Does the people's commune system conform to the classical theory of Marxism?

Recently, Zhang Yiying and Ma Li wrote in "The Path of Collective Economic Development from the Perspective of Political Mobilization: A Case Study of the Sichuan Battle Flag Brigade during the People's Commune" (2024-03-21 The Township of Nothing · Source: Open Times Magazine Official Account) said: "Since the promulgation of the 1962 Draft Amendment to the Regulations on the Work of Rural People's Communes, the mainland rural collective economic system has been basically formed, under which the principle of production and distribution of 'three-level ownership and team-based' is implemented, that is, land and other means of production are owned by the people's commune, the production brigade and the production team, with the production team as the production and accounting unit, the distribution principle of distribution according to work is implemented, and the production brigade and the production team are responsible for public welfare undertakings and the welfare of members. "At the beginning of the new period, this system was criticized by the intellectual circles as utopian, pursuing the idea of absolute egalitarian 'agrarian socialism', believing that it was this path of cooperation and collectivization (the transformation of production relations precedes the productive forces) that did not conform to Marx's classical theory that led to the backwardness of the productive forces on the mainland and the extreme poverty of the peasants. ”

In this narrative, the author addresses several key issues:

1. At the beginning of the new period, the intelligentsia considered the people's commune system to be a utopia in pursuit of absolute egalitarianism;

2. The intellectuals believe that the people's commune system does not conform to Marx's classical theory;

3. The intellectuals believed that the people's communes led to the backwardness of the productive forces and the extreme poverty of the peasants on the mainland.

In this article, we discuss the second question:

The people's commune system does not conform to the classical theory of Marxism?

In the following, we will look at the people's commune system from the three perspectives of socialist ownership, distribution according to work, and socialist mode of production, whether it conforms to the classical Marxist theory.

First, the people's commune system and Marx's theory of socialist ownership.

Now let's discuss the first question, what is the relationship between the people's commune system and the Marxist theory of socialist ownership.

What is Socialist Ownership?

In the first volume of Capital, Marx explains:

"The capitalist mode of appropriation, and thus capitalist private property, which emerges from the capitalist mode of production, is the first negation of private ownership of the individual, based on his own labour. But capitalist production, by the inevitability of natural processes, negates itself. This is the negation of the negative. This negation is not the re-establishment of private property, but the re-establishment of individual ownership on the basis of the achievements of the capitalist era, that is to say, on the basis of co-operation and the common appropriation of the land and the means of production produced by labour itself" (Capital, vol. 1, p. 832, 1975).

Here, Marx pointed out to us three different types of social ownership: feudal social ownership, capitalist social ownership, and socialist social ownership.

"Private property earned by one's own labor, that is, private property based on the combination of individual workers and their working conditions", that is, private ownership in feudal society.

"Private property based on the exploitation of others, but formally free labour" is capitalist private ownership.

The first negation is the negation of capitalist private ownership of "private property based on the union of individual workers with the conditions of productive labour". And the negation of negation, that is, the second negation, is the negation of capitalist private ownership by socialist ownership.

With regard to the second negation of the formation of ownership, Marx clearly pointed out to us its basic characteristics: first, it is not to re-establish private ownership; second, it is based on cooperation and joint ownership of the means of production; and third, it is to re-establish individual ownership.

Here we are told that, 1) the aim of the socialist revolution is not to restore the feudal form of small private ownership, 2) socialist ownership is a form of individual ownership, and 3) social production is composed of two aspects: the means of production and the productive labor. Since socialism is based on the common ownership of land and the means of production. The individual ownership here is the individual ownership of productive labor, or the individual ownership of labor inputs.

According to Marx's theory, socialist ownership is individual ownership on the basis of public ownership of land and means of production. The individual ownership here is the personal ownership of the laborer, and more specifically, the personal ownership of labor inputs.

The members of the production team using the division of work system are the owners of labor under the conditions of modern society. Under the conditions of public ownership of the means of production, the personified bourgeoisie (landlords, capitalists, shareholders, etc.) has been eliminated, so that the laborer is the only subject of production, and since the public ownership of the means of production itself has eliminated the differences between people in the ownership of assets. Therefore, the member appears as the owner of labor, and his rights are expressed in the ownership of labor, which is reflected in the quantity of labor inputs. Therefore, the production team needs to adopt the work division system to measure the difference in the amount of labor invested by the members, and distribute the year-end production results according to the difference in the work received by the members. Here, the division of work system embodies the individual ownership of the labor input of members.

