You are here: Kabbalah Library Home / Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) / The Writings of the Last Generation / Part One

The basis of my entire commentary is the will to receive that is imprinted in every creature, and which is disparity of form to the Creator. Thus, the soul has separated from Him as an organ is separated from the body, since disparity of form in spirituality is like a separating axe in corporeality. It is therefore clear that what the Creator wants from us is equivalence of form, at which time we cleave to Him once more, as before we were created.

Our sages said: “Cleave unto His attributes; as He is merciful, etc.” It means that we are to change our attribute, which is the will to receive, and adopt the attribute of the Creator, which is only to bestow, so that all our actions will be only to bestow upon our fellow person and benefit them as best as we can.

By that we come to the goal of cleaving unto Him, which is equivalence of form. What one is compelled to do for oneself, namely the necessary minimum for one’s self and one’s family’s sustenance, is not considered disparity of form, as “Necessity is neither condemned nor praised.” This is the great revelation that will only be revealed entirely in the days of the Messiah. When this teaching is received, we will be rewarded with complete redemption.

I have already said that there are two ways to discover the completeness: the path of Torah or the path of suffering.

Hence, the Creator has given humanity technology, until they have invented the atom and the hydrogen bombs. If the total ruin that they are destined to bring upon the world is still not evident to the world, they can wait for a third world war, or a fourth one. The bombs will do their thing and the relics that remain after the ruin will have no other choice but to take upon themselves this work, where both individuals and nations will not work for themselves more than is necessary for their sustenance, while everything else they do will be for the good of others. If all the nations of the world agree to it, there will no longer be wars in the world, for no person will be concerned with his own good whatsoever, but only with the good of others.

This law of equivalence of form is the law of the Messiah. It is said about that (Micah 4): “But in the end of days it shall come to pass, and many nations shall go and say: ‘Come, and let us go up for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and He shall judge between many nations.’” That is, the Messiah will teach them the work of God in equivalence of form, which is the teaching and the law of the Messiah. “And shall prove to mighty nations,” meaning He will prove to them that if they do not take upon themselves the work of God, all nations will be destroyed by war. However, if they do accept His law, it is said about it, “and they shall beat their swords into shovels.”

If you take the path of Torah, and receive the spice, very well. And if you do not, you will tread the path of suffering, meaning that wars will break out with atom and hydrogen bombs, and the entire world will seek counsel to escape the war. Then they shall come to the Messiah, to Jerusalem, and He will teach them this law.

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Before I touch upon this matter, I will present a short introduction concerning human attributes, and say that people are divided into two kinds: egoists and altruists.

Egoists means that all that they do is for themselves. And if they ever do something for another, they must have a well-paying reward in return for their work, in money, respect, etc.

Altruists means that they sacrifice all their days for the well-being of others, without any reward. Instead, they always neglect their own needs to help others. Moreover, among them there are such who give their souls and their lives to the benefit of others, such as those we find among volunteers who go out to war for their countryfolk.

We have also found more general altruists, meaning those who give their hearts and souls to help the backward of all the nations of the world, such as communists, who fight for the benefit of oppressed among all the nations of the world. They are willing to pay for it with their very life.

Egoism is embedded in the nature of every person, as in any animal. Altruism, however, is against human nature. Yet, a chosen few are imparted this nature; I call them “idealists.” Yet, the majority of any society or state is made of simple flesh and blood folk, meaning egoists. Only a few, ten percent at most, are the exceptional altruists.

Now I shall come to the point: For the above reason, that altruists are so few in every society, the first communists, before Karl Marx’s time, were unsuccessful in acting toward spreading communism in the world, as in the saying, “One bird doesn’t make a summer.” In addition, some of them even established communal settlements like the kibbutzim in our country, but they failed because they could not endure.

This happened because all the members of the communal society must be altruistic idealists, as the founders themselves. Since ninety percent of any society, even the most developed, are egoists, they could not keep up with the conducts of a cooperative society, which is purely altruistic by nature.

This continued until the time of Karl Marx, when a very successful plan for the expansion of communism was devised, namely to incorporate the oppressed themselves in the war of communism, so that they would fight alongside them against the capitalistic bourgeois government. Since the oppressed are interested in this war only for their own good, meaning for egoistic reasons, they immediately accepted the plan, and thus communism spread out among all the levels of the backward and the oppressed. Since the backward are the majority in society, it is no surprise that today communism has succeeded in encircling a third of the world.

However, this coupling of the altruist communists with the egoistic proletariat, though it was successful in overthrowing the bourgeois government, hateful to both, that coupling still fails to keep a cooperative government with just division. The reason is very simple: A person does not make a move unless there is some purpose that necessitates that movement. That purpose serves as the motivating force to make that move like fuel that moves a machine.

For example, one does not move his hand from one place to another unless he thinks that in the other place he will be more comfortable resting his hand. That purpose of seeking a more comfortable place for one’s hand is the fuel pushing his hand from this place to the other.

Needless to say, a worker who labors all day must have fuel for the laborious movements he makes. The reward for his work is the fuel that motivates him to his hard work. Thus, if no reward is given for his labor, or if he has no need for that reward, he will not be able to work. He will be like a machine that was not fueled; even the most gullible person in the world will not think that this machine will ever move.

Hence, in a purely communistic regime, where the worker knows that he will not be given more if he works more, or receive less if he works less, and all the more so in light of the absolute motto, “Each will work according to his ability and receive according to his needs,” the worker will neither be rewarded for his diligence, nor fear his own negligence.

Thus, he would have no fuel to motivate him to work. The labor productivity of the workers would then drop to zero, until they ruin the entire regime. No schooling in the world will help in inverting human nature to be able to work without fuel, meaning without reward.

The exception to this rule is the natural born altruist idealist for whom the best reward is the good of the other. This altruistic fuel is entirely sufficient for him as a motivating force to work, like the egoistic reward for all other people. However, idealists are few; their number is insufficient for society to base itself on them. Thus, you see that communism and altruism are one and the same.

I know there are ways to compel workers to complete their share of the work that the supervisors will give them by the same conducts as in a bourgeois government, where each is rewarded according to his productivity. In addition, harsh punishment can be imposed on the negligent, as in soviet countries. However, this is not communism whatsoever. Needless to say, it is not the paradise that the communist regime is hoped to bring about, one worthy of giving one’s life for.

Moreover, a government such as this is far worse than the bourgeois government for unambiguous reasons that I will present below. Had that compulsive government been a step toward the perfect communism, it would still have been acceptable and tolerable. However, that is not the case; no training in the world will reverse human nature from egoism to altruism.

Therefore, the oppressive regime applied in the soviet countries is an eternal regime that can never be changed. And when they desire to change it into a truly cooperative regime, the workers will run out of fuel. They will not be able to work and will destroy the government. Thus, egoism and anti-communism are one and the same, identical.

Moreover, a compulsive communist government is completely unsustainable, since a bayonet-dependent government cannot persist, and the majority will ultimately rise against it and abolish it. The idealist ten percent will not be able to rule over the egoistic ninety percent and the anti-communists forever. This is what we find in soviet and eastern countries.

Moreover, even that handful of communist idealists that lead these countries today are not guaranteed to stay that way for generations, since ideals are not hereditary. Although the progenitors are idealists, there is no guarantee that their progeny will follow suit.

Thus, how can we be certain that the leadership of the second or third generation will be in the hands of communist idealists as it is today? You might say that the majority will always elect them from the public, but this is a grave mistake. The majority of the egoistic public will elect only those who are close to them in spirit, not their opponents.

Moreover, it is common knowledge that today’s leaders were not elected by the public at all. Thus, who would make certain that the elected representatives of the public will always be the idealists in the public? When the egoists are in power, they are sure to revoke that government instantaneously, or at least turn it into a kind of national communism, “a nation of Lords.”

All that I have said—when I proved that communism and altruism are the same, and that egoism and anti-communism are the same—is my own view. However, if you ask the communists themselves, they will deny it vehemently. They will claim the opposite: “We are far from any bourgeois ethics; we have no sentimentalism. It is only justice that we seek, that no man shall exploit another.” In other words, it is according to the attribute, “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours,” which is, in fact, the attribute of egoists. Hence, I must view the matters from their perceptive, and review this justice that they seek and to which they devote their lives.

First, according to the development of the communist regimes, I find that the terms, “bourgeois” and “proletariat,” are no longer sufficient to explain that economic history, and we need more general terms. It is truer to divide society into a class of diligent and a class of backward. In the bourgeois regimes, the diligent are the capitalists, and the middle class. The backward are the workers who labor for them. In the communist regimes, the diligent are the managers, the supervisors, and the intellectuals, and the backward are the workers who labor for them.

The majority in every society is always the backward. The diligent are no more than thirty percent of society. It is a natural law that the diligent class will exploit the backward class as best they can, like fish at sea, where the strong swallows the weak. It is inconsequential whether the diligent are capitalists and merchants, as in the bourgeois regimes, or whether the diligent are the managers, supervisors, the intellectuals, and the allotters, as in the communist regimes.

