Introduction

For a World Beyond Capital

We present to you an arsenal and a toolbox. This text, From Capital to Commune, was written by members of Counterpower, a communist political organization in the so-called United States. It is intended to serve as both a collection of weapons to be wielded by the masses of working people in the coming revolution—the social revolution against capital—and a set of tools with which to construct the foundations of an emancipatory alternative to capitalist-imperialism: the commune.

What is capital? Why must we go beyond it? Capital is a social relation premised upon private property, which reduces all sensuous and creative relations among people, and all relations between humans and nature, into relations between things, i.e. relations between commodities of differing values. These commodities are bought and sold on the world market, mediated through a universal equivalent in the form of money. Under the social domination of capital, nothing is safe from the process of commodification: past, present, and future; body and mind; humanity and nature; everything is a potential source of value for capital, and in its relentless drive to accumulate, accumulate, accumulate ever more capital, it will lie, cheat, and steal, and kill without mercy those who dare to stand in its way. "It is the worldwide theft of not only the muscles and the nervous systems," said the communist Ferrucio Gambino, "but also of the entire lives of the working woman and man, waged and unwaged, everywhere."¹

Capital existed as a latent tendency in many pre-capitalist social formations (such as feudalism), but its historical development was constrained by a number of countervailing factors. It has since been released from its captivity, free to run amok. In the ensuing rampage, capital has unleashed unspeakable horrors upon humanity and nature, solidifying its social domination through a global system of capitalist-imperialism. The horrors of this system are known to all, even if their spatial and temporal distribution is profoundly uneven: poverty and misery, borders and prisons, militarism and war, genocide and ecocide. The imperialist bourgeoisie—the ruling class and power elite of the modern world-system—is "like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the netherworld whom he has called up by his spells."²

Karl Marx explained that capital is self-expanding value. The source of this compulsion towards self-expansion is found in a dynamic social process—the production and circulation of commodities—in the course of which surplus value is appropriated by the capitalist, i.e. the value produced by the expenditure of the labor power of workers, a quantity which stands over and above that which is required to cover the costs incurred in the labor process, including the cost of reproducing human labor power itself. "The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe," Marx and Engels teach us, "It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere."³ This self-expanding dynamic inevitably brings the corporations and capitalist states of different nations into competition with one another, which repeatedly erupts into open hostilities in the form of inter-imperialist world wars.

Like all previous forms of hierarchical class societies, capital is premised upon private property and the existence of a ruling class that appropriates the social surplus produced by the labor of the toiling masses. However, from the standpoint of world history, capital is unique due to its aggressive expansionary tendency. This logic of self-expansion compels capital to establish, for the first time, a truly global form of social organization. In this system of capitalist-imperialism, the metropolitan centers of capital accumulation—the corporations and capitalist states of the imperial core countries—enrich themselves at the expense of the colonized peoples of the peripheral countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as the internal colonies and proletarians of the imperial core itself. From the outset of its historical genesis, it is within the very logic of capital accumulation that we can locate the germ of imperialism.

Wherever the social domination of capital predominates, wherever the central organizing principle of social life is the production and circulation of commodities, the source of surplus value is to be found in the extraction of surplus labor by capital, i.e. labor performed in excess of that which is necessary to reproduce the worker. "Capital is dead labor," Marx tells us, "which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks."⁴ Living labor stands in opposition to this inhuman, vampiric compulsion of capital, with its insatiable appetite for the very lifeblood of humanity. The extraction of surplus labor by the vampire of capital recognizes no limit. While it presents itself and the world it has made in its own image as natural and spontaneous, were it to stand before the mirror of history it would see none of these qualities present. While it claims the mantle of reason and rationality, were it to stand in the light of truth brandished by science, it would be incinerated before its illuminating rays. The exploited and oppressed masses of the world must awaken to these facts, we must band together on this dark night and arm ourselves to face this hideous abomination and, with a hammer in one hand, drive the stake through its vile heart.

Building upon the unfinished project initiated by Marx and Engels, the Hungarian communist István Mészáros sought to develop a theory of socialist transition by deepening a scientific analysis of the internal logic of the capital accumulation process and the system of capitalist-imperialism it has generated.⁵ Through the labor process, humans appropriate and metabolize various aspects of nature in order to satisfy our needs. Mészáros emphasized that the continuous extraction of surplus labor by capital through the self-expansion of value presupposes the alienation of humanity from nature alongside our alienation from exercising direct control of the labor process. This alienation of humanity from our "primary mediation" with nature facilitates the imposition of a peculiar metabolic relationship between society and nature (which is at the root of so many contemporary social and ecological problems faced by humanity today), and ultimately leads to the development of an increasingly oppressive and authoritarian system of social reproduction.