The production team model of the people's commune realizes the public ownership of the means of production in terms of land and means of production, and in terms of labor, it reflects the difference in the labor status of the members by adopting the form of remuneration for work that reflects the labor status, and reflects this difference in the distribution of products, thus reflecting the individual nature of the labor input of the members. Therefore, in terms of labor ownership, it is a characteristic of realizing the individuality of labor ownership of laborers. In other words, the ownership of the production team is what Marx called individual ownership based on public ownership of land and means of production, that is, individual ownership of labor inputs that eliminate the basis of the difference in ownership of assets. This system of individual ownership is embodied in the system of distribution according to work, which is the division of work.

It can be seen from this that the people's commune system is consistent with the Marxist idea of socialist ownership.

Second, the relationship between the people's commune system and the Marxist idea of distribution according to work.

The Marxist theory of socialism must not only realize the public ownership of the means of production, but also realize the distribution according to work. Therefore, we also need to find out whether the people's commune system conforms to the Marxist theory of distribution according to work? After examining the characteristics of the ownership system of the people's commune, the next thing we need to do is to find out whether the people's commune system has realized distribution according to work.

First of all, we know that distribution according to work, as the name suggests, is the right claim of laborers and belongs to the ownership of labor. Therefore, distribution according to work is possible only if the ownership of labor is fully embodied.

In the production team of the People's Commune, the management of the production team is established under the leadership of the general meeting and the team committee, which embodies the labor management right of the members; in the distribution, the production team adopts the system of labor distribution and embodies the labor distribution right of the members. In other words, the production team model of the people's commune is a public economic model that establishes a labor rights system. Since the production team has established a system that fully embodies the ownership of labor, it has the prerequisites for the realization of distribution according to work.

Secondly, the distribution model of the production results of the production team is "to compensate for consumption, to pay enough to the state, to keep enough for the collective, and the rest is for itself". In this mode of distribution, the final amount of value that appears as a surplus as a result of production is the amount of value used for individual consumption by the laborer. In this mode of distribution of production results, firstly, the amount of value transferred by means of production is distinguished from the amount of value newly created by members by giving priority to compensating for the value consumed by the means of production, so as to limit the income distribution of members to the amount of value newly created; secondly, in this mode of distribution of production results, the value of the public needs of workers and the value of personal consumption are distinguished by deducting the items of public needs in different categories. This distinction allows public needs at the national level and public needs at the collective level to be met simultaneously with the continuous development of collective production. For the production team, the priority compensation for the consumption of means of production and the value after deduction of public needs items are decomposed, and then decomposed according to the cumulative amount of individual labor of the members, so as to meet the individual consumption needs of the members.

The members who do more work can have more than 400 jobs a year, and only 200-300 workers who do less; the production team does a good job and the bad work is different, the unit price of the work of a good production team can reach more than 1.00 yuan, and the work value of a bad team may only be 0.2-0.3 yuan. With the same strong labor force and the same amount of work, you can earn more than 400 yuan a year in a good team, while a bad team may only earn more than 100-200 yuan or even a few tens of yuan; members of a good production team will have surplus grain, while a bad production team will have to eat grain sold back by the state, and even have to go out to beg for food.

The production team is an economic entity with independent accounting, and the income of the members and whether the members can eat enough are completely determined by the labor conditions of the individual members and the collective production status of the production team. Therefore, it is really a distribution according to work. There is no such thing as egalitarianism.

Enterprises that distribute according to capital adopt the mode of capital management, in which the bourgeoisie operates with their own assets as the fulcrum and expands through the multiplication of assets, which is a mode of growth in which the majority of people work for a small number of people, and is a polarized mode of production, so the difference between them will be very large; and under the condition of achieving distribution according to work, the laborers obtain income by virtue of their own labor input capacity, so each laborer can only raise his income level on the premise of constantly improving his labor ability. Therefore, the mode of operation of distribution according to work is a mode of production of common prosperity, and the differences it shows will certainly not be as large as the differences caused by the distribution of capital. This is the reason why many people misunderstand the distribution of production teams as egalitarianism.

Judging from the distribution system of the people's communes, the collective production model based on the production team is not only a production model of public ownership, but also a model that embodies the ownership of labor and realizes the distribution according to work. It is consistent with the Marxist idea that socialism must realize distribution according to work.

Third, the relationship between the people's commune system and the socialist mode of production.