Ultimately, the diligent will exploit the laboring backward to the best of their ability; they will take no pity on them. The diligent will always suck out the butter and the cream, leaving the workers with only the meager whey. The only question is what remains for the workers after the ruthless exploitation by the diligent, the measure of enslavement the diligent impose on them, and the measure of freedom and human liberty the diligent allow them. It is only according to the measure of these leftovers, which the diligent leave for the backward, that we are to examine every regime, differentiate between the regimes, and choose which one is preferable.

Let us mention once more what we said, that one cannot work without any reward that serves as a fuel for a machine. In a non-altruistic communist regime, the workers must be rewarded for their work, and be heavily punished for their negligence.

However, many supervisors are required to watch over them, for without sufficient supervision, the rewards and punishments are certain to be insufficient. However, there is no harder work than standing over people and agonizing them, for “no one wants to be a hangman.” Hence, even if you place inspectors, appointees over the inspectors, and higher still appointees to watch them, they will all be negligent in their supervision, and they will not agonize the workers sufficiently.

There is no cure for that except to provide plenty of fuel to the functionaries, sufficient as reward for such hard labor, meaning the work of the hangman. In other words, they must be given several times more than a simple worker.

Thus, you should not be surprised if functionaries in Russia are paid ten to fifty times more than a simple worker; their work is ten to fifty times harder than that of a simple worker. If they are not sufficiently rewarded, they will be compelled to neglect their office, and the state will be ruined.

Now try to calculate in our country’s currency. Let us say that a simple worker earns a hundred Israeli pounds a month. This means that the lowest functionaries will receive a thousand pounds a month, ten times more. Thus, over one year, he will earn twelve thousand pounds, and over ten years, a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

If we deduct ten percent from that for his sustenance, he will be left with a hundred and eight thousand pounds. It seems that we should consider him a respectable capitalist. It is even more so with the higher functionaries.

Thus, within a few decades, the functionaries will become millionaires, at no risk, but strictly through the exploitation of the workers. As I have said, by today’s experience, society should no longer be divided into bourgeois and proletariat, but into the diligent and the backward.

You might say that this is but a phase toward pure communism, meaning that through education and public opinion, the public will be tutored until “each will work according to his ability and receive according to his needs.” Then there will be no need for inspectors and supervisors.

This is a big mistake because the motto of each working according to his ability and receiving according to his needs is a strictly altruistic motto. Wherever one can work to the benefit of society without any fuel, it is unnatural, unless altruism is the reason and the fuel for the work, as I have demonstrated.

Thus, we must not hope for any change for the better. Quite the contrary, we must fear that that handful of idealist communists who are leading today will not bequeath their leadership to other idealists. The egoistic force of the people will gradually prevail, they will choose a leadership according to their egoistic spirit, and will reinstate capitalism. At the very least, they will turn communism into some sort of national communism, a “master nation,” as did Hitler. They will have no inhibitions about exploiting other nations to benefit themselves, if they only have the power.

You might say that through education and public opinion, the nature of the masses can be turned to altruism, but this is also a grave mistake. Education can do no more than public opinion, meaning that public opinion will respect the altruists and despise the egoists.

As long as public opinion sustains altruism by means of respect and ignominy, education will be effective. However, if there comes a time when an experienced and competent speaker gives a daily speech that is the opposite of public opinion, he will undoubtedly succeed in changing public opinion as he wishes.

We already have such a bitter experience in history with that villain who turned a well-mannered people like the Germans into wild animals through his daily sermons. Several hundred years of education vanished like a soap bubble, since public opinion had changed, and education had nothing more to rely on, as education cannot exist without the public’s support.

Thus, you evidently see that there is no hope to change this compulsive government. There is also no hope that the masses will ever achieve true communism, according to the motto, “Each will work according to his ability and receive according to his needs.”

Rather, the workers must remain eternally under the dreadful rod of the managers and the supervisors, while the managers and supervisors will always suck the blood of the workers, as bourgeois capitalists do, if not much worse than they. After all, in the compulsory regime of the communists, the workers do not even have the right to strike. Famine and destruction will always hang over their heads, as the Soviet experience teaches. Moreover, if the compulsory government is ever revoked, society will certainly be ruined instantaneously, for the workers would run out of fuel.

Indeed ... It is said that in a communist regime it is worthwhile for the proletariat to suffer, since they suffer for themselves, as they are the owners of the productive means, the property, and the surplus, and no one can exploit them. However, in a capitalist regime they only have their daily bread, and all the surplus is given to the capitalists. How lovely these words are on the surface.

Nevertheless, if there is an ounce of truth in these words, then they apply to the diligent, who are the functionaries and the managers, who take all the pleasures of the compulsory regime in any case. Indeed, regarding the proletariat, namely the workers and the backward, these are idle words entirely.

Let us take our own railroads, for example. They are state property, meaning that the ownership of the railroad is in the hands of all the citizens of the state. I ask, do any of us citizens feel our right to ownership of the railroad? Do we have any greater benefit when traveling on a nationalized railway when compared to traveling on a private, capitalistic railway?

We can also take a cooperative owned entirely by the proletariat, like Solel Boneh (a large construction corporation in Israel), owned solely by the workers. Do the workers who work in their own property have any additional benefit than when working for a foreign capitalistic property?

I fear that one who works for the foreign entrepreneur will feel much more at home than one working for Solel Boneh, even though he is seemingly a co-owner. Only the handful of managers has the entire ownership, and they do with the national property as they see fit. A private citizen is forbidden to even inquire what they are doing, and for what.

Thus, the proletariat feels no delight in the property of the state and the productive means that is under the hands of the executives and the functionaries, who always oppress and humiliate them as the dust of the earth. What then is the surplus that they have in the compulsory communist regime, more than their daily bread?

I do not envy the proletariat whatsoever. They are and always will be in the compulsory communist regime, under the harsh encumbrance of the functionaries and inspectors, who can torture them with all sorts of atrocities, oblivious to the world and to public opinion, as all the advertising mediums will be in the hands of the clerks. No one will be able to expose his or her evil deeds in public.

In addition, everyone will be bound under their hands, unable to leave the country and escape them, just as our fathers were locked in Egypt, where no slave could leave there to be free. Because all the workers leave the surplus of the produce for the state, how will they let them go elsewhere, when the state loses their surplus? In a word, a non-altruistic communist regime must always consist of two classes: the diligent, who are the managers, the functionaries, and the intellectuals, and the class of the backward, who are the productive workers, the majority of society.

For the functioning of the state, the class of the diligent must, willingly or unwillingly, enslave, tantalize, and humiliate the working class mercilessly and shamelessly. They will exploit them ten times more than the bourgeois exploit them, for they will be utterly defenseless, as they will not have the right to strike. They will be unable to disclose the evil deeds of the employers in public, and they will take no pleasure at all in the ownership of the productive means that the functionaries have acquired.

2) One more thing, and this is the most important. Communism must correct more than just the economic order. It must also ensure the minimal existence of the people in the world. In other words, it is to prevent wars so that nations will not destroy one another. I have already screamed like a crane over it back in 1933, in my book, The Peace pamphlet, warning that wars today have come to such proportions that they endanger the life of the entire world.

The only counsel to prevent this is by all the nations adopting the regime of perfect communism, meaning altruistic. Needless to say, today, after the discovery and use of atom bombs, and the discovery of hydrogen bombs, it is no longer doubtful that after one, two, or three wars, the entire human civilization will be totally ruined, leaving no relics.

Contemporary, modern egoism cannot secure peace in the world, for even if all the nations of the world adopt this communist regime, there will still not be a compelling reason for nations rich in production means, raw materials, and civilization, to share the raw materials and productive means equally with the poor nations.

For example, the nations in America will not want to equalize their standard of living with the Asian or African nations, or even with the European nations. A single nation might have the power to equalize the standard of living of the rich and middleclass—the owners of the productive means—with the proletariat, by inciting the poor masses, the majority of society, to destroy the rich and middleclass and take their property. However, this counsel will not be of any use in compelling a wealthy nation to share its property and means of production with a poor nation, as the rich nation has already prepared arms and bombs to safeguard itself from its poor neighbors.

Thus, what good did the communistic regime do in the world? It leaves in tact the state of envy among the nations just as in the capitalistic regime, without any relief. A just division within each nation for itself will not assist to just division among the nations whatsoever.

Hence, while basic sustenance is under such immediate risk, it is a waste of time to improve the economic government. They would be better off using that time seeking counsel to save the very life of all humankind.

You see that the whole problem with today’s communistic regime is the lack of adequate reward, which is the fuel for the productive force of the workers. Hence, it is impossible to employ them successfully except with the fuel of reward and punishment.

Hence, we need inspectors, supervisors, and managers to take upon themselves this hard work of supervising the workers, and ruthlessly suck their blood and sweat, making their lives endlessly bitter with hardship and enslavement. In return for this hard work, they must also be given adequate reward, which is no less than to make them millionaires, for they will not want to live the life of hangmen of their own free will for any less than that, as we see in the Soviet country.

In addition, we must not hope for this reign of terror to ever end, as the optimists promise. Neither bayonets nor education or public opinion will be able to change human nature to work willingly without adequate fuel.