To facilitate the maximum extraction of surplus labor, capital requires a host of "second order mediations," which include not only the fetishism of commodities, the cash nexus of money, and the world market, but also the nuclear family and its regime of gender and sexual oppression; racism and the colonial oppression of nations; and ultimately the capitalist state. In some cases these mediations are adapted from pre-capitalist forms of social organization (as in the case of women's oppression), while in other case the development of capitalist-imperialism leads to the invention of new mediations (as in the case of racial oppression). Far from mere "effects" of capitalist-imperialism and the capital accumulation process, these social relations and institutions "reciprocally sustain one another," and are thus integral to the reproduction of this alienated, exploitative, and oppressive social system. Building upon the work of Mészáros, we maintain that the self-expansion of value at the heart of the capital accumulation process necessarily entails the universal expansion and deepening of gender and sexual oppression, racial and national oppression, bureaucracy and authoritarianism, and ecological devastation. The historical development of the capital accumulation process leads not to "a system of perfect liberty," as Adam Smith suggested, but the perfection of humanity's alienation, exploitation, and oppression.

As Mészáros pointed out, the ultimate aim of Marx's unfinished critique of political economy—the whole raison d'être of revolutionary Marxism—is to search "for a countervailing power through which capital's destructive self-expansionary logic could be brought to a halt" and the self-emancipation of humanity finally realized.⁶ This is, of course, the meaning of our organizational namesake, Counterpower, and it is a theme to which we shall return to throughout this text as we attempt to outline a theoretical, ideological, and political orientation to serve the people's struggle to go beyond capital and build the commune.

Karl Marx described the commune as "the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labor."⁷ We too conceive of the commune as a bridge to be built from the old society of capital to the new society of communism: a society premised upon a free association of social individuals who, with the means of labor held in common, rationally and cooperatively regulate the social labor process and humanity's metabolic interchange with nature in order to achieve the direct satisfaction of human needs, the all-round development of human capacities, and the sustainable stewardship of our planetary ecosystem. The commune is, according to Marx, "a thoroughly expansive political form."⁸ It is thus a fitting name for the negation of capital, for the political instrument through which the masses of working people can overcome the social relations of alienation, exploitation, and oppression generated by the self-expansion of value, and to construct in its place a social system driven by the self-expansion of communality. How might the commune be realized in our century?

A Platform and Program for Socialist Revolution

Counterpower is a revolutionary communist political organization—what we call a pre-party organization—based in the so-called United States of America, a dying settler-colonial empire in a prolonged period of decline and decay. However, despite sharpening class antagonisms and social contradictions coming to the surface of everyday life in the United States, the communist movement in our country remains internally fractured, disorganized, and disconnected from the masses of people. As a pre-party organization operating in such a context, we believe it is our first duty to lay the theoretical, ideological, and political foundations for the eventual establishment of a new type of communist party, rooted among the exploited and oppressed masses, capable of leading a socialist revolution in North America as one fighting front of the world socialist revolution which is alone capable of building the world commune of communes and winning freedom for humanity.

However, we do not view our organization, nor any other political organization within the present-day United States, as yet deserving the title of "the party." This would presuppose an organic link or fusion with the everyday social struggles and movements of the exploited and oppressed masses of this country, which as of yet no self-proclaimed party in the United States has proven itself capable of achieving. While we strive to act like a party in terms of our style of work and the seriousness with which we approach our political tasks, we recognize that we have a long march ahead in order to develop an organizational apparatus up to the task of leading a protracted revolutionary struggle for communism to victory.

During the 2024 and 2025 national congresses of our organization, we adopted the following theoretical, ideological, and political platform and program. Taken as a whole, From Capital to Commune serves as the basis of unity for members and supporters of our organization. But what exactly do we mean by a "platform" and "program" for revolutionary social change?

By platform, we mean the theoretical, ideological, and political framework which informs and guides the practical activity of our organization, or what an earlier generation of communists referred to as a "general political line." This concept is perhaps best illustrated by using an analogy provided by V.I. Lenin. In 1900, Lenin co-founded a revolutionary Marxist newspaper, Iskra, or "The Spark." The aim of this newspaper was to unite the dispersed revolutionary circles across the country around a common theoretical, ideological, and political orientation. Upon this foundation or platform, they could subsequently develop a common programmatic orientation for the revolutionary forces in the Russian Empire. However, in opposition to this proposal a faction within the revolutionary movement, called the Economists, claimed that it was a manifestation of "bookishness" to make plans for developing the revolutionary movement's theoretical coherence, organizational cohesion, and unity in action, because the masses would spontaneously develop revolutionary consciousness from their everyday participation in economic struggles (i.e. trade unions).

