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[introduction.]

Changes in the capitalist economic structure, due to increased difficulties and contradictions and to the transition of the monopolies to new, state-monopoly forms of rule, deeply affect the various classes and social strata of bourgeois society.

Working Class and Capital

p With the development of the general crisis of capitalism, the exploitation of the working class is inevitably intensified and its position worsened. This is reflected primarily in the unprecedented 284 intensity of labour and the accompanying increase in industrial accident and sickness rates resulting from over-exertion. Intensified labour accelerates the wear and tear of the worker’s organism and shortens his working life. Such is the price of creating the enormous wealth which flows into the pockets of the exploiters. However, the workers’ share in the national income does not grow larger but smaller.

p True, a considerable rise in nominal wages has occurred almost everywhere over the past few decades. But this has been largely nullified by currency depreciation and tax increases. As a result, real wages in most capitalist countries have not risen at all or only insignificantly. Thus, the average annual real wages of workers in U.S. manufacturing industries, after deducting taxes, were lower during the 6-year period 1947–52 than they were in 1939. In the following years some rise in real wages took place. In I960 real wages were 7 per cent above the 1939 level, but output per hour had increased by 77 per cent. According to the French Communist Party the average real wages of most categories of French workers in 1954 were still below the 1938 level. In Britain, the pre-war level of real wages was not exceeded until 1956.

p Bare wage statistics, however, do not give a full picture of the material conditions of the working class. One must take into account the value of labour-power, which is determined above all by the expenditure necessary for its maintenance and reproduction. In the past few decades, the value of this labour-power has risen sharply.

p Firstly, owing to increased intensity of labour. Clearly, the greater the exertion required of the worker, the greater the expenditure needed for the recuperation of his energy.

p Secondly, owing to changes in the historically conditioned requirements of the worker and his family.

p Urban centres, for example, have mushroomed during the past few decades and an increasing number of workers live at some distance from their place of work. As a result, a growing portion of the worker’s budget is eaten up by heavy transport costs. Another characteristic of this period has been the absorption into production of more and more women, who were previously occupied solely with household matters. Although this adds somewhat to the family income, new expenditure becomes necessary—household appliances and equipment to lighten the work in the home, more expensive items in the budget, such as prepared foods, etc. The cost of medical treatment for the working-class family has also gone up. Furthermore, the demands of modern industry for more highly trained workers have placed an additional load on parents in regard to the education of their children.

p Owing to these factors, the value of labour-power, as a rule, has risen considerably higher than the level of real wages. Some idea of this disparity may be gained from a comparison of real wages with the minimum subsistence wage reflecting to a certain 285 extent the needs of the worker and his family. In the United States, for example, it was estimated (by Professor Heller’s Committee, whose figures are regarded as authoritative by official bourgeois science) that average wages in manufacturing in 1944 were 19 per cent less than the subsistence minimum for a family of four, and in 1961— 29 per cent less. In West Germany, the subsistence minimum for a family of four in 1955 was 445 marks monthly; nevertheless, 70 per cent of the workers received less than this minimum.

p Present-day capitalism is almost inseparably linked with chronic unemployment. In a country like the United States, even during the years of greatest business activity there were 3,000,000 fully unemployed and a still larger number of partially unemployed. In Italy, the army of unemployed and semi-unemployed has exceeded 2,500,000 in the post-war period.

p Capitalism, today as never before, has accentuated the precarious state of the worker and his uncertainty of the future. This steins not only from the general fear of crises and mass unemployment, but from the constant fear of losing the capacity to work as a result of overwork, illness or accident. The nightmare of want as a consequence of premature old age continually haunts the worker.

p Life is made even more precarious for the working class as a result of the expansion of consumer credit by the hire-purchase system. In the United States, for example, consumer indebtedness arising from hire-purchase increased from $5.6 to $56 thousand million between 1945 and December 1960. Credit buying can temporarily alleviate the workers’ living conditions, for without credit they could never acquire many consumer goods. But it becomes a very dangerous threat in the event of even temporary unemployment; indeed, an overdue instalment may mean the loss not only of the purchased articles, but also of the amounts already paid on them.

p Even in the wealthiest capitalist countries, absence of security, chronic under-nourishment and poverty continue to be the lot of more or less considerable sections of the working people. Thus, according to the testimony of L. Kaiserling, under whose leadership a report was drawn up in 1962 with the characteristic title "Growing Complacency towards Poverty and Privation”, almost a quarter of the population of the U.S.A. live in a state of "wretched poverty”.