Hence, it is a curse for generations. When the compulsory government is revoked, the workers will no longer yield a produce that will suffice for the sustenance of the state. There is no cure for that, except to bring faith in spiritual reward and punishment from above into the hearts of the workers, from He who knows all mysteries.

Thus, through the right education and promotion, the spiritual reward and punishment will be sufficient fuel for the produce of their work. They will no longer need managers or supervisors over their shoulders, but each and every one will work willingly and wholeheartedly for society, to win his or her reward from Heaven.

The Positive

1. Communism is an ideal, meaning moral. The goal “to work according to one’s ability and receive according to one’s needs” testifies to that.

2. Every moral must have a basis that necessitates it; education and public opinion are a very unsound basis, and the proof of this is Hitler.

3. Because any concept of the majority is sure to triumph, it is needless to say that the carrying out of the corrected communism is by the majority of the public. Thus, it is necessary to establish the moral level of the majority of the public on a basis that will necessitate and guarantee that the corrected communism will never be corrupted. The preordained ideal in humans is insufficient, as too few possess it, and they are insignificant compared to the majority of the public.

4. Religion is the only basis sure to raise the level of the collective to the moral level of “working according to the ability and receiving according to the need.”

5. Communism must be turned away from the concept, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours,” which is sodomite rule, to the concept, “What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours,” meaning absolute altruism. When the majority of the public accepts this rule de facto, it will be time to “work according to the ability and receive according to the need.” The sign would be that every one would work like a contract-worker.

6. It is forbidden to nationalize property before the public reaches this moral level. Before there is a reliable moral factor in the public, the collective will not have fuel for work.

7. The entire world is one family. The framework of communism should ultimately encircle the entire world in an equal standard of living for all. However, the actual process is a gradual one. Each nation whose majority accepts these basic elements practically, and has a guaranteed fuel, may enter the framework of communism right away.

8. The economic and religious form that guarantees communism will be the same for all nations. Except for religious forms, which do not concern the economy and other conducts, each will have one’s own form, which must not be changed at all.

9. The world must not be corrected in religious matters before economic correction is guaranteed for the entire world.

10. There should be a detailed program from all the above-mentioned rules and the rest of the necessary rules in this regard. Anyone who comes under the framework of communism must take a solemn oath.

11. First, there must be a small establishment whose majority are altruists to the above-mentioned extent. It means that they will work as diligently as contract-workers, ten to twelve hours a day and more. Each and every one will work according to his strength and receive according to his needs.

It will have all the forms of the government of a state. In this manner, even if the framework of this institution contains the entire world, and the brute-force government will be revoked completely, nothing will need to be changed in governance or work.

This institution will be like a global focal point with nations and states surrounding it to the farthest corners of the world. All who enter this framework of communism will have the same agenda and the same leadership as the center. They will be as one nation in profits, losses and results.

12. It is absolutely forbidden for any one from the institution to turn to any of the judicial establishments, etc., or any of the forms existing in the brute-force regime. All conflicts are to be resolved among themselves, meaning between the concerned parties. Public opinion, which condemns egoism, will condemn the guilty party for exploiting the righteousness of one’s friend.

13. It is a fact that the Jews are hated by most nations, and are made fewer by them. It is true for the religious, the secular, and the communists. There is no tactic to fight against it except to bring true altruistic moral into the heart of the nations, to the point of cosmopolitism.

14. If one is forbidden to exploit one’s friends, why should a nation be allowed to exploit its fellow nations? What justifies one nation enjoying the land more than other nations? Therefore, international communism must be instituted.

As there are individuals who have been privileged by diligence, chance, or inheritance from ancestry to a greater share than the negligent, quite so is it among the nations. Hence, why should war on individuals be greater than against nations?

15. If you lived on an isle of savages that you could not bring to law and order except through religion, would you doubt it and let them destroy one another? Similarly, with regard to altruism, they are all savages, and there is no tactic they will accept unless through religion. Who would hesitate to abandon them to destroy each other with hydrogen bombs?

16. There are three bases to the expansion of faith: 1) Satisfaction of Desires; 2) Proofs; 3) and Propaganda.

1. Satisfaction of Desires is like the perpetuating of the soul, reward, as well as national reward, which is the glorification of the nation.

2. Proofs is that the world cannot exist without it, much less in the days of the atom...

3. Propaganda can also be used instead of proof, if it is done with diligence.

17. Because of the craving for possessions, it is impossible to build Altruistic Communism unless Egoistic Communism comes first, as demonstrated by all the societies that wished to establish Altruistic Communism prior to Marxism. However, now that a third of the world has already laid down their rudiments on an Egoistic Communist regime, it is possible to begin to establish a durable Altruistic Communism on a religious foundation.

18. Altruistic Communism will finally completely annul the brute-force regime. Instead, “every man will do that which is right in his own eyes.” It should not surprise us, as it was unbelievable that children could be educated by explanation, but only through the cane. But today most people have accepted this and reduce the forceful rule on children.

This regards children who have neither patience nor knowledge. It is even more so with people, a collective of educated, knowledgeable people brought up to altruism. They will certainly not need the brute-force regime. Indeed, there is nothing more humiliating and degrading for a person than being under the brute-force government.

Even courthouses will not be necessary, unless some unusual event occurs, where the neighbors do not influence an exceptional individual. In that case, special pedagogues will be needed to turn that person around through argumentation and explanation of the benefit of society, until that person is brought back in line.

If one is stubborn, and it is all to no avail, then the public will turn away from that person as though from an outcast, until that person rejoins with the rules of society.

It turns out that after there is a settlement established on Altruistic Communism, with a majority of people who have actively taken these rules upon themselves, they will immediately decide not to bring each other to any court, governmental agency, or any other kind of force. Rather, everything will be done by gentle persuasion. Hence, no person is to be accepted into the society before he is tested to see if he is so crude that cannot be tutored into altruism.

19. It is important to make such a correction that no person will demand his needs from society. Instead, there will be selected people who will examine the needs of every person and provide for every single person. Public opinion will denounce one who claims something for oneself, such as today’s thief and scoundrel.

Thus, everyone’s thoughts will be devoted to bestowal upon one’s fellow person, as is the nature of any edification that calculates it, even before one feels one’s own needs.

If we want to jump on a table, we must prepare ourselves to jump much higher than the table, and then we will land on the table. However, if we want to jump only as high as the table, we will fall down.

20. Admittedly, the Egoistic Communism is but a step on the way to justice, a sort of “From Lo Lishma to Lishma” [from not-for-her-sake to for-her-sake]. But I say that the time for the second phase, namely Altruistic Communism, has arrived.

First, it must be established in one country, as a model. After that the countries in the first phase will certainly accept it. Time is of the essence, since the shortcomings and brute-force used in Egoistic Communism deter the majority of the cultural world from this method altogether.

Thus, the world must be introduced to the perfect communism, and then most civilized countries in the world will undoubtedly accept it. It is of great concern that imperialism will abolish communism from the world, but if our perfect method will actually be publicized, imperialism will certainly be left as a king with no armies.

21. Clearly, no stable and proper social life is possible except when controversies among members of society are resolved by the majority. It therefore follows that there cannot be a good regime in a society unless the majority is good. A good society means that the majority in it is good, and a bad society means that the majority of it is bad. As I have said above, item 3, that communism must not be established before the majority of the people in society operate with a desire to bestow.

22. No circulation can secure a coercive rule over future generations, and neither public opinion nor education will help in this case, for they naturally tend to grow weaker. The exception is religion, which naturally grows stronger. We see from experience that nations that have accepted religion first coercively and compulsively, observe them willingly in the following generation. Moreover, they are dedicated and devoted to it.

We must understand that although the fathers took upon themselves Altruistic Communism because they were idealists, there is no guarantee that their children will follow them in this regime. Needless to say, if the fathers adopted communism by coercion, as is the manner in Egoistic Communism, it will not endure for generations, but will ultimately be overpowered and revoked. A regime cannot be imposed except through religion.

23. When I say that a communistic regime must not be instated before there is an altruistic majority, I do not mean that they will be willingly idealistic. Rather, it means that they will keep it for religious reasons, in addition to public opinion. This coercion is one that will last for generations, for religion is the primary compeller.

24. We must remember all the suffering, poverty, corruption and war, and the widows and orphans in the world, seeking salvation from the Altruistic Communism. At that time, it will not be difficult for one to dedicate one’s entire life to save them from ruin and the dreadful pains. It is even more so with a young person, whose heart has not been stupefied by one’s own shortcomings. That person will certainly support it with one’s heart and soul.

The Negative

1. If there is nationalization before the public is ready for it, meaning before each one has a sound basis, and secured cause for fuel to work, it is as though one ruins one’s small house before he has the means to build another house.

2. Public equality does not mean equalizing the level of the talented and successful to the level of the negligent and oppressed. This would completely ruin the public. Rather, it means allowing each person in the public a middleclass standard of living. Thus, the negligent, too, will enjoy their lives as much the middleclass.

3. The freedom of the individual must be kept if it is not harmful to the majority of the public. The detrimental ones must not be pitied, and must be made harmless.