Lenin responded to these critics by asking if, "when bricklayers lay bricks in various parts of an enormous structure the like of which has never been seen before," it was "bookishness" for these bricklayers "to use a line to help them find the correct place for the bricklaying; to indicate to them the ultimate goal of the common work; to enable them to use, not only every brick, but even every piece of brick which, cemented to the bricks laid before and after it, forms a finished, continuous line?"⁹ It seemed clear to Lenin that the revolutionary movement had no shortage of bricks and bricklayers, but lacked a line to guide the process of laying down the bricks in the correct location and sequence. "If we had a crew of experienced bricklayers who had learned to work so well together that they could lay their bricks exactly as required without a guide line (which, speaking abstractly, is by no means impossible), then perhaps we might take hold of some other link." He continues, "But it is unfortunate that as yet we have no experienced bricklayers trained for teamwork, that bricks are often laid where they are not needed at all, that they are not laid according to the general line, but are so scattered that the enemy can shatter the structure as if it were made of sand and not of bricks."¹⁰ Is the situation so different for revolutionary forces in the United States today?

We conceive of our platform as such a guide to action, for it lays down the theoretical framework for analyzing material reality scientifically, an ideological framework for building a collective organizational identity and cohesion among communists, and a political framework for articulating a revolutionary strategy and program capable of guiding the establishment of a socialist commune and the construction of a communist society. In this document, we shall elaborate our conception of scientific socialism, understood as the application of dialectical and historical materialism to the study of human social development in the age of capitalist-imperialism, with the ultimate aim of articulating the organizational forms, processes, principles, and methods of work we consider crucial for the ultimate success of the world socialist revolution.

However, we can also deploy the term 'platform' in another, more contemporary sense, namely, to the logic of what has been called 'platform politics' in the twenty-first century. By now, we are all familiar with the rise of the 'platform economy' and its associated technological platforms (Google, TikTok, Uber, Instagram, eBay, Amazon, etc.). Indeed, platforms have become ubiquitous features of modern life, encompassing commerce, social media, gaming, dating, graphic design, transportation, manufacturing, warfare, artificial intelligence, and so on. A platform in this sense refers to an organizational infrastructure capable of facilitating the communication, cooperation, and coordination of two or more groups in a specific area of social activity. Much as the communist party of the preceding century might be thought of as "a factory of strategy," reflecting a particular configuration of industrial organization and class composition in an epoch marked by the rise of heavy industry and the mass worker, "a communist platform" may prove to be a useful framework for rethinking the role of a communist party as an instrument of revolutionary struggle in the twenty-first century.¹¹

Digital platforms generate what social scientists call "network effects," whereby the more users a platform has, the more central it becomes. In the same way, a new type of communist party must build such a platform—both a digital and physical infrastructure, a political and cultural hub—through which new masses of people can awaken to political life, develop their capacities for self-organization and self-activity, and ultimately wage a protracted revolutionary struggle for communism against the capitalist state and the imperialist world-system. Like the platforms created by capital, such a party will need a modular and mobile apparatus, capable of rapidly assembling a range of organizational combinations in a variety of operational environments, much in the same way that digital platforms can operate wherever digital interactions occur. It is our hope that our organization can play a role, however small, in the development of such a platform for the regroupment of revolutionaries, the reconstruction of the communist movement, and the recommencement of the world socialist revolution.

Building upon the foundation established in our platform, we define a program as a series of revolutionary political measures capable of addressing the outstanding grievances and righteous demands of the exploited and oppressed masses, while ultimately advancing society in the direction of communism by identifying the path to resolving the contradictions generated by capitalist-imperialism. A general political program should elaborate both the long-term strategic and short-term immediate tasks facing the communist movement within a specific national context, at a concrete historical conjuncture, which in the case of the present text refers to the United States of the twenty-first century. While some organizations prefer to use the term "program" to refer to those components we have grouped under the heading of "platform" (i.e. the general theoretical, ideological, and political line of an organization), there is a precedent in the history of communism for narrowing the definition of a program.

