The central act of the communist program is the abolition of private property in the means of production. From this single, material act of destruction, the defining features of a communist society—its classlessness, its statelessness, and its moneylessness—flow as necessary and interconnected material consequences, not as pre-conceived ideals to be built.
I. From the Abolition of Property to Classlessness
The foundation of all class society, from the slave-owning latifundia to the modern capitalist factory, is the private ownership of the means of production. Class is not a matter of income or culture; it is the objective relationship a group of people has to the means of producing wealth. Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie is the class that owns the factories, land, and infrastructure, while the proletariat is the class that, owning nothing, must sell its labor-power to survive.
The abolition of private property in the means of production—transforming them into the common possession of the associated producers—is therefore the abolition of the material basis of class itself.
When no single group can own the means of production, the distinction between owner and non-owner, between exploiter and exploited, is rendered meaningless. Everyone in society has the same fundamental relationship to the means of their collective existence. The social division into classes is not just overcome; its very foundation is removed. This is the material basis of a classless society.
II. From Classlessness to Statelessness
The state is not a neutral arbiter of the "public good." It is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. It is an instrument of organized violence, a machine through which the ruling class suppresses the exploited class and defends its property.
"The state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of 'order,' which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between the classes."
— V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution
Therefore, once the act of abolishing private property has led to the dissolution of classes, the primary function of the state becomes obsolete. In a classless society, there is no longer a class to suppress. The need for a special, coercive public force standing above society withers away. The "government of people," which is the political administration of class conflict, is replaced by the "administration of things"—the scientific and rational management of the process of production. This is the material basis of a stateless society.
III. From Production for Use to Moneylessness
Money is not a timeless or natural tool. It is the necessary product of a specific mode of production: one in which goods are not produced for direct use, but as commodities for exchange on a market. Money is the universal equivalent, the social hieroglyph that allows the value of all these different, privately produced commodities to be expressed and exchanged.
The abolition of private property means the end of production by isolated, competing producers. Society as a whole, the "freely associated men," takes control of the means of production and organizes labor according to a conscious, social plan.
Production is no longer for exchange, but for direct use. Goods are no longer commodities to be sold for a profit, but use-values to be distributed to satisfy human needs. In such a system, the entire mechanism of exchange becomes redundant. If society is producing what it needs and distributing it according to a plan, there is no need for a universal equivalent to mediate the process. The need for money vanishes along with the commodity form it represents. This is the material basis of a moneyless society.
Classlessness, statelessness, and moneylessness are not three separate utopian dreams. They are the interlocking and necessary results of a single, world-historic act: the abolition of private property.