4. Current communism endures because of the idealists who lead it. They were idealists before they became communists. However, the second generation, when leaders are elected by the majority of the public, will gradually be repealed, assuming the form of Nazism or turning back to possessiveness. This is because nothing will stop them from exploiting other, negligent nations.

5. Egoistic Communism holds no war-preventing element, since the basis of all the wars is living territory, where each wants to build on the ruin of the other, whether justly, or because of envy that the other has more.

Communism based on “mine is mine” in a framework of equal division does nothing to remove the envy of the nations with each other, much less the nations’ lack of living space. It is also hopeless that the rich nations will give of their share to equalize with the poor because “mine is mine and yours is yours” does not necessitate it. Only communism of “mine is yours and yours is yours” will resolve it.

6. Even today we see that there is a global force that overpowered and conquered all the communist countries, behaving there as in its own home, just as it was in ancient history in Greece and Rome, etc. There is no doubt that this force will split into pieces in the future, and we already have Tito. When they split, they are certain to fight each other, for how does Russia govern Czechoslovakia, or the others, if not by the sword and the spear?

7. In communism, employers strive to diminish the consumption of the workers and increase their productivity. In imperialism, the employers want, and act to increase the consumption of the workers, and to equalize his productivity to consumption.

8. The rulers’ and supervisors’ class will ultimately create a sort of exile in Egypt over the working class since all the workers leave their surplus in the hands of the rulers, who take the greater part from them. Hence, they will not let a single worker get away from under their hands to another country. Thus, the workers will be caged, guarded like Israel in Pharaoh’s Egypt.

9. The ruling class is destined finally to put all the old and handicapped in the working class to death, arguing that they eat more than they produce and they are parasites on the country. No one will die a natural death.

10. If communism spreads throughout the world, it will put to death every nation that eats more than it produces.

11. If the profiteers and the merchants become allotters, the buyers will become receivers of charity from the allotters, and the allotters will do with them as they see fit, or as much as they are afraid of the inspectors.

A Regime Cannot Exist on Spears Forever

12. Communism does not exist over an anti-communist society because a regime supported on bayonets and spears is unsustainable. Eventually, the majority in society will prevail and overthrow that government. Hence, an altruistic majority must be established first, and the government will be supported on will.

The Habit of Waves of Hatred and Envy Will Later Turn Against the Backward

13. Communism that is built on waves of hatred and envy will only succeed in overthrowing the bourgeois, not in benefiting the backward. On the contrary, the same ones that have grown accustomed to hatred and envy will turn the arrows of hatred against the backward once the bourgeois are gone.

Egoistic Communism Will Always Be at War with the Public

14. The communist regime will be compelled always to be at war with the anti-communists by its very nature. This is because each person naturally tends to be possessive. People naturally tend to take the cream and leave the meager whey for others.

Nature does not change by education or public opinion. It is unimaginable that one will ever willingly agree to just division, and army bayonets cannot turn nature around, much less education and public opinion.

Naturally-born idealists are few. If you should say that theft and robbery are well guarded in the capitalistic regime, I shall tell you that it is because the law permits legal competition. It is comparable to a person who gathers an association where the majority is murderers and robbers, and wants to rule over them and compel them to keep the law. But regarding the annulment of property, everyone is a robber.

Israel Is Qualified to Set an Example to All the Nations

15. Altruistic Communism is seldom found in the human spirit; hence, the nobler nation must take upon itself to set an example for the entire world.

The Country Is at Risk. Altruistic Communism Will Help With the Ingathering of the Exiles

16. The nation is at risk because each will flee to a different place before the economy is stabilized. This is because not every person can endure the test while there is a way to live comfortably.

In the Altruistic Communism the ideal will shine upon all people, giving them satisfaction that will make the suffering worthwhile. Moreover, it will draw the ingathering of the exiles from all the countries because the worries and survival wars everyone experiences overseas will motivate them to return to their land and live peacefully and justly.

The Philosophy Is Ready, Meaning Kabbalah Based on Religion

17. Each practical method also requires a renewed idealistic nourishment to contemplate, meaning a philosophy. As far as this is concerned, there is already a complete and ready-made philosophy, meaning Kabbalah, though it is intended only for the leaders.

Why Are We the Chosen People for It?

18. We must set a good example to the world because we are better qualified than all other nations. It is not because we are more idealistic than they are, but because we suffered from tyranny more than all other nations. For this reason, we are more prepared to seek counsel that will end tyranny from the land.

19. Ownership and control are not identical. For example, the owners of the railway are the shareholders, and the control is in the hands of the managers, though they have only a single share, or nothing at all. The same applies to the shipping company, whose shareholders have no right to control or advise.

Take warships for example. They are owned by the state, yet no civilian is permitted aboard them. In addition, if the state should be in the hands of the proletariat by way of ownership, the management will ultimately be in the hands of the same managers as now, or others of likewise temper. The proletariat will have no greater foothold or benefit than they do now, unless the rulers are idealists, caring for the good of every single individual.

In a word, with respect to the government, it makes no difference whether the ownership is given to capitalists or to the state. In the end, it is the managers who will control them, not the owners. Hence, the correction of society should relate primarily to the executives. “The Taming of Power,” 214 [“The Taming of Power” is a chapter in Bertrand Russell’s (British Philosopher, 1872-1970) book, Power.]

And likewise, said Avniel in the Knesset (Herut, date...) [Benjamin Avniel (1906-1993), was an MK (member of Knesset, the Israeli Parliament) from the second elections to the sixth, and was part of the Herut party]. In Israel, the gap between the lowest functionary to the highest one is times 1.7. In England, it is times ten, and in the rest of the countries it is more or less the same. But in Russia it is times fifty. Thus, in a proletariat state the functionaries and the managers waste their energy much more than in capitalistic countries. This is because the government is oligarchic, and not democratic. In simple words, it is because the communists control anti-communists. There must be oligarchy. This will never change since communism means idealism, which is not in the majority.

20. Such a state, where the communists rule over anti-communists is obliged to be in the hands of a group of autocratic executives in absolute dictatorship. All the people in the country will be in their hands as though they are nothing. They must always keep the sword in their hands for killing, incarceration, concealed and revealed punishments, food depravation, and all sorts of punishments, according to each executive’s arbitrary decision. All this is in order to keep the anti-communists in dreadful terror and fear, so they work for the state and not ruin it inadvertently or maliciously.

21. In such a state, the executives must make sure the citizens cannot choose a democratic management, since the majority of the country is anti-communistic.

22. In such a state, where the communists rule over the anti-communists, the managers must see that the citizens have no possibility for advertisement, or to disclose the dreadful injustice that is done to the people of the state or to the minorities in the state.

In other words, the printers are not to print and the administrators of the lecture halls must watch over the speakers so they do not criticize their deeds. They must punish harshly anyone who plans, or even thinks of criticizing their acts. Thus, the government will have full control to deal with them arbitrarily, and there will be no one to detain them. ( Power, ... 21.)

23. Ethics cannot rely solely on education and pubic opinion, because public opinion necessitates only what is in the public’s favor. Hence, if one comes and proves that morality is harmful to the public and vulgarity is more beneficial, they will immediately discard morality and choose vulgarity, as Hitler testifies.

24. The Egoistic Communism based on waves of envy and hate will never be rid of them. Rather, when there are no bourgeois, they will cast their hate on Israel. We must not be mistaken that communism will cure the loathing of Israel from the nations. Only Altruistic Communism can be expected to bring that remedy.

Debate

1. Clearly, the motto, “Each will receive according to his needs and work according to his ability,” is absolute altruism. When this is applied, the majority of the public, or all of it, will be armed with the measure “mine is yours.” Hence, do tell, which are the elements that can bring the public to this desire? Today’s elements, namely the hatred of the capitalists and all sorts of animosities extending from it, will only bring one the opposite. It will instill the measure of “mine is mine and yours is yours” in people, which is Sodomite Rule, the opposite of love of man.

2. I have nothing to say to those who go with the flow, only with those who have their own mind and the strength to criticize.

3. Engels’ fundamental concept, in the name of Marx, states, “The oppressed and exploited class cannot be liberated from the oppressing and exploiting class without also liberating the entire society from exploitation, oppression and class struggle once and for all.”

This is in contrast to contemporary communist conduct to slaughter and degenerate all the bourgeois parts of society. This powerful enmity will never be effaced from their children. It is also in contrast with the fact that they are establishing a sovereign, governing class, monitoring the working class. There is no more painful and regrettable class struggle than that. They pump out the fat from the workers’ marrow and leave them the residue, along with perpetual fear of death, or of being sent to Siberia.

Where is the salvation here? They have replaced the bourgeois class, which was not at all so terrible. In fact, its shadow has been lifted from them since the workers have the power to strike against them. They’ve substituted it with a sovereign class, governing and ruling a class of exploited slaves who are perpetually terrorized by a punishment far worse than they had in their war against the bourgeois.

4. The country is divided into two classes: the diligent, and the backward. The diligent are the employers and the leaders; the backward are the workers and the led. It is a natural law that the diligent will exploit the backward. The only question is how much freedom, equality, and standard of living do they leave for the backward. Also, how much labor the diligent will demand of them?

The backward are always the vast majority in society. The diligent are but ten percent of it, which is the exact amount needed to operate society. If the percentage is increased or decreased, there is a crisis.