Once again, comrade Lenin provides some assistance. In 1899, a faction within the revolutionary movement in Russia argued against the adoption of a general political program. According to Lenin, these comrades took the position "that at this particular moment there is no special need to draw up a program; that the urgent question is one of developing and strengthening local organizations, of placing agitation and the delivery of literature on a more sound footing; that it would be better to postpone the elaboration of a program until such a time as when the movement stands on firmer ground; that a program might, at the moment, turn out to be unfounded."¹² It is unfortunately common to hear these same arguments repeated today. However, in opposition to such a narrow outlook, Lenin argued that a program is an indispensable means of uniting the revolutionary movement, serving to guide this movement's practical activities, and that an initial version of such a document—a 'draft program' or 'working program'—should be developed without delay through collective discussion, debate, and summation of lessons learned through practice. A program is, in this sense, a living document, something that comrades should not become too emotionally attached to, for it must change and develop in accordance with changing material conditions and the prevailing correlation of forces.

In the history of the communist movement, party organizations have often articulated general political programs consisting of two parts: a minimum program, and a maximum program. A minimum program can be broadly defined as the immediate, short-term demands which build the fighting capacities of the people's movement and which lay the groundwork for socialism in the future. In contrast, a maximum program can be defined as a program for the socialist transition to communism, outlining a series of communizing measures for the progressive construction of a communist society. Given the relative weakness of our forces and the relative strength of the forces of reformism and revisionism within the people's movement, as well as the nature of the urgent tasks confronting us (i.e. the reconstruction of an organized communist movement organically linked to the people's struggle against capitalist-imperialism and fascism), we believe it is especially important in the context of the present volume to draft a program of transitional measures outlining the tasks that will likely confront the people's movement in our country in the context of a revolutionary situation.

In addition to this maximum program, we have also included a preliminary draft of a minimum program in the hopes that it can serve as a guide to the further development of sectoral programs (i.e. programs formulated by comrades engaged in political work in specific sectors and fronts of struggle), as well as municipal programs formulated by the local branches of our organization. It is our hope that the articulation, dissemination, and ultimately implementation of such programs will further the expansion of our organizational project, and the eventual adoption of a more comprehensive program of both minimum and maximum demands.

Programs must be operationalized. Campaigns must be systematically planned and coordinated in order to realize their aims; appropriate tactics must be carefully selected and sequenced; the results of our actions must be self-critically analyzed; and lessons learned through practice must be summarized. While demarcating a general programmatic orientation is an urgent necessity for unifying and rallying our forces at the present moment (as ongoing debates within the Democratic Socialists of America reveal), we also believe that pro-socialist forces in the United States would greatly benefit from immersion in the arduous work of social investigation, compositional analysis, and the self-critical evaluation and summation of practical experience at the local level. Only upon this basis will it be possible to articulate programs fine-tuned to the realities of the historical conjuncture faced.

Too often, programs are defined prior to obtaining real-world political experience. As Marx put it, "Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs."¹³ While we have produced various programmatic documents in the last decade concerning the tasks facing particular sectors and fronts of struggle in which our comrades participate (i.e. trade unions, tenant unions, Black liberation, Palestine solidarity, etc.), we have held off on developing a more comprehensive political program while accumulating an initial base of mass work experience, building our organizational infrastructure, and refining our organizational platform. However, on the basis of this accumulated experience, and in response to the needs of a rapidly changing political situation (i.e. the rise of the new fascism and the rapid acceleration of social and ecological crises), it is our position that the time has come for communists to advance a program for the socialist transformation of North America. It is our hope that our programmatic proposals will spark debate within the communist movement about the concrete measures that will need to be taken to address the long-neglected demands of the people while simultaneously inspiring, mobilizing, and organizing the exploited and oppressed masses to take history into their own hands and build a communist alternative.

From urban uprisings for Black liberation and industrial wildcat strikes, to the resurgence of a progressive student movement in solidarity with Palestine, the people's struggle in the United States is growing, and millions of Americans have begun to discuss and debate socialism in the years since the 2008 economic crisis. Yet despite these increasingly favorable conditions for the reconstruction of an organized communist movement, many self-proclaimed "Marxists" are today advocating for progressive social forces to build a "popular front against fascism" within the Democratic Party, i.e. a political party representing the "left wing" of imperialist capital.

