Marx discovered that human nature changed from what it was during the period of chatteldom to what it was during serfdom and from that to what it is under capitalism by reason of the difference in the economic systems of these periods by which the world fed, clothed and housed itself and that these differences are in turn accounted for by the differences in the machines by which the necessities of life are produced.
Thus Darwin explained the history of animal life without the hypothesis of a divine creator, and Marx explained the history of mankind without the hypothesis either of a divine ruler or human leaders. These Darwinian and Marxian explanations constitute what is known as the materialistic explanation of history.
Marx represented that capitalism would end the class struggle and issue in a classless world because its profiteering system of production and distribution could not be succeeded by another, since it divides mankind into masters who are ever growing less numerous and slaves who are ever growing more numerous, without the possibility of those who are half capitalists and half workers rising out of their nondescript condition into a new master class, as did the bourgeoisie under feudalism. For these reasons he contended the proletarian slaves would become the grave diggers for the bourgeois masters and so end capitalism with the burial of its representatives.
But with the complete and sustained triumph of the proletarian class the bourgeois class will rapidly pass away, as is now the case with it in Russia, and a classless world will be born to live on a co-operative instead of a competitive basis, in a heaven instead of a hell.
V. WHAT WILL BE THE FORM OF THE WORKERS' STATE.
Hail Soviet Russia, the first Communist Republic, the land of, by and for the common people. We greet you, workers and peasants of Russia, who by your untold sacrifices, by your determination and devotion, are transforming the Russia of black reaction, of the domination of a few, into a land of glorious promise for all. Comrades in America, watch the bright dawn in the East; you have but your chains to lose, and a world to gain!—The Workers' Council.
In general outline the form of the workers' state will be that of the Russian Soviet Republic, and what it is will appear from the following semi-official description, the briefest and clearest of any which I have seen. Its authorship is unknown to me but I know it to be the work of a committee of which Zinoviev, one of the directing and inspiring minds of the proletarian movement in Russia, was a member, and it may be that he is the author. Anyhow it is a recently published, authoritative classic containing the information for which a large part of the world has been waiting:
We have before us the example of the Russian Soviet Republic, whose structure, in view of the conflicting reports printed in other countries, it may be useful to describe briefly here.
The unit of government is the local Soviet, or Council, of Workers', Red Army, and Peasants' Deputies.