These are the crises in the bourgeois society. Crises in the communist society will take a different form, but with the same amount of pain. The name “diligent” also includes their heirs and those who bribe the diligent. The name “backward” relates also to diligent who for some reason have been thrown into the backward class.

5. Regarding religion: The permanent moral state does not stem from religion, but from science. “Empirio Criticism,” 324 [This is a statement made by Lenin in his Book, Materialism and Empirio Criticism].

6. Morality based on public benefit exists in social animals, too. However, this is not enough since it changes to vulgarity where it is harmful to society, such as the great patriotic murderer, carried on the shoulders of the nationalists. Thus, only religion-based morality is durable, valid, and irreplaceable. We find the same among savage nations, whose level of morality is far greater than civilized nations.

7. A society cannot be good unless its majority is good. However, some stun or entice the evil majority with all sorts of contrivances until they are compelled to choose a good leadership. This is what all democracies do. Alas, the majority finally learns, or others teach them, and they choose an evil leadership that matches their ill will.

8. We must understand why Marx and Engels decided that perfection of communism means “Working according the ability and receiving according to the needs.” Who forced it upon them? Why was it not enough to receive according to one’s production, and not to equalize one with a negligent, or with one without sons? The thing is that communism will not endure by way of egoism, but by the way of altruism, for the abovementioned reasons.

News

By the very same way they have exterminated the capitalists, they were also compelled to exterminate the farmers. In addition, in the sense of the joy of life, they will always be forced to destroy the proletariat. Although Marx and Engels were the first to place the correction of the world on the proletariat, it did not occur to them to do it coercively, but rather democratically. For this reason, the workers had to be the majority, and then establish a proletariat government where the leaders of the regime would gradually correct until they come to the abstract altruism – “each according to his actions, and each according to his needs.”

Lenin added to it the establishment of the communist regime through forcing the minority opinion over the majority, hoping that afterwards, altruism would be conducted among them, too. All that was needed for this was an armed camp of proletariat. Since the property owners are scattered, the government could take it by force, and then come and defeat the weak and unorganized property owners.

In that, he disagreed with Marx and said that it is quite the contrary; in the backward countries it is easier to defeat them, as all that is needed was to turn the soldiers into communists and destroyers of the property owners, and to take their property. It is easier to incite soldiers to kill and loot the property owners in a backward country.

That is why he understood that he will not find a cruder multitude than in his own country, and therefore said that his country will be first. However, when he saw that in fact, it was not enough to destroy the ten capitalistic percent, but that millions of farmers must also be destroyed, he grew tired, because it is impossible to destroy half a nation.

Then came Stalin, who said that the end justifies the means, and took upon himself the task of destroying the farmers, too. He was successful.

However, not one of them also considered that in the end, they need the good will of the proletariat, so that they would work, and to instill the conduct of altruism in them, which would bring them to this motto. This is utterly impossible. Nature cannot be changed so that not only would one work for one’s needs, but for his friend’s needs. This is utterly impossible without coercion and enforcement. Ultimately, the majority will rise and revoke the regime.

Liars are those who say that idealism is either natural or a result of education. Rather, it is a direct result of religion. As long as religion did not sufficiently expand throughout the world, the entire world was barbaric, without an ounce of conscientiousness.

Only after servants of the Creator expanded, did the posterity of the agnostics become idealists. Thus, the idealist is only so because of his ancestry’s commandment. However, it is an orphaned commandment, meaning without a commander.

If religion were to be cancelled altogether, all governments would then become Hitlers. Nothing would detain them from increasing the country’s benefits incessantly. Even today, governments know no sentiments. However, there is still a limit to their acts between the still and the idealists in the country. When religion is revoked, it will not be difficult for rulers to uproot the remaining idealists, as it was not hard for Hitler and Stalin.

The difference between the idealist and religious is that the idealist’s actions are baseless. He cannot convince anyone of his preference for justice, and who so necessitates it. Perhaps it is but faintness of heart, as Nietzsche said? He will not have a single sensible word to utter, which is why Hitler and Stalin overpowered them. However, the religious will boldly counter that it is so commanded by the Lord, and would give his life for it...

If my words yield benefit, good. If not, the last generations will know why communism was revoked, that it was not because it could not be sustained, as capitalists say, but because the leaders did not understand how to establish that regime. They erected a regime of egoism where they should have established a regime of altruism.

If anyone should disagree with me and say that education will suffice for that, I permit him to establish for himself a society based solely on education, but I will not partake in it. I know all too well that these are idle things. Thus, might he assist me in establishing a religion-based society?

Appendices and Drafts

[Fourteen pieces that form appendices or drafts to the essay presented in Part One]

Section One

[This section contains inscriptions that appear to be headlines that the author wrote for his own needs toward writing the essay presented in Part One. It is a kind of first, and general draft.]

“Critical communism has never refused, or refuses now, to welcome the abundance of ideological, ethical, psychological, and educational ideas that may be reached by studying the various forms of communism” (Antonio Labriola (1843-1904), an Italian Marxist theoretician). [1]

2. “Were we to wish to think today as Marx and Engels did, at a time when if they themselves were here today, they would be thinking otherwise ... defending the dead letterof the latter,” etc. (from Georgi Plekhanov’ introductions to the Communist Manifesto) [2].

The Positive

1. Evidence for the altruistic communism

2. For the rules of the altruistic communist society

3. For the international communism

4. For a beneficial religion

5. Promoting the expansion of the religion

6. Egoistic communism precedes the altruistic communism

7. For the keeping of Judaism.

The Negative

1. The weakness of the regime of egoistic communism (8)

2. Wars will not become obsolete (9)

3. Proof that egoistic communism cannot last (10)

4. Motives from Zionism (11)

5. Israel must be a role model for the nations (12)

6. Concerning the egoistic regime (13)

7. Ethics (14)

10/2 14/8 14/4 Communism is egoistic along the way, although eventually it is altruistic.

8/1 3/3 The world should be divided into two kinds: egoists and altruists 0/0.

10/3 10/1 10/2 10/6 The majority of the public is always anti-communistic

8/2 For this reason, the communist regime must rely on bayonets.

13/7 The drawbacks in the egoistic communism governance

From 8/9 to 9/1 Communism will not save us from wars.

Communism must be international, from 3/2 to 12/1/2.

11/1 Strengthening Zionism, especially the kibbutzim, which are in danger of being cancelled.

A communistic rule over anti-communists will not survive on bayonets. Those idealists who are in power today will not be elected in the second generation, but rather egoistic managers, like them, and they will turn into Nazism.

I am speaking only of the proletariat, the weak, and of those idealists who dedicate their lives for them. I do not, however, speak of the diligent because they will not be deficient under any regime. Even in the worst regime, they will not be deprived, and it makes no difference whether they are called “industrialists,” “merchants,” or “managers,” “supervisors” or “distributors.”

Still, although the coupling of altruists with egoists had so succeeded as to overthrow the bourgeois government, it is utterly unfit to establish a happy cooperative society, as the founders wish. Moreover, it is to the contrary, since that coupling of the idealistic communists with the oppressed egoists is bound to break up, leaving social chaos in its wake.

1) How much to leave

2) What is the measure of enslavement

3) What is the measure of freedom

There is no correction to the weak unless they choose the committee.

3) The diligent will not let them out of their countries

3) In the end, they will put to death the elderly and the sick

1) When traders become distributors, the buyers will become receivers of charity

2) Ownership and control are not the same

3) In a compulsory regime there will not be democratic elections

2) In such a regime, the citizens are completely inconsequential in the eyes of the government

2) In such a regime the managers will enslave even more

2) In such a regime the employers will be able to conceal their cruelty

Explaining Hitlerism

1) Religion is the only sound basis for corrections

1) Religion is the only sound basis for raising the moral standard

1) Even if it begins with coercion, it ends in willingness

2) Communism must not be established before altruism has spread through the majority of the public

1) Religion and ideals complement one another: one is for the few, the other is for the masses.

3) Due to man’s craving to work less and receive more, they will be able to assume a communistic religion before an egoistic religion has encompassed a third of the world.

4) If you came to an island where savages destroy one another, would you hesitate to offer them a religion by which to save their lives?

5) Man will not be able to settle for dry commandments; he needs a philosophy that will explain to him his good deeds. This is what they have prepared.

Section Two

For the Introduction

1. I have already conveyed the rudiments of my perception in 1933. I have also spoken to the leaders of the generation, but at the time, my words were not accepted, though I was screaming like a crane, warning about the destruction of the world. Alas, it made no impression.

Now, however, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think the world will believe me that the end of the world is coming rapidly, and Israel will be the first nation to be burned, as in the previous war. Thus, today it is good to awaken the world to accept the only remedy, and they will live and exist.

2. We must understand why Marx and Engels necessitated the ultimate communism, where each works according to his ability and receives according to his needs. Why do we need this strict condition, being the measure of “mine is yours and yours is yours,” the absolute altruism?

In that regard, I have come to prove in this article that there is no hope for communism to exist, if it is not brought to this end, which is complete altruism. Until then, it is nothing but phases in communism.