What kind of mode of production is socialism, and what is the difference between it and the capitalist mode of production? On this question, Marx and Engels have in fact given a clear answer in the "Manifesto":

"In bourgeois society, living labour is only a means of multiplying the labour that has been accumulated. In a communist society, the accumulated labour is only a means of expanding, enriching and improving the life of the workers". As for the "communism" here, Marx explained in his book "Critique of the Gotha Program": "What we are talking about today is such a communist society, which has not developed on its own basis, but on the contrary, has just emerged from capitalist society, so that it still bears the traces of the old society from which it was born in all respects, economically, morally and spiritually."

Here, Marx and Engels made clear for us the fundamental difference between the mode of production as scientific socialism and the capitalist mode of production:

The capitalist mode of production is the productive forces in which the means of production occupy a dominant position and play a decisive role, therefore, the requirements for the development of capitalist productive forces are mainly expressed in the requirements of the ownership of assets and the requirements of the owners of assets for the ownership of assets. Therefore, the capitalist mode of production is the mode of production with the owner of the asset as the main body and the full embodiment of the ownership of the asset, that is, the mode of asset multiplication, or the mode of production of surplus value. At present, the most typical mode of production of surplus value in Western countries is the mode of production based on private ownership of the means of production and the system of joint-stock enterprises. This pattern is expressed by a simplified formula, which is:

Private ownership of means of production + property rights system = private ownership of means of production + general manager responsibility system under the leadership of the general meeting of shareholders and the board of directors + distribution system according to capital (shareholding system);

The socialist mode of production is the productive force in which production labor occupies a dominant position and plays a decisive role, so the requirements for the development of socialist productive forces are mainly expressed in the requirements of production and labor, and in the demands of laborers for labor ownership. Therefore, the socialist mode of production is a mode of production with the owner of labor as the main body and a mode of production that fully embodies the ownership of labor, that is, the mode of labor value, or the mode of production of consumption value. The production team model, the public-owned economic model of the production team that adopts the division of work system, is a typical mode of consumption value production. This pattern can also be expressed in a simplified formula, which is:

Public ownership of means of production + labor rights system = team leader responsibility system under the leadership of the member congress and team committee + distribution system according to work (work division system).

From the victory of the October Revolution to the present, the practice of socialism has a history of more than 100 years. In addition to the model of public ownership of property rights established by the Soviets, the model of public ownership of labor rights was produced in the practice of agricultural socialism on the mainland. This latter model is the socialist mode of production, that is, the mode of production of consumer value. Therefore, socialism is a mode of production of consumer value (consumer goods under the conditions of a planned economy), which has both its theoretical basis, that is, the theoretical basis put forward by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, as well as the basis in the practice of socialism.

Now let's take a look at the production team model of the People's Commune, what kind of production model is it?

1. The so-called production team is a production mode in which members unite to use the land and means of production owned by the public to meet their own consumption needs and public needs through labor. From the point of view of the means of production, the mode of production is collective ownership, and the land and means of production are publicly owned by the members, and the mode of production team, from the point of view of production and labor, it is the system of individual ownership. Due to the individuality of the consumption of life (family), the labor of the worker belongs to the individual.

2. As the main body of production in the production team, the members have a dual identity: they are both the owners of the public means of production and the owners of labor. However, since public ownership itself abolishes the distinction between people in the ownership of the means of production, the interests of the members are expressed in the ownership of labor, not in the ownership of assets. Therefore, the distribution method adopted by the production team is the distribution method according to work, that is, when the members participate in the production labor, the production team uses the division of labor to measure the amount of labor invested by the members, and at the end of the year, the distribution is carried out according to the amount of labor provided by the laborers and other consumer values or consumer goods. Thus, the production team is essentially a mode of production of consumer value (consumer goods).

3. The production team reflects the labor ownership of the laborers due to its management system, the team leader's responsibility system and distribution system under the leadership of the general assembly and the team committee. Therefore, it is essentially labor-oriented, work-oriented, and aimed at satisfying the interests of laborers.

It can be seen from this that the mode of production of the people's communes is precisely the mode of production that is consistent with the ideas of Marx and Engels on the socialist mode of production, that is, the mode of production of consumer value, that is, the mode of production based on the public ownership of land and the means of production, and the mode of production that embodies the individuality of the labor of the members; it is not only the mode of production based on the public ownership of the means of production, but also the mode of production that realizes the distribution according to work, that is, the mode of public ownership of labor rights.

Through the analysis of the above three points, we have come to the conclusion that the production mode of the people's commune is the mode of production that is consistent with the basic idea of scientific socialism put forward by Marx and Engels, and it is not only the mode of production that realizes the public ownership of the means of production, but also the mode of production that is distributed according to work, that is, the mode of production of consumer value (consumer goods).