberation.
Additionally, social democracies have a strong tendency to be nationally chauvinist. Achieving marginally better rights for those within the nation while paying for it through colonial and neo-colonial projects is not socialism. Social benefits for people living in the U.S. and Canada (as part of the Imperial core) come at the expense of increased exploitation of the Global South and internal colonies.
This does not mean, however, that Marxists desire violence. We should seek nonviolent means to resolve contradictions and conflicts whenever possible. We also oppose reckless and adventurist acts of political violence that only put comrades at risk, encourage state repression, and impede the liberation of the working class and oppressed peoples.
Unfortunately, the reality is that there are few—if any—examples in history of a ruling class that gave up its power peacefully. Indeed, capitalist states have shown that they will go to any lengths to repress and destroy working class and other liberation movements, up to and including fascist coups against socialist governments, the assassination of socialist leaders, economic embargoes, and sabotage. Marxists understand that the working classes and oppressed nations must be willing and able to defend themselves and fight for their liberation by any means necessary.
Conclusion
“The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich business men owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it.”
Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography (1987)
In closing, Marxism is the key for better understanding the world we live in. But, Marxism not only offers a coherent worldview; it also gives us the theoretical tools necessary to enact change on our world. It is a methodology which continues to speak to the struggles of the downtrodden, which is why it has become the most commonly used and most effective weapon at the workers’ disposal to combat the capitalist boot on our throat.
Karl Marx understood that human beings are social creatures. We do not exist as isolated individuals, but instead yearn to be part of a community where we live, work, learn, and share our lives in solidarity with one another. Building a better future for humanity and ending the centuries of exploitation and oppression will require a collective effort unlike anything seen before.
While this might sound overwhelming, we can all start now by organising together in our communities and workplaces. We encourage you to join a revolutionary Marxist group in your area, or help organise one if none exist. We look forward to working side-by-side with you to build a better world for all.
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