Once I have proven the rightness of the motto, “Each according to his ability, and each according to his needs,” we must see if these phases can yield this outcome.

Today, the definitions, “bourgeois” and “proletariat,” no longer suffice to explain the history of economy. Rather, we need more general terms: the “Diligent Class” and the “Backward Class” (above in the section “Debate,” item 4).

After twenty-five years of experience, we are baffled regarding the complete happiness that the communist regime had promised us. Its opponents say it is the absolute evil, and its supporters say that it is heaven on earth.

Indeed, we must not cast off the words of the opponents at a stroke, because when one wants to know another’s properties, he must ask both his friends and his foes. It is a rule that the friends know only the virtues and not a single flaw, for “love covers all transgressions.” The foes are the opposite: They know only the faults, for “hate covers all virtues.”

Thus, one knows the truth when hearing the words of both. I wish to examine communism thoroughly, and explain its advantages and disadvantages. Mostly, I wish to explain the corrections, how all its shortcomings can be corrected so that everyone will see and admit that this regime is indeed the regime that brings both justice and happiness.

How happy we were when communism came to practical experimentation in a nation as big as Russia. It was clear to us that after a few years the government of justice and happiness would appear before the entire world, and thus the capitalist government would vanish from the world in a wink of an eye.

Yet, that was not the case. Quite the contrary, all the civilized nations speak of the Soviet communist regime as of a bad deformity. Hence, not only was the bourgeois regime not cancelled, it rather grew twice as strong as before the Soviet experiment.

Section Three

Why did communism had to have taken the form of “each according to his ability, and each according to his actions”? A communist government cannot endure over an anti-communist society, since a government supported on bayonets is unsustainable.

Communism built on waves of envy can only overthrow and ruin the bourgeois, but not benefit the backward proletariat. Conversely, when the bourgeois are annihilated, the arrows of odium will aim at the backward.

Nothing can guarantee a powerful government over the future generations except religion. Even if the progenitors are idealists, and have assumed the communism, there is no certainty that their progeny would pursue it. All the more so, if the progenitors had assumed it by force and coercion, which is the conduct in egoistic communism, they will ultimately rise and demolish it.

A communist regime cannot exist atop an anti-communist society. It would have to fight the anti-communists throughout its days. This is because every person is naturally possessive; one cannot work without motivation.

The army’s bayonets will not turn man's nature around, and the idealists are few. Several thousand years of penalties rest on the heads of the thieves, the robbers, and the fraudulent, yet they have not changed their nature even though they can obtain everything legally.

It is much the same as one coming upon a society of thieves and murderers, wanting to lead them and restrict them to legal ways by force. It must explode.

Double. Double. Double.

Because the majority opinion is guaranteed to win, it is all the more so with the implementation of communism. It will not persist but through the majority of the public. Hence, we must perpetuate the moral level of the majority of the public in such a way that it will never be corrupted.

Religion is the only sound basis that will persist for generations. Communism must be transformed to the mode of “mine is yours and yours is yours,” meaning absolute altruism. After the majority of the public achieves it, it will observe, “Each will work according to his ability and receive according to his needs.”

Before the majority of the public achieves this level of morality, it is forbidden to nationalize the property for the above-mentioned reasons.

Section Four

Nationalization before the public is ready, for it is similar to wrecking one’s rickety house before one has the means to build a strong one.

Just division does not mean equalizing the diligent to the backward. This would be ruinous to the public. Rather, it means equalizing the backward to the diligent.

Egoistic Communism exists now through a group of idealists that lead it. Yet, in future generations, the public will not elect idealists, but only the most capable, who are not limited by the ideal, and then communism will take on the form of Nazism.

In the Egoistic Communism, the employers wish to reduce the consumption of the worker, and increase the produce, which will always be questionable if sufficient. Imperialism is better than that, since the employers want to increase the consumption of the worker and equalize the productivity to the consumption.

Section Five

The definitions, “bourgeois” and “proletariat,” are no longer sufficient to explain history. Instead, it should be divided into “Diligent Class” and “Backward Class.”

It is a natural law that the diligent class will exploit the backward class, like fish at sea, where the strong swallow the weak. It makes no difference if the diligent are bourgeois, or the functionaries of the communistic government. Rather, the question is how much freedom and enjoyment do they leave for the backward.

The diligent class is ten percent, and the backward class led by them is ninety percent of society. There is no correction for the backward unless they themselves choose those diligent that will govern them. If they do not have this power, they will end up being uninhibitedly exploited by the diligent.

Section Six

The diligent class, meaning the rulers and the inspectors, are bound to create an exile such as in Egypt over the backward class, who are the workers. This is because the rulers accumulate all the surplus of the workers in their hands, and take the lion share.

In addition, for purposes of the benefit of the public, they will not let any worker escape from under their hands to a different country; they will guard them like Israel in Egypt. No slave shall leave them and be free. Ultimately, the diligent class will put to death all the elderly and handicapped who eat and do not work, or even if they eat more than they can work, as it is detrimental to society, as it is known that they have no sentiments.

When merchants and brokers become allotters, the buyers will become recipients of charity from their hands. Their fate would be determined by the mercy of the allotters, or as much as they fear the inspectors, should they take interest in that.

Since ownership and control are not the same, for example, with a ship that belongs to the state, every citizen has ownership over it, yet no right of entry, but only as the administration that controls it sees fit. Also, even if there is a proletariat government, they will have no preference in government properties than they have now in the bourgeois property. This is because all the control will be held by the executives alone, which are today’s bourgeois, or those like them.

Such a state, where communists govern anti-communists, must be in the hands of oligarchy, in complete dictatorship, where all the citizens are regarded as nothing, subject to brutal punishment according to the arbitrary heart of each and every executive. Otherwise, they will not secure the sustenance of the needs of the state. In such a regime, the government must ensure that there are no democratic elections since the majority of the public are anti-communists.

Egoistic Communism does not liberate the proletariat whatsoever. On the contrary, instead of bourgeois employers, who are lenient with the workers, they will institute a class of executives and supervisors who will enslave the proletariat by coercion and harsh and bitter punishments. The oppression and the exploitation will be doubled, and it will not be easier on them in any way, if the exploitation is for the good of the country, because in the end, the employers and the oppressors take the cream, and the workers get the meager whey. In return, they are placed under constant fear of death, or punishment harsher than death.

In such a state, where communists rule over anti-communists, the executives must see that the citizens cannot discover the burden and oppression they are under. Thus, after all the works are in their hands, they will forbid the printers from printing, and the speakers from speaking, so they do not criticize their deeds whatsoever. Instead, they will be compelled to lie and cover up for them, and depict a heaven on earth, and their plight will never become known.

It will be even more so with minorities who are not favored by the executives for whatever reason. They will be able to annihilate them without shame or fear that it will become known outside. And what will become of the Jews, whom the majority of the world hates?

Indeed, it is the absolute truth that there cannot be a good and complete society unless its majority is good because the management depicts the quality of society, and the society is elected by the majority. If the majority is bad, the management will necessarily be bad, as well, for the wicked will not place over them rulers of whom they do not approve.

We need not deduce from the modern democracies, as they use various tactics to deceive the constituency. When they grow wiser and understand their cunningness, the majority will certainly elect a management according to their spirit. And their main tactic is that they first sanctify people with good reputation, and promote them either as wise or as righteous, and then the masses believe and elect them. But a lie does not persist forever.

This explains Hitlerism. What happened to the Germans is one of nature’s wonders. They were considered among the most civilized nations, and all of a sudden, overnight, they became savages, worse than even the most primitive nations in history.

Moreover, Hitler was elected by the majority’s vote. In light of the above, it is very simple: Indeed, the majority of the public, which is essentially evil, possesses no opinions, even among the most civilized nations. Rather, they deceive the majority of the public. Hence, even though the majority of the public is evil, there can be a good leadership.

However, should an evil person, capable of uncovering the deceit that the managers employ with the famous people they create, come and present the people that should be elected according to their spirit and desire, as did Hitler (and Lenin and Trotsky [Leon Trotsky, 1879-1940, a Jewish Marxist revolutionary]), it is no wonder that they overthrow the fraudulent, and elect evil leaders according with their spirit.

Thus, Hitler was indeed elected democratically, and the majority of the public united behind him. Afterward, he subdued and uprooted all the idealistic people, and did with nations as he wished, and as the people wished.

This is the whole novelty. Since the dawn of time, it has never happened that the majority of the public governed a state. Either the autocrats did, who, at the end of the day, do have some measure of morality, or the oligarchy, or the deceitful democrats. The majority of the simple folk ruled only in the days of Hitler, who, in addition, promoted turpitude toward other nations. He elevated public benefit to the level of devotion since he understood the frame of mind of sadists. When given room to discharge their sadism, they would pay for it with the lives.

Section Seven

Egoistic Communism cannot prevent wars, since the diligent nations, or the ones rich in raw materials, will not want to share equally with the poor and backward nations. Hence, once again we must not hope for peace, except by means of the prevention of wars, meaning by preparing arms to guard against the envy and odium of the poor and backward nations, just as today. Even more so, there will be even more wars due to changes in ideals, such as Titoism and Zionism.