This is the face of the new social imperialism, meaning those who are socialist in words, but imperialist in deeds. As combatants in the battle of ideas, we must draw a line in the sand against such proposals, and close ranks around a revolutionary communist alternative capable of really breaking with the status quo. While the new fascism undoubtedly poses an imminent threat to the people's movement—and we must never be indifferent to the suffering and immediate needs of the masses, as well as their desires for unity in struggle—we are nonetheless locked in a three-way fight. We must build the people's movement for socialism against both the new fascist imperialism and the old neoliberal imperialism, no matter how "left wing" the latter may present itself to be. While this movement must find organizational expression through the construction of a united front, this strategic alliance must oppose any coalition under the hegemony of the imperialist bourgeoisie.

We were forged in the popular struggles in the United States of the early twenty-first century, tracing our organizational origins to the student movement against the imperialist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is our conviction that among the central shortcomings of earlier cycles of struggle—from the alter-globalization movement to the anti-war movement, Occupy to Black Lives Matter—were the absence of a unifying theoretical, ideological, and political platform; a lack of deep roots among the masses of workers and oppressed peoples; and widespread confusion concerning the nature of a revolutionary program, the organization of revolutionaries, and the people's conquest of political power. This opened possibilities for the misdirection and co-optation of the revolutionary potential of the people's struggle by the forces of bourgeois reaction.

Furthermore, the feverishly anti-intellectual culture of the present-day United States militates against critical thinking and science itself, discouraging the study of revolutionary history. This self-destructive culture limits the visionary horizon of many popular social struggles, and among intellectuals often leads to the formulation of abstract theory and weak practice delinked from the concrete historical experience of the masses. The organic link between theory and practice must be reaffirmed, starting with a return to the basic precepts of revolutionary Marxism while remaining open to learning from new forms of revolutionary theory and practice which run adjacent to or fall outside this historical tradition. Indeed, we consider such learning to be integral to Marxism itself, insofar as theory should serve as a guide to action. We would do well to follow Marx and Engels, who synthesized their theoretical, ideological, and political framework through a constructive critique of the political economy of Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo; the socialism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, and Ferdinand Lassalle; the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach; and the scientific research of Charles Darwin and Lewis H. Morgan, while maintaining steadfast support for and active participation in the struggles of the exploited and oppressed.

Our first attempt to articulate a theoretical, ideological, and political platform was contained in the book Organizing for Autonomy, which we began to write in 2014, and published with Common Notions in 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and George Floyd Uprising.¹⁴ Building upon numerous lessons learned from subsequent experience, From Capital to Commune is both a continuation of and rupture with that project, being as it is the result of a process of self-critical reflection and assessment. The following text should be understood as our organization's current theoretical, ideological, and political platform and general program as of the time of its publication in 2025. In the present work, we have revisited and built upon several of our initial formulations, though we have attempted to rearticulate them in a more straightforward and accessible fashion. We have also struggled against and sought to overcome certain formulations that were idealist, naive, or poorly articulated. From Capital to Commune is the culmination of this process of constructive criticism, self-criticism, and summation.

The first chapter, "Scientific Socialism," affirms our commitment to revolutionary Marxism, outlining our conception of dialectical and historical materialism, social investigation and compositional analysis, ideology and politics, and constructive criticism, self-criticism, and summation. The second chapter, "Capitalist-Imperialism and the World Socialist Revolution," elaborates a historical materialist analysis of the capital accumulation process and the imperialist world-system, exploring its internal contradictions, tendencies, and laws of motion. The third chapter, "Building a System of Counterpower," explores the forms of political organization and praxis we consider indispensable to waging a successful protracted revolutionary struggle for communism in the twenty-first century. The fourth chapter, "The Socialist Transition to Communism," outlines a strategic orientation for world socialist revolution, conceptualizing socialism not as a distinct social system with a coherent mode of social production and reproduction, but as a contradictory historical process through which a non-communist society is transformed into a communist society. In the fifth and final chapter, "A Socialist Program," the reader will find our draft of a program for the socialist transformation of the present-day United States which we hope will inspire comrades to envision what might be possible if we fortify our positions in the people's struggle, broader our base of support, and build a people's movement for socialist revolution in the metropole. We have also included an appendix on Marx's value theory, "The Marxist Critique of Value," which informs our general analysis, vision, and strategy.

If you find From Capital to Commune to be convincing, inspiring, and useful as a framework for revolutionary struggle today, we encourage you to contact us and apply for membership in Counterpower. It is only through collective study and struggle—through our common participation in the people's movement for socialist revolution—that we will successfully move from capital to commune.

A Note on the Text

From Capital to Commune is intended to be read collectively with comrades. In order to better facilitate collective study and struggle, all chapters, sections, and subsections are numbered to allow for easy reference by readers and critics alike.

Read: "Chapter I: Scientific Socialism"