129 years ago, Friedrich Engels died.
"Let us always honour the memory of Frederick Engels, a great fighter and teacher of the proletariat!"
Lenin wrote this 129 years ago in his famous eulogy, which the Comintern (SH) has published in 20 languages of the world.
On occasion of the 129th Day of Death the Comintern (SH) publishes an article on:
Marx and Engels
ON PROTECTIVE TARIFFS
AND
FREE TRADE
(all sources from the German edition of the MEW)
Today, in the age of globalisation, the world bourgeoisie is pushing to abolish the national fragmentation of the means of production and to concentrate the property of the world's population in a few hands of the super-rich. The necessary consequence of this is globalised political centralisation, where tariffs serve the global class interests of the entire world bourgeoisie. In the quest for world domination, not only do two imperialist world camps face each other with a devastating policy of protective tariffs (USA-China), but even within their own world camp, the countries affiliated to it impose protective tariffs on each other.
Protective tariffs are not only at the expense of the proletariat of an affected country, but also at the expense of the world proletariat and all other labourers in the world.
Ultimately, tariffs serve to subjugate the world proletariat under the globalised system of exploitation and oppression of world imperialism. The fact that world imperialism cannot resolve its internal contradictions peacefully through tariffs can be seen in the current trade wars and their escalation into a Third World War.
With its protective tariff system, world imperialism is calling itself into question, jeopardising and destroying its own continued existence.
How does world imperialism overcome its protective tariff system? By creating an ever more powerful protective tariff system.
Using protective tariffs to harm each other and thus the entire capitalist world system instead of protecting it works into the hands of us Stalinist-Hoxhaists and eases our arduous path to world socialism.
"But the bourgeoisie has not only forged the weapons that bring it death. It has also begotten the men who will wield these weapons - the modern workers, the proletarians." (from: Marx and Engels: "Manifesto of the Communist Party")
And in the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" it says in the chapter on bourgeois socialism:
"Free trade ! in the interest of the labouring class; protective tariffs ! in the interest of the labouring class; cellular prisons ! in the interest of the labouring class.
That is the last, the only serious word of bourgeois socialism. The socialism of the bourgeoisie consists precisely in the assertion that the bourgeoisie are bourgeois - in the interests of the labouring class."
MEW Volume 4, pages 443 - 458
In his speech on the question of free trade on 9 January 1848 at the Democratic Society in Brussels, Marx said:
"If the free traders cannot understand how one country can enrich itself at the expense of another, we need not be surprised at this, since the same gentlemen are still less willing to understand how, within one country, one class can enrich itself at the expense of another. But do not think, gentlemen, that when we criticise freedom of trade we intend to defend the protective tariff system. Today, the protective tariff system is generally conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It replaces the previous nationalities and pushes the opposition between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme. In a word, the system of free trade accelerates the social revolution. And it is only in this revolutionary sense, gentlemen, that I vote in favour of free trade."
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Messages, appeals and statements of Comintern (SH)
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