I have already spoken and wrote about it in 1933, and I have screamed as a crane that today’s wars will destroy the world, but they did not believe it. But now, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think that everyone will believe me that if we are not saved from wars, it will be the end of the world.

Section Eight

If communism is just toward each nation, then it is just toward all the nations. What prerogative and ownership over raw materials in the soil has one nation over others? Who legislated this proprietary law? All the more so when they have acquired it by means of swords and bayonets!

Also, why should one nation exploit another if it is unjust to every individual? In a word: As abolition of property is just for the individual, so it is just for every nation. Only then will there be peace on earth.

Consider this: If proprietary laws and rules of inheritance do not permit possession rights to individuals, why would they permit an entire nation? As just division is applied among individuals within the nation, there should also be internationally just division in raw materials, productive means, and accumulated properties for all the nations equally. There should be no difference between white and black, civilized and primitive, just as among individuals within a single nation. There should be no division whatsoever among individuals, a single nation, or all the nations in the world. While there is any differentiation, wars will not end.

There is no hope of reaching International Communism through Egoistic Communism. Even if America, India, and China should adopt a communistic regime, there is still no element that will compel Americans to equalize their standard of living with the savage and primitive Africans and Indians.

All the cures of Marx and Lenin will be to no avail here, inciting the poor class to rob the wealthy class, since the wealthy have already made arms to guard themselves. Thus, if it is to no avail, then the entire Egoistic Communism was in vain, for it will not prevent wars whatsoever.

Section Nine

It is a fact that Israel is hated by all the nations, whether for religious, racial, capitalist, communist, or for cosmopolitan reasons, etc. It is so because the hatred precedes all reasons, but each merely resolves its loathing according to its own psychology. No counsel will help here, except to initiate international, moral, and Altruistic Communism among all nations.

Israel must be the first among the nations to assume the international, Altruistic Communism. It must be a model demonstrating the good and beauty of this government. Because they suffer and will suffer from the tyranny of the nations more than all other nations, they are like the heart that burns before all the other organs. Hence, they are better suited to adopt the proper government first.

Our very existence in the state of Israel is in danger since according to the present economic order, it will take a long time before our economy is stabilized. Very few will be able to endure the experience of the ordeal in our country while they can immigrate to other, wealthy countries. Bit-by-bit, they will escape the discomfort until too few remain to merit the name “State,” and they will be swallowed among the Arabs.

But if they accept the International Altruistic Communist regime, not only will they have the satisfaction of being the avant-garde for the delivery of the world, for which they will know that it is worth the suffering, but they will also be able to control their souls and lower the standard of living when needed. They will be able to work hard enough to secure a solid economy for the state.

It is even more so with kibbutzim, whose very existence is built on idealism, which will naturally wane in future generations, as ideals are not hereditary. Undoubtedly, they will be the first to ruin.

Section Ten

Religion is the only sound basis to raise the moral level of society until each person works according to his ability and receives according to his needs.

Unclear...

If you lived on an isle of savages, whose lives you could not save, preventing them from ferociously exterminating themselves, except by means of religion, would you then doubt ordering their lives with a religion that would suffice to save this nation from eradication from the world?

With respect to Altruistic Communism, everyone is savage. There is no ploy to impose such a regime on the world, except by means of religion, for religious compulsion becomes agreeable in the progeny, as we have seen happen in nations that have accepted religion by force and coercion.

However, in coercion through education and public opinion, which is not hereditary in the progeny, it only diminishes in time. Hence, would you say that it is better that the entire world destroys each other than to impose on them a certain cause to lead them to life and happiness? It is hard to believe that any sane person would hesitate here.

It is impossible to have a stable democratic society except by means of a society whose majority is good and honest, since society is led by the majority, for better or for worse. Hence, the Altruistic Communist regime must not be established unless the majority of the public is ready to commit to it for generations. That can only be secured through religion because the nature of religion is that even though it begins coercively, it ends voluntarily.

Religion and idealism complement each other. Where the ideal cannot be in the majority, religion forcefully rules the primitive majority, incapable of ideals due to its possessiveness, and its desire to work less than his friend and receive more.

It is impossible to erect the Altruistic Communism before the Egoistic Communism expands. However, now that a third of the world has assumed the Egoistic Communism, the power of religion can be used to establish Altruistic Communism.

Humankind will not suffice with dry decrees without accompanying them with reasonable explanations that support and strengthen these conducts, meaning a philosophic method. In that regard, there is already an entire philosophy concerning the will to bestow, which is the Altruistic Communism, sufficient to contemplate for one’s entire life, and thus strengthen oneself through acts of bestowal.

Section Eleven

Egoistic Communism will ultimately adopt the form of pure Nazism, but in the appearance of National Communism. However, this difference of names does not inhibit anyone from the satanic acts of Hitler. Thus, the Russians will be the “Master Nation,” and the entire world their submissive servants as in Hitler’s way.

In the bourgeois regime, free competition is the primary fuel for success. The industrialists and the merchants play in it; the winners are very happy, and those who do not win suffer a bitter end. In between them is the proletariat, having no share in this game. It is seemingly neutral, neither rising nor falling. However, because of its ability to strike, its standard of living is secured.

Ultimately, in both the communist and the bourgeois governments, the backward are unfit for leadership, although they are the majority of the public. Rather, they must elect leaders from among the diligent. However, because they are elected by them, they can be hopeful of not being exploited so much.

Conversely, in the Egoistic Communist government, the managers are not elected by the majority of the public, since they are anti-communists, as in Russia and the others, where the elected are only from among the communists. Hence, they face a bitter end indeed, since the proletariat does not have a single representative in the leadership.

All the above adheres to the rule that the proletariat are anti-communists by nature. The proletariats are not idealists; they are the backward majority of society, and think that “just division” means that they receive an equal share with the diligent. The diligent will never want that.

My words relate only to the proletariat, meaning to the backward, who are the majority of society. The diligent and the intellectuals will always suck the cream, either in a communist government, or in a bourgeois government. It is reasonable to think that many of them will be better off in a communist regime, since they will not fear criticism, as it is written in item...

Only you, the backward proletariat, will be the worst off in a communist regime. However, the diligent class will have a different name: managers and supervisors. They will be better off because they will be rid of the competition, which takes its toll on the bourgeois, and will receive their share persistently and abundantly.

The backward have no counsel and contrivance to terminate the fear, unemployment, and ignominy, except for Altruistic Communism. Hence, my words are not aimed at the diligent and the intellectuals, as they will certainly not accept my words, but only at the proletariat and the backward. They will be able to understand me, and to them I speak, as well as to those who spare the lives of the backward and sympathize with their anguish.

It is one of man's freedoms not to be tied to one place, like plants, which cannot leave their habitat. Hence, each country must ensure that it does not inhibit citizens from moving to another country. It must also be ensured that no country closes its gates before strangers and immigrants.

A government of Altruistic Communism must not be instigated before the majority of the public is prepared for bestowal upon one another.

Ultimately, Altruistic Communism will encircle the entire world, and the entire world will have the same standard of living. However, the actual process is slow and gradual. Each nation, whose majority of the public has been educated to bestowal upon one another, will enter the International Communistic framework first.

All the nations that have already entered the International Communistic framework will have an equal standard of living. Thus, the surplus of a rich or diligent nation will improve the standard of living of a backward or poor nation in raw materials and productive means.

The religious form of all the nations should first obligate its members to bestowal upon each other to the extent that (the life of one’s friend will come before one’s own life), as in “Love thy friend as thyself.” One will not take pleasure in society more than a backward friend.

This will be the collective religion of all the nations that will come within the framework of communism. However, besides that, each nation may follow its own religion and tradition, and one must not interfere in the other.

The rules of the equal religion for the entire world are as follows:

1. One should work for the well-being of people as much as one can and even more than one’s ability, if needed, until there is no hunger or thirst in the entire world.

2. One may be diligent, but no person shall enjoy the society more than the backward. There will be an equal standard of living for all.

3. Though there is religion, tokens of due honors should be imparted according to the religion; the greater the benefit one contributes to society, the higher the decoration one shall receive.

4. Refraining from showing one’s diligence toward the benefit of society will induce punishment according to the laws of society.

5. Each and every one is committed to the labor of raising ever higher the living standard of the world society, so all the people in the world will enjoy their lives and will feel more and more happiness.

6. The same applies for spirituality, though not everyone is obligated to engage in spirituality, but only special people, depending on the need.

7. There will be a sort of high-court. Those who will want to dedicate their labor for spiritual life will have to be permitted to do so by this court.

Elaborating on the other necessary laws:

Anyone, individual, or a group, who comes under the framework of the Altruistic Communism, must take a solemn oath to keep all that because the Lord has so commanded. At the very least one must pledge to teach one’s children that the Lord has so commanded.

Those who say that the ideal is enough for them should be accepted and tested. If it is so, they may be accepted. However, they must still promise not to pass their heretical ways to their children, but hand them over to be educated by the state. If one accepts neither, he should not be accepted whatsoever. He would corrupt his friends and he would lose more than he would gain.

