Free The Naked Communist by W. Cleon Skousen Page B

power which the great banks and industrial owners would use to protect their ill-gotten wealth and to suppress the revolt of the exploited masses.
     
    In other words, all levels of society were being forced into the opposing camps of two antagonistic classes -- the exploiting class of capitalistic property owners and the bitterly exploited class of the propertyless workers.
     
    They further predicted that the revolutionary explosion between these two classes would be sparked by the inevitable advancement of technological improvements in capitalistic industry. The rapid invention of more and more efficient machines was bound to throw more and more workers out of employment and leave their families to starve or perhaps survive on a bare subsistence level. In due time there would be sufficient hatred, resentment and class antagonism to motivate the workers in forming militant battalions to overthrow their oppressors by violence so that the means of production and all private property could be seized by the workers and operated for their own advantage.
     
    It is at this point that Communists and Socialists take different forks of the road. The Socialists have maintained from the beginning that centralized control of all land and industry can be achieved by peaceful legislation. Marx denounced this as a pipe dream. He held out for revolution. Nevertheless, he was quick to see some advantage in pushing forward any legislation which concentrated greater economic power in the central government. But he did not look upon such minor "victories of the Socialists" as anything more than a psychological softening up for the revolution which was to come.
     
    Marx was particularly emphatic that this revolution must be completely ruthless to be successful. It must not be a "reform" because reforms always end up by "substituting one group of exploiters for another" and therefore the reformers feel "no need to destroy the old state machine; whereas the proletarian revolution removes all groups of exploiters from power and places in power the leader of the toilers and exploited ... therefore it cannot avoid destroying the old state machine and replacing it by a new one." 18
     
    Marx further justified the use of violence to bring about the new society because he felt that if moral principles were followed the revolution would be abortive. He pointed to the failure of the Socialist Revolution in France during 1871: "Two errors robbed the brilliant victory of its fruit. The proletariat stopped half-way: instead of proceeding with the 'expropriation of the expropriators,' it was carried away with dreams of establishing supreme justice in the country.... The second error was unnecessary magnanimity of the proletariat: instead of annihilating its enemies, it endeavored to exercise moral influence on them ." 19
     
    Marx attempted to soften the blow of his doctrine of violence by stating that he would be perfectly satisfied if the capitalistic state could be transformed into a Communist society by peaceful means; however, he pointed out that this would be possible only if the capitalists voluntarily surrendered their property and power to the representatives of the workers without a fight. He logically concludes that since this is rather unlikely it must be assumed that revolutionary violence is unavoidable.
     
    Marx and Engels were also convinced that the revolution must be international in scope. They knew that all countries would not be ready for the revolution at the same time, but all Marxist writers have emphasized the "impossibility of the complete and final victory of socialism in a single country without the victory of the revolution in other countries." 20
     
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat
     
    Since they now believed a revolution was inevitable, the next question Marx and Engels asked was this: Should they wait for it to come in the normal course of events or should they take steps to promote the revolution and speed up the