19. Characteristics of the communist System.
We have seen why the destruction of the capitalist system was inevitable. It is now perishing under our very eyes. It is perishing because it is affected by two fundamental contradictions: on the one hand, anarchy of production, leading to competition, crises, and wars; on the other hand, the class character of society, owing to which one part of society inevitably finds itself in mortal enmity with the other part (class war). Capitalist society is like a badly constructed machine, in which one part is continually interfering with the movements of another (see § 18. “Fundamental Contradictions of the capitalist System”). That is why it was inevitable that this machine would break down sooner or later.
It is evident that the new society must be much more solidly constructed than capitalism. As soon as the fundamental contradictions of capitalism have destroyed the capitalist system, upon the ruins of that system there must arise a new society which will be free from the contradictions of the old. That is to say, the communist method of production must present the following characteristics: In the first place it must be an organised society; it must be free from anarchy of production, from competition between individual entrepreneurs, from wars and crises. In the second place it must be a classless society, not a society in which the two halves are at eternal enmity one with the other; it must not be a society in which one class exploits the other. Now a society in which there are no classes, and in which production is organised, can only be a society of comrades, a communist society based upon labour.