Bertolt Brecht: 'Is Communism Exclusive?'

Unreal essay which appears seemingly by the by in a series of notes on his play Man Equals Man

Almost all the bourgeois critics of The Mother told us that this play was exclusively ‘a communist issue’. They spoke of this ‘issue’ just as they would of the issues of a rabbit breeder or a chess player – in other words, as something that concerns very few people and that above all cannot be judged by people who know nothing about rabbits or chess. But even if communism is not an issue for the whole world, the whole world is still an issue for communism. Communism is not one variant among many. Ruthlessly bent on abolishing the private ownership of means of production, it stands alone as a single line of thought, in opposition to those other lines of thought which always differ on some point or other but which are united in wanting to preserve private property. It lays claim to being the direct and only continuation of the great tradition of Western philosophy, and at the same time represents a radical change in the function of this philosophy, just as it is the only practical continuation of Western (capitalist) development and as such also signals a radical change in function for the economy that has developed in the West. We can and must point out that our assertions are not limited and subjective but objective and generally binding. We do not speak for ourselves as a small part of the whole but for all of humanity, as the part that represents the interests of all of humanity (not just a part of it). Nobody has the right to assume, just because we are fighting for something, that we are not objective. These days, people who give the impression that they are not fighting for anything, so as to appear objective, will be found upon closer inspection to occupy a hopelessly subjective position, representing the interests of a tiny part of humanity. Viewed objectively, they will be seen to be betraying the interests of humanity as a whole by defending the continuation of the capitalist status quo with regard to property and production. The seemingly objective ‘left-wing’ bourgeois sceptics do not realize, or do not want anybody else to realize, that they are taking part in this great struggle, which is why they do not use the word ‘struggle’ in connection with the permanent exercise of violence (which time and force of habit have caused to slip from the general consciousness) by a small social stratum. The propertied class – a degenerate, sordid clique, both objectively and subjectively inhumane – must be forced to hand over all ‘goods of an ideal nature’, regardless of what an exploited humanity, prevented from producing, struggling to keep its head above water, wants to do with these goods in the future. First of all, whatever happens, this social stratum must forfeit any claim to be regarded as humane. Whatever the terms ‘freedom’, ‘justice’, ‘humanity’, ‘education’, ‘productivity’, ‘courage’, ‘reliability’ may come to mean in future, they will not be fit for use until they have been cleansed of every remaining trace of their function in bourgeois society. Our enemies are the enemies of humanity. They are not ‘in the right’ from their own point of view: their point of view is the very source of wrong. That they are the way they are may be inevitable. What is not inevitable is that they exist at all. It’s understandable that they should defend themselves, but what they are defending is robbery and privilege, and understanding in this case should not equate to forgiving. Anybody who is a wolf to other human beings is not human, but a wolf. ‘Goodness’ today means – where basic self-defence on the part of huge masses turns into a final battle for the commanding heights – the destruction of those who make goodness impossible.

To bourgeois critics, works like this seem to presuppose certain interests that are not of a sufficiently general nature, instead of evoking this general nature. In fact, however, these works presuppose interests (latent ones, at least) that are of a particularly general kind and for this very reason run counter to the interests of bourgeois critics. Those groups of brainworkers whose entire existence is bound up with the owners of the means of production are cut off not from the communist cause but from worldly causes. In cutting themselves off from the communists as from a one-sided, shackled, unfree mentality, all they are doing is cutting themselves off from the cause of humanity and allying themselves with a many-sided, free and unrestrained exploitation. A great many brainworkers have a strong sense that the world (their world) is riddled with dissonances, but do not behave accordingly. If you discount those who simply construct their own inherently dissonant mental world (which exists precisely by virtue of its dissonance), you are left with people who, despite being more or less aware of the dissonance, still behave as though the world were harmonious. Thus the world only intervenes inadequately in the thinking of such people; it can come as no surprise if their thinking then fails to intervene in the world. But this means that they then do not expect any intervention to proceed from thinking at all: and this results in the ‘Pure Intellect’, which exists in its own sphere, more or less encumbered by ‘external’ conditions. For these people, if The Mother leads them to engage with a working woman, it is not in an intellectual sense. It is a matter for the politicians. Just as the thinkers are cut off from praxis, the politicians are cut off from matters of the intellect. Why does the head need to know what the hand that fills its pockets is doing? These people are against politics. In practice, this means that they are for politics that is done to them. Their behaviour, even in their professional life, is political through and through. Pitching one’s camp outside of politics is not the same as permanently residing outside of politics; and standing outside of politics is not the same as standing above it.

Some of them believe they could attain perfection within an imperfect polity, without needing to perfect that polity. But the essence of our state consists in having no use for human beings who have perfected themselves or are in the process of doing so. Everywhere you look you see institutions that require cripples, people with one arm or one leg or no legs. Government business can be best conducted by fools. In order to exercise their functions, our constables must be ruffians and our judges blind. Researchers must be deaf-mute, or at least mute. And the publishers of books and newspapers depend exclusively on illiterate people to stop them going bust. What is labelled intelligence is manifested not in the discovery and revelation of truth but in the discovery of untruth and the greater or lesser subtlety of concealment. There are some who lament the lack of great works and blame it on a shortage of great talents. But not even a Homer or a Shakespeare could versify what these people want to hear. And those who lament the lack of great works can live very well without them, and would perhaps not be able to live with them.