p Thus, the tendency toward a worsening of the conditions of the working class, which is characteristic of capitalism, continues to operate with full force up to the present day.

p True, in several capitalist countries the working class, or part of it, has achieved some improvement in living conditions during the past 10–15 years. However, this does not mean that the abovementioned tendency no longer holds good. The main reason for such gains is to be found in the more favourable post-war conditions for the workers’ economic struggle (stimulated primarily by the successes 286 of the socialist countries) and their greater resistance to the monopolies.

p Fear of revolution, the successes of the socialist countries,.and the pressure of the working-class movement, as pointed out in the Programme of the C.P.S.U., compel the bourgeoisie to make partial concessions in regard to wages, labour conditions, and social security. But rising prices and inflation frequently reduce these concessions to nought. Even the relatively high standard of living in the small group of capitalistically developed countries rests upon plundering the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, upon non-equivalent exchange, discrimination against women’s labour, brutal oppression of Negroes and immigrant workers, as well as upon intensified exploitation of the working people in these countries. In spite of some successes in the economic struggle, the condition of the working class in the capitalist world is, on the whole, deteriorating.

p Even in those instances, therefore, where the working class (or a part of it) lives somewhat better than formerly, the sharpness of the antagonism between labour and capital has not diminished. On the contrary, the changes undergone by capitalism during the past decades have, in fact, provided additional causes of class conflict, by accentuating the political contradictions between the working class and the capitalists. The threat to peace, democracy and national independence resulting from monopoly rule is fraught with grave consequences, particularly for the working class, and thus makes the latter an even more implacable enemy of the monopoly bourgeoisie.

p However, this does not always lead to an actual upsurge of class struggle. Experience shows that under capitalism today, as formerly, the working-class movement develops unevenly. And in some countries, at times, it lags behind the urgent class tasks facing it.

p The main cause of this is the harsher political oppression of the monopolies, which increasingly use the state machine to suppress the workers’ movement. Whereas formerly the workers had to deal with individual employers, today they more and more frequently come into conflict with the concentrated might of the imperialist state. With its help, the monopolies have established a powerful apparatus for suppressing the proletariat. They have introduced controls over trade-union activities, and compulsory arbitration in labour conflicts. Reprisals against workers, such as the black list and organised factory police, are more extensively applied. At times, even in those capitalist countries where democracy has not been abandoned—officially at least—great selflessness and heroism is demanded of workers engaging in the most elementary forms of class struggle, such as ordinary strikes.

p But the monopolists can abolish neither the basic reason for the class struggle—the antagonism between labour and capital—nor the struggle itself.

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p In the past few decades, the working class in many countries has also grown stronger; it has become better organised, more classconscious and militant. The changes that have taken place in the world—the shattering of the bastion of international reaction, viz., German and Italian fascism, the successes of world socialism, and the upsurge in the liberation movement of the colonial peoples—have created more favourable world conditions for the workers’ struggle in the capitalist countries. Notwithstanding the savage dictatorship of monopoly capital in the United States and a number of other countries, the working class has not laid down its arms but continues to carry on its fight everywhere, not always frontally along the entire line, but at times seeking roundabout methods which are more suitable in the situation.

p Thus, the actual state of things today clearly refutes the myth, widely disseminated by Right-wing socialists and revisionists, concerning "class peace”, which is alleged to have replaced the period of class struggle.

p On the contrary, as will be shown below, the changes which capitalism has undergone not only deepen the old class contradictions, but create new ones. Alongside the major class conflict—between labour and capital—an antagonism between the clique of monopolists and the entire nation arises and grows increasingly acute.

On this basis, the class struggle of the working people draws ever wider sections of the population into its orbit. It penetrates to the most remote and “peaceful” cells of the social organism, and becomes increasingly acute and intense.