First, there must be a small establishment, whose majority of the public is willing to work as much as it can and receive as much as it needs for religious reasons. It will work as diligently as contract-workers, even more than the eight-hour workday. It will contain all the forms of government of a complete state. In a word, the order of that small society will be sufficient for all the nations in the world, without adding or subtracting.

This institution will be like a global focal point for nations and states surrounding it to the farthest corners of the world. All who enter this framework shall assume the same leadership and the same agenda as the institution. Thus, the entire world will be a single nation, in profits, losses, and results.

Judgments relying on force will be completely revoked in this institution. Rather, all conflicts among the members of society shall be resolved among the concerned parties. General public opinion shall condemn anyone who exploits the righteousness of his friend for his own good.

There will still be a courthouse, but it will only serve to sort out doubts that will come between people, but it will not rely on any force. One who rejects the court’s decision will be condemned by public opinion, and that is all.

We should not doubt its sufficiency, as it was unbelievable that children could be educated only by explanation, but only through the cane. However, today, the greater part of civilization has taken upon itself to refrain from beating children, and this upbringing is more successful than the previous method.

If there is one who is exceptional in society, he must not be brought before a court relying on force, but must be reformed through argumentation and explanation. If all the counsels are to no avail, the public will turn away from that person as though from an outcast. Thus, he will not be able to corrupt others in society.

It is important to make such a correction that no person will demand his needs from society. Instead, there will be appointees who will go from door to door, examining the needs of every one, and they will provide for him by themselves. Thus, everyone’s thoughts will be devoted to bestowal upon one’s fellow person, and he will never have to think of his own needs.

It is based on the observation that in consumption we are like any other animal. In addition, every loathsome act in the world stems from consumption. Conversely, we see that every joyous deed in the world comes from the attribute of bestowal upon one’s fellow person. Thus, we should scrimp and reject thoughts of consumption for self, and fill our minds only with thoughts of bestowal upon our fellow person. This is possible in the above manner.

The freedom of the individual must be kept as long as it is not harmful to society. However, one who wishes to leave the society in favor of another must not be detained in any way, even if it is harmful to society, and even that, in a way that the society is not ruined altogether.

Section Twelve

Circulation

There are three rudiments to the expansion of religion: Satisfaction of Desires, Proof, and Circulation.

1. Satisfaction of Desires:

In every person, even secular, there is an unknown spark that demands unification with God. When it sometimes awakens, it awakens a passion to know God, or deny God, which is the same. If someone generates the satisfaction of this desire in that person, he will agree to anything. To that we must add the matter of the immortality of the soul, the reward in the next world, glory of the individual, the glory of the nation.

2. Proof:

There is no existence to the world without it, all the more so in the days of the atom and the hydrogen bombs.

3. Circulation:

People must be hired to circulate the above words in the public.

Egoistic Communism precedes the Altruistic Communism, for once it has control so as to abolish property, it is possible to educate that the annulment of property will be due to love of others.

The second phase of communism, being Altruistic Communism, must be hurried, since the shortcomings and force used in Egoistic Communism, deter the world from this method altogether. Hence, it is time to uncover the final stage of Altruistic Communism, which possesses all the pleasantness, and has no blemish.

We must also fear, lest the third war breaks out first, and communism will vanish from the world. In a word, there is no harder blow to the capitalist government than this above-mentioned perfect form of communism.

We are already witnessing that the capitalistic regime is strong and the proletariat of the capitalistic countries loath the communist regime. This is happening because of the coercion and the force necessitated in it because of the control of a small group of communists over an anti-communist society.

Hence, we are not to expect that the regime will be cancelled by itself. Quite the contrary, time works in their favor. As long as communistic governments will surround the world, coercion and subjection entailed in it will be revealed, and which every ordinary person utterly loathes, since one will sacrifice everything for one’s freedom.

There is another thing: Since communism is not spreading in civilized countries, but in primitive ones, eventually, there will be a society of rich countries with high living standard and capitalistic government, and a society of poor countries with a low standard of living and a communist government. That will be the end of communism. Not a single free person will want to hear of it; it will be abhorred as the concept of slaves sold for life is abhorred today.

For expansion and circulation: We must remember that all the agony, poverty and slaying, etc., cannot be corrected except through Altruistic Communism. In that event, it will not be hard for a person to give his life for it.

Judaism must present something new to the nations. This is what they expect from the return of Israel to the land! It is not in other teachings, for in that we never innovated. In them, we have always been their disciples. Rather, it is the wisdom of religion, justice, and peace. In this, most nations are our disciples, and this wisdom is attributed to us alone.

If this return is cancelled, Zionism will be cancelled altogether. This country is very poor, and its residents are destined to endure much suffering. Undoubtedly, either they or their children will gradually leave the country, and only an insignificant number will remain, which will ultimately be swallowed among the Arabs.

The solution for it is only Altruistic Communism. Not only does it unite all the nations to be as one, helping one another, it also endows each with tolerance to one another. Most importantly: Communism produces great power to work; hence, the labor productivity will compensate for the disadvantages of poverty.

If they assume this religion, the Temple can be built and the ancient glory restored. This would certainly prove to the nations the rightness of Israel’s return to their land, even to the Arabs. However, a secular return such as today's does not impress the nations whatsoever, and we must fear lest they will sell Israel’s independence for their needs, needless to mention returning Jerusalem. This would even frighten the Catholics.

Section Thirteen

Thus far, I have shown that communism and altruism are one and the same, and also, that egoism and anti-communism are the same. However, all this is my own doctrine. If you ask the communist leaders themselves, they will deny it unreservedly.

Instead, they would maintain that they are far from any sentimentality and bourgeois morality, and seek only justice by way of “mine is mine and yours is yours.” (All this has come to them because of their connection with the proletariat.) Thus, let us examine things according to their perception, and scrutinize this justice that they seek.

According to the development of today’s governments, the definitions “bourgeois” and “proletariat” are no longer sufficient to explain history. We need more general definitions. They should be determined by the names “diligent” (which in the second regime are the capitalist, and in the communistic regime), and “backward.”

Any society is divided into diligent and backward. Some twenty percent are diligent, and eighty percent are backward. It is a natural law that the diligent class exploits the backward class, like fish at sea, where the strong swallow the weak. In that regard, it makes no difference whether the diligent are bourgeois capitalists, or managers, supervisors, and intellectuals. In the end, the same diligent twenty percent will always suck the cream, and leave the meager whey to the backward. But the question is how much they exploit the backward, and which kind exploit the backward more—the bourgeois, or the managers and supervisors.

Section Fourteen

The basis of this entire explanation is the manifestation of the substance of creation, spiritual and corporeal, being nothing but the will to receive, which is existence from absence. However, what this substance receives extends existence from existence.

Thus, it is clearly known what is good, and what the Lord demands of us, namely, equivalence of form. By the nature of its creation, our body is but a desire to receive, and not to bestow at all. This is opposite to the Creator, who is all to bestow, and not to receive at all, because from whom would He receive? It is in this disparity of form that creation has become separated from the Creator.

Hence, we are commanded to deeds in Torah and Mitzvot (precepts) that bring contentment to the maker, and to bestow upon one’s fellow person. This is in order to acquire the form of bestowal, and cleave once more to the Creator as before creation.

The Differences between Me and Schopenhauer

[Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher]

1. He perceives it as an essence on its own, while I perceive it as a type and a predicate. Its essence may be unknown, but whatever it may be, it extends existence from existence.

2. He perceives the desire itself as an ambition that no goal can end, but is rather a constant ascent and perpetual drive. With me, however, it is limited to receiving certain things, and can be satiated, meaning directed.

However, attaining the goal increases the will to receive, as in, he who has one hundred wants two hundred. Prior to that, the will to receive was limited to obtaining only one hundred; it did not want two hundred. In this manner, the perpetual desire is expansion of the desire; it is the will to receive itself.

3. He does not differentiate between the will to bestow and the will to receive. With me, only the will to receive is the essence of the creature, while the will to bestow in it is a Godly Light, ascribed to the Creator, not to the creature.

4. He perceives the desire itself as an object, considering it a form and an occurrence in the object. With me, the emphasis is rather on the form of the desire, meaning the will to receive, but the carrier of the form of the will to receive is an unknown essence.

1) …Since he considers the desire the subject, he must define some general, formless desire. Thus, he chooses the endless aspiration for materials, and what it wants is the form. Yet, in truth, there is no endless yearning here, but a growing desire, which grows according to the direction, and it is a form and a case in the desire.

A. In his method, it is an essence; in mine, a form.

B. In his method it is a never-ending desire; in mine, it is limited in its direction.

C. In his method, there is no difference between bestowing and receiving; in mine, the will to bestow is a spark of the Creator.

D. In his method, the yearning is a substance, and the quality of the reception, the form; in mine, the quality of reception is the substance of creation and the subject of the quality is unknown. Whatever it is, it is existence from existence.

[1] Antonio Labriola, Essays on the Materialist Conception of History, Part 1: “In Memory of the Communist Manifesto,” url: http://www.marxists.org/archive/labriola/works/al00.htm#

[2] Georgi Plekhanov, “The Initial Phases of the Theory of the Class Struggle: An Introduction to the Second Russian Edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party,” url: https://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1898/initial-phases.htm