The Aims and Means of Communist Revolutions and Possible Developments for Mamdani's New York
With the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York’s new and first communist mayor, we might well wonder what this could involve. Bearing in mind that his powers are not absolute and that he will have considerable challenges, we can nevertheless expect that he will do what he can to accomplish some of the aims of communism. In his inaugural speech as mayor on 2 January, 2025, he stated, ‘We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism’.
In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Joseph Engels discuss what is necessary to establish communism and what changes communism intends to instigate. I will summarise what it hopes to change (in my own enumeration of ten characteristics of communism) and then simply quote from the Manifesto how it plans to achieve the change (also ten points). This essay looks at chapter II of the Manifesto.
First, communism intends to abolish class distinctions by abolishing the bourgeois class or capitalist middle and upper class. This would leave the proletariat or working class.
Second, communism has to do with the proletariat everywhere, not just in a particular nation. Communism is a universal movement bearing the causes of the working class. It expects that countries and nationality will eventually cease, and therefore the exploitation of one nation by another and wars between nations. When the proletariat replace the bourgeoisie, national differences will disappear.
Third, communism intends to abolish bourgeois private property. The proletariat will wrest all capital belonging to the bourgeoisie. The Manifesto specifically says that the intention is not to abolish the little property owned by workers but that of the bourgeoisie. The wage-labour of capitalism does not create property for himself because his wages are so low. Collectively, wage earners create capital for individuals, not for the wage earners as a whole. Communism hopes to abolish bourgeois individuality, independence, and free trade—selling and buying.
Fourth, then, communism intends to do away with selling and buying.
Fifth, it intends to do away with the middle class owner of property.
Sixth, connecting capital to the family, communism intends to do away with the family. It alleges that parents exploit their children and husbands their wives for production.
Seventh, in destroying the family, communism intends to replace home education with social education.
Eighth, with the change to communism, human consciousness will also change. Thus, people’s religious and philosophical views and their ideologies will change.
Ninth, the means of production will be centralised and be in the hands of the State.
Tenth, for this radical change to take place, the proletariat will have to organise as a political force, sweep away the power of the bourgeoisie and its antagonisms, and ultimately do away with its own, temporary class supremacy. Then politics will give way to an association ‘in which the free development of each is the condition for free development of all’.
To effect these radical changes, communism will gradually pursue the following:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production....
Mayor Mamdani will likely see the flight of businessmen and businesses from New York, as well as wealthy persons who wish to protect their wealth from a communist government. Middle class property owners should also see the effects of a communist attempt to appropriate their property ownership, such as renters. We do not expect to see the murders and confiscation of property of early Soviet communism, when the wealthy or middle class property owners (kulaks) were obliterated in order to form collective farms, but Mamdani does intend to replace ‘frigid individualism’ with ‘warm collectivism’.
The attack on the family is well underway in America without needing communism, but Mamdani’s plan to offer free child care is not only a generous gift to people who need help (at the expense of the public) but a possible step for the state to take away parental oversight of children.
As with all socialist plans, only a heavy taxation and centalised control can accomplish its aims. Big government, the disappearance of individualism, property owernership, religious rights, free thinking, etc. are on notice. Add to this Mamdani’s public softness toward concerns about antisemitism in New York and his own Islamic convictions, and a thoroughly un-American experiment is about to unfold in America’s number one city.
Some Related Articles on Bible and Mission:
Scripture and the Socio-Political Systems of Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism
English (US) · 