Other Classes of Present-Day Bourgeois Society

p Alongside the working class and capitalists in bourgeois society are other classes and strata: peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie ( artisans, handicraftsmen, retail traders), intellectuals, and office employees. These "middle (or intermediate) strata" are of considerable importance from the standpoint of both numbers and influence.

p Reactionary bourgeois ideologists claim that these "middle strata" are gradually expanding at the expense of all other classes. The social structure is gradually coming to consist of a single "middle stratum”, whose living conditions are constantly improving. In this way, declare these reactionary theorists, capitalism is getting rid of its class antagonisms and evolving into a society of "social harmony”.

p Facts, however, plainly refute this propaganda. They show, in particular, that with the development of state-monopoly capitalism considerable numbers of the "middle strata" are confronted with complete ruin.

p This applies above all to the small independent producers, the socalled old "middle strata”, i.e., those that are, in a sense, survivals 288 of the pre-capitalist mode of production and its corresponding forms of exchange, for example, peasants, artisans and handicraftsmen.

p Under state-monopoly capitalism, the mass ruin of small independent producers is not only due to competition with big capital. The process is deliberately accelerated by the monopolies through a whole series of government measures (the regulation of prices, credit, etc.). The aim of this policy is to eliminate or completely subordinate the small producer. More and more small producers and tradesmen remain “independent” in name only; their means of production actually belong to creditors, banks and large companies. The ruin of small and medium enterprises is especially hastened by the process of capitalist “integration”.

p Whereas the stratum of small producers as a whole is steadily being ruined and swept away, an opposite trend is characteristic of the so-called new "middle strata”, which is connected with newlydeveloped branches of production and servicing (filling stations, electrical repair shops, etc.). The stratum of intellectuals and office workers expands as well, because the growth of technology together with the swollen apparatus of management (both in the economy as well as in the government) leads to a rapid increase in the numbers and relative importance of white-collar workers, scientific and technical personnel, book-keepers and accountants, trade and advertising experts, and, finally, persons engaged in information media, education and art. As a result of the more rapid growth in the number of office employees compared with workers, in the U.S.A. in 1961, according to official data, office workers of all categories constituted almost half of all those gainfully employed.

p The conditions of these growing social strata, however, also change for the worse, primarily because the labour of the large majority of office workers depreciates in value with their increase in numbers, and they lose their former privileged status. In 1890, the average salary of an office employee in the U.S.A. was almost 100 per cent more than that of a worker. In 1920, the gap had narrowed to 65 per cent, and in 1952, the average salary of an office worker amounted to only 96 per cent of the average worker’s wage. The class-room teacher receives poor remuneration for his labour. This also holds true for many categories of scientific personnel and specialists in other fields.

p Changes in the material situation of those engaged in intellectual occupations, however, do not give the complete picture.

p A loss of independence is characteristic even of those in the socalled liberal professions (law, medicine, science, art, etc.). Increasing numbers of persons in intellectual pursuits pass into the employ of others, i.e., they swell the numbers of those directly exploited by capitalist corporations. This results not only in restricting the professional freedom of the intelligentsia, whose members are compelled to serve the most sordid interests of monopoly capital, but 289 also in the growth of a suffocating political control. The typical policy of the monopolies along these lines includes repressive measures and humiliating “loyalty” tests, the full force of which is directed not only against the vanguard of the working class, but also against the intellectuals. How severely their position is affected by these attacks can be seen from the following remark of Albert Einstein, the world-famous scientist, who was destined to be an eyewitness to reaction first in his native Germany, and then in the United States, whore he had emigrated to escape fascist persecution:

p “If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or scholar, or teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.”

p A melancholy commentary, indeed, on the position of the scientist in bourgeois society today, when even the greatest of them dream of the pitiful appearance of independence still enjoyed by plumbers and peddlers.

p The "middle strata" also include those social categories which today faithfully serve the reactionary bourgeoisie, e.g., top officials, highly paid corporation managers and privileged members of the intelligentsia.

p These groups, however, form only an insignificant percentage of the "middle strata" and their position is by no means comparable to that of all the intermediate classes and strata. Looking at the "middle strata" as a whole, we find that the contradictions between 4.hem and the small ruling clique of monopolists grow deeper, more acute and irreconcilable with the continued development of statemonopoly capital.

p Thus, the political position of the "middle strata”, their place in the class relations of bourgeois society today, is undergoing a basic change.

p At one time, a large proportion of the "middle strata"—the prosperous farmers in the developed capitalist countries, the small entrepreneurs and merchants, etc.—helped to maintain the power of the ruling bourgeoisie.

p Today, for the most part, both the old and the new "middle strata" weaken the rule of the monopoly clique instead of strengthening it. Owing to their position and interests, these strata, despite the assertions ’of bourgeois and reformist ideologists, are being increasingly transformed into an enemy of the monopolies and a natural ally of the working class.

p In an effort to distort the true picture of class relationships, reactionary writers deliberately confuse also the question of the ruling class. They assert that the power and influence of capitalists in present-day bourgeois society is on the wane, that the bourgeoisie has lost, or at any rate is losing, its dominant position. The capitalist 290 class, they claim, will leave the social arena without revolution, by "peaceful means”.

