Taimur Rahman | Mazdoor Kissan Party (Pakistan)

The fundamental question Marx was concerned with as he studied the history of the class struggle was how to end exploitation of man by man. His critiques of capitalism and all preceding systems as well as his observations of the Paris Commune revolution revealed to him that the path of ending exploitation of working people by other classes would one day lead to a society without classes, which he deemed to be a Communist society. This was not mere philosophizing but contained a call to action, since Marx wanted to change the world. He saw in the Paris Commune an inspiration for that change and how it might be achieved.

But how truly does exploitation end? Different socialist states have addressed the issues of self-government and democracy in different ways, but equally varied was their progress with respect to that question. The answer Marx provided to this question was “abolition of property”. Not all property mind you, but the property that can be used to exploit people for the enrichment of others. If this seems like an unimaginable concept, it needn’t be. It can be as natural as walking on a public street without so giving so much as a thought to whether it might be owned by someone or controversial in anyway.

As Marxists, we must be clear: this is our primary mission. We must transfer this property out of the hands of the exploitative capitalist class and put it under control of the working classes; that is, the people. Failure to do so puts one on the path of what Hugo Chavez once referred to as “Capitalism with a human face”. 

Why do we wish to belabor this point especially on the subject of communes and no other? For two reasons in particular. 

First: communes, self-government, and their associated democracy do not always imply the absence of capitalism. Otherwise, there are communes even in the United States. 

Here is what Marx said of the Paris Commune with respect to property:

“Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land, and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor. But this is communism, “impossible” communism! Why, those members of the ruling classes who are intelligent enough to perceive the impossibility of continuing the present system—and they are many—have become the obtrusive and full-mouthed apostles of co-operative production. If co-operative production is not to remain a sham and a snare; if it is to supersede the capitalist system; if united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of capitalist production—what else, gentlemen, would it be but communism, “possible” communism?”

Thus, there can be no talk of communes without their being revolutionary at the same time. A true revolutionary commune or cooperative society in the Marxist sense also owns and manages its productive forces. We feel this is an important point to make with respect to communes.

The second reason for our emphasis on the property question: How and when communes shape up in every society, what they will look like or how they will operate is determined by the unique circumstances and histories of those societies. Predictions and prescriptions on the subject of communes in that sense can make things difficult. That is why we stress the importance of the class character of the Communes.

Hugo Chavez recognized the importance of differences between societies where one solution will not work for all. He wisely remarked in 2005 at the Gigantinho Stadium in Brazil:

“In Venezuela at the beginning of my presidency, many of my supporters criticized me and asked me to go at a faster pace [to implement changes], and be more radical, but I considered that it was not the right moment because each process has several phases and different rhythms that not only have to do with internal situations in each country, but with the international situation at the time.”

This is similar to the view Marx held on the Paris Commune. He warned against taking a dogmatic or formulaic attitude to the concept of Communes. He remarked: 

“The working class did not expect miracles from the Commune. They have no ready-made utopias to introduce par décret du peuple. They know that in order to work out their own emancipation, and along with it that higher form to which present society is irresistibly tending by its own economical agencies, they will have to pass through long struggles, through a series of historic processes, transforming circumstances and men. They have no ideals to realize, but to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant.”

What this means is that each country treads a different path. This will not be a copy of the path of Soviet Russia, or China where they fought a peoples’ war, or Vietnam or even Cuba. A commune will not emerge out of the imagination of any individual, but from real, lived events. The uniting theme however, as and when the countries reach that point, will be on whether they are revolutionary. 

In Pakistan, we face different circumstances indeed. Whereas Venezuela is 97% literate, our literacy rate is barely 60%; there is abysmal ignorance and religious fanaticism. We are a country of several nations that speak different languages and have different cultures. There is incredible unevenness in economic and social development between our provinces. Our economy is dominated by petty commodity and agrarian production. And we are ever at risk of falling back into military rule. We are far behind Venezuela in the state of our revolutionary progress. The Left movement is in its early growth phase, and there has not been much success with the “Broad Left”, which we have seen tends to dilute or abandon revolutionary principles in favor of chasing larger activist numbers. 

In short, we are very far from communes of a revolutionary sort, but this does not mean we cannot learn from and derive inspiration from those who have advanced ahead of us in the class struggle. Looking upon Venezuela, we have much to learn from their democratic, people-centric experiments. We converge for example on the necessity of class alliances, particularly between the workers and the peasants, as Pakistan may very well have to go through its own national democratic revolution as a step towards Socialism. We have the opportunity to learn and apply from the Bolivarian project some important tactics to build connections with the people. And Venezuela’s experiences in building communes is one of the most important lessons.

With regard to Communes, we take note of the institutionalization of neighborhood power and funding via communal councils by the Venezuelan leadership. Although this was done after the Chavismo movement acquired power, this is nonetheless an important step in setting permanent changes in place for the transformation of society. 

These councils or communes are local forums where residents plan, learn basic administration, and hold officials to account. And when need be, they can be relied upon in times of national-defense from an aggressor country. Venezuela is able to showcase this through their militias as they offer a robust defense response to the US aggression in 2025. The defense of the revolution is a basic principle, it is the highest ideal, and Venezuela shines in this regard. 

On their long journey, Pakistani Socialists will study Venezuela’s contributions to the Commune mode of society.