Marx’s Concept of Communism

Abstract

The crisis that capitalism is going through has put the idea of alternatives to it back on the agenda. Marx himself wrote surprising little about this topic, the bulk of his work is focused on capitalism itself. From early on he came to the conclusion that communism cannot be fully established immediately upon the overthrow of capitalism, a two stage process will be necessary. In the first stage the capitalist state, which rules in the interests of capital, will be overthrown and replaced by a state which will rule on behalf of working people. This is what Marx calls the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, and it supersedes the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie of capitalist society. It will take all private property in the means of production (i.e., capital) into common ownership, and operate it for the ‘common good’ rather than for private profit.¹ But this is not ‘full’ (i.e., fully developed) or ‘true’ communism, as Marx conceives of it, it is only a transitional phase ‘between capitalism and communism’ (Marx, 1978c, 538).² A transitional stage is necessary, Marx believed, because the new society will have just emerged from capitalism and will still embody many of its features.