p What indications of the decline of capitalist domination are found by these theoreticians—who range from open apologists of monopoly to revisionists? In the first place, they claim that capitalist ownership is disappearing and is being replaced by the ownership of numerous shareholders, who belong to various classes of society, and that thereby an "income revolution”, which equalises the living conditions of the people, is taking place.

p Essentially, however, what is being advertised under the new label of "people’s capitalism" is the very old theory of the “ democratisation” of capital through the issue of small shares—a theory which long ago was annihilatingly criticised by Lenin. Instead of an "income revolution”, a further polarisation of wealth is actually taking place, the cleavage between a handful of multi– millionaires and the mass of the dispossessed is growing wider and deeper.

p In 1956, according to official U.S. data, about 5,500,000 American families, numbering 17,000,000–20,000,000 persons, had a total income which was less than the net profits of the 17 largest corporations.

p To demonstrate that the capitalist class is “disappearing”, reactionary theorists make much of the high surtaxes levied on excess profits and inheritance. Presumably this should lead to a “peaceful” transition from private to public ownership. Formally, these taxes are quite heavy, amounting to 50 per cent and more of gross profits. But, in the first place, corporations have discovered scores of methods of tax-evasion. Secondly, the sums collected from them by the government are returned with interest through highly profitable government contracts and all kinds of exemptions and allowances; in brief, through the entire mechanism of state intervention in the economy, which has been described above. It is not surprising that even the most zealous champions of monopoly cannot cite a single case of a monopolist having been ruined and his property transferred to public ownership owing to taxation.

p The theory of a "managerial revolution”, too, has become widely current in bourgeois propaganda of recent decades. According to this theory real economic, and hence political, power in the capitalist countries is passing out of the hands of those who “formally” possess it to those who are the actual managers, e.g., directors, corporation executives, managers and high-level technical personnel. These persons, it is argued, constitute a new ruling class acting in the interests of society as a whole.

p In fact, the role of the capitalists in production actually is changing—the owners of property are losing the last vestiges of their useful functions, which are being transferred to employed personnel. This is an additional argument in favour of expropriating capital 291 and going over to socialism. But this in no way alters the essence of capitalist exploitation.

p Real control of production remains in the hands of the owners and not in the hands of their representatives who manage the technological process, supervise accounting and supply, organise the sale of products, etc. The engineers and personnel employed by the monopolies cannot remove their owners, nor compel them to renounce a portion of their profits in favour of the workers. The owners, for their part, can engage or dismiss engineers and employees and dictate their will, much as they did a hundred years ago.

p Among the highly placed employees of trusts, of course, are some who actually possess considerable power—presidents of large corporations, chairmen of boards of directors, etc. But these are in fact capitalists who are merely receiving a portion of the profits in the guise of salary.

p Thus, the changes in the position of the capitalist class that are so much talked about by bourgeois theoreticians, reformists and revisionists, simply do not exist. However, this by no means implies that the position of the bourgeoisie has not altered in the past few decades.

p Changes undoubtedly have taken place, the chief one being the further stratification of this class. Even previously, of course, the bourgeoisie was not a monolithic whole. But in our day its stratification is assuming basically new forms.

p A handful of monopolies with power over the state machine increasingly dominates all of society, including the capitalist class itself. To "break into" the group in power, i.e., the owners of very large concerns and trusts, has become almost impossible not only for the ordinary citizen, but even for middle capitalists however adroit and resourceful. Instead of one group of capitalists alternating with another at the helm of society, there is now an unchanging and, indeed, irresponsible monopoly clique which is directly linked with and supported by a small circle of top corporation executives, bureaucrats and military leaders.

p As a result, increasing numbers of small and middle businessmen go down in ruin. The “mortality” rate of their enterprises has become so high that some bourgeois economists compare it with infant mortality in the colonies. Such businessmen are faced with the ever more urgent problem of their very existence as a privileged class.

p Small and middle businessmen find themselves in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, today, like half a century ago, they are exploiters deriving profits from the labour of wage-workers. On the other hand, they themselves are oppressed and plundered by the allpowerful trusts and corporations.

State-monopoly capitalism thus accentuates the stratification within the bourgeoisie to the point of splitting its ranks. On the one side appears a small clique of all-powerful monopolists and on 292 the other, the mass of small and middle capitalists forming the majority of this class. The social base of capitalist monopoly rule is thus becoming still narrower.