Life is changing before our very eyes; old habits and customs are dying out, and the whole life of the proletarian family is developing in a way that is new and unfamiliar and, in the eyes of some, "bizarre". ... They have not yet understood that a woman must accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the individual man. ...

The type of family to which the urban and rural proletariat has grown accustomed is one of these legacies from the past.  There was a time when the isolated, firmly-knit family, based on a church wedding, was equally necessary to all its members.  If there had been no family, who would have fed, clothed and brought up the children?  Who would have given them advice?  In days gone by, to be an orphan was one of the worst fates imaginable.  In the family of old, the husband supports his wife and children.  The wife for her part is occupied with housekeeping and with bringing up the children as best she can. ... The mother remained at home and occupied herself with her household duties; her children were at her side, under her watchful eye. ...

The circumstances that held the family together no longer exist.  The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole.  The old family structure is now merely a hindrance.  What used to make the old family so strong?  First, because the husband and father was the family's breadwinner; secondly, because the family economy was necessary to all its members; and thirdly, because children were brought up by their parents.

What is left of this former type of family?  The husband, as we have just seen, has ceased to be the sole breadwinner.  The wife who goes to work earn wages.  She has learned to earn her own living, to support her children and not infrequently her husband.  The family now only serves as the primary economic unit of society and the supporter and educator of young children.

Let us examine the matter in more detail, to see whether or not the family is about to be relieved of these tasks as well. ...

The State Is Responsible For the Upbringing of Children

[T]he workers' state will come to replace the family.  Society will gradually take upon itself all the tasks that before the revolution fell to the individual parents.  Even before the revolution, the instruction of the child had ceased to be the duty of the parents.  Once the children had attained school age the parents could breathe more freely, for they were no longer responsible for the intellectual development of their offspring.  But there were still plenty of obligations to fulfil.  There was still the matter of feeding the children, buying them shoes and clothes and seeing that they developed into skilled and honest workers able, when the time came, to earn their own living and feed and support their parents in old age. ...

[T]he obligations of parents to their children [will] wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility.  Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family.  Communist society will come to the aid of the parents.  In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family.  We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children's colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children, restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren.  All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.

The parental care of children in the family could be divided into three parts:  (a) the care of the very young baby, (b) the bringing up of the child, and (c) the instruction of the child.  Even in capitalist society the education of the child in primary schools and later in secondary and higher educational establishments became the responsibility of the state.  Even in capitalist society the needs of the workers were to some extent met by the provisions of playgrounds, kindergartens, play groups, etc.  The more the workers became conscious of their rights and the better they were organised, the more society had to relieve the family of the care of the children.  But bourgeois society was afraid of going too far towards meeting the interests of the working class, lest this contribute to the break-up of the family. ...

Communist society considers the social education of the rising generation to be one of the fundamental aspects of the new life.  The old family, narrow and petty, where the parents quarrel and are only interested in their own offspring, is not capable of educating the "new person".  The playgrounds, gardens, homes and other amenities where the child will spend the greater part of the day under the supervision of qualified educators will, on the other hand, offer an environment in which the child can grow up a conscious communist who recognises the need for solidarity, comradeship, mutual help and loyalty to the collective.

What responsibilities are left to the parents, when they no longer have to take charge of upbringing and education?  The very small baby, you might answer, while it is still learning to walk and clinging to its mother's skirt, still needs her attention.  Here again the communist state hastens to the aid of the working mother.  No longer will there be any women who are alone.  The workers' state aims to support every mother, married or unmarried, while she is suckling her child, and to establish maternity homes, day nurseries and other such facilities in every city and village, in order to give women the opportunity to combine work in society with maternity.

Working mothers have no need to be alarmed; the communist society is not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take violent measures to destroy the family.  No such thing!  The aims of communist society are quite different.  Communist society sees that the old type of family is breaking up, and that all the old pillars which supported the family as a social unit are being removed: the domestic economy is dying, and working-class parents are unable to take care of their children or provide them with sustenance and education.  Parents and children suffer equally from this situation.

Communist society has this to say to the working woman and working man:  "You are young, you love each other.  Everyone has the right to happiness.  Therefore live your life.  Do not flee happiness.  Do not fear marriage, even though under capitalism marriage was truly a chain of sorrow.  Do not be afraid of having children.  Society needs more workers and rejoices at the birth of every child.  You do not have to worry about the future of your child; your child will know neither hunger or cold."

Communist society takes care of every child and guarantees both him and his mother material and moral support.  Society will feed, bring up and educate the child.  At the same time, those parents who desire to participate in the education of their children will by no means be prevented from doing so.  Communist society will take upon itself all the duties involved in the education of the child, but the joys of parenthood will not be taken away from those who are capable of appreciating them.  Such are the plans of communist society ...

There is no escaping the fact: the old type of family has had its day.  The family is withering away not because it is being forcibly destroyed by the state, but because the family is ceasing to be a necessity.  The state does not need the family, because the domestic economy is no longer profitable: the family distracts the worker from more useful and productive labour.  The members of the family do not need the family wither, because the task of bringing up the children which was formerly theirs is passing more and more into the hands of the collective.

In place of the old relationship between men and women, a new one is developing:  a union of affection and comradeship, a union of two equal members of communist society, both of them free, both of them independent and both of them workers.  No more domestic bondage for women.  No more inequality within the family.  No need for women to fear being left without support and with children to bring up.  The woman in communist society no longer depends upon her husband but on her work.  It is not in her husband but in her capacity for work that she will find support.  She need have no anxiety about her children.  The workers' state will assume responsibility for them. ...

The woman who takes up the struggle for the liberation of the working class must learn to understand that there is no more room for the old proprietary attitude which says:  "These are my children, I owe them all my maternal solicitude and affection; those are your children, they are no concern of mine and I don't care if they go hungry and cold - I have no time for other children."  The worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia's communist workers.

The workers' state needs new relations between the sexes, just as the narrow and exclusive affection of the mother for her own children must expand until it extends to all the children of the great, proletarian family, ...

Communist society wants bright healthy children and strong, happy young people, free in their feelings and affections.  In the name of equality, liberty and the comradely love of the new marriage we call upon the working and peasant men and women, to apply themselves courageously and with faith to the work of rebuilding human society, in order to render it more perfect, more just and more capable of ensuring the individual the happiness which he or she deserves.

The red flag of the social revolution which flies above Russia and is now being hoisted aloft in other countries of the world proclaim the approach of the heaven on earth to which humanity has been aspiring for centuries.
 

For the full article from which the above is an extract please see:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/1920/communism-family.htm

The Frankfurt School

"The Frankfurt School believed that as long as an individual had the belief - or even the hope of belief - that his divine gift of reason could solve the problems facing society, then that society would never reach the state of hopelessness and alienation that they considered necessary to provoke socialist revolution.

Their task, therefore, was as swiftly as possible to undermine the Judaeo-Christian legacy. To do this they called for the most negative destructive criticism possible of every sphere of life which would be designed to de-stabilize society and bring down what they saw as the 'oppressive' order. Their policies, they hoped, would spread like a virus - 'continuing the work of Western Marxists by other means' as one of their members noted.

To further the advance of their 'quiet' cultural revolution ... the [Frankfurt] School recommended (among other things):

(1) the creation of racism offences,
(2) continual change to create confusion,
(3) the teaching of sex and homosexuality to children,
(4) the undermining of schools' and teachers' authority,
(5) huge immigration to destroy identity,
(6) the promotion of excessive drinking,
(7) emptying of churches,
(8) an unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime,
(9) dependency on the state or state benefits,
(10) control and dumbing down of media,
(11) encouraging the breakdown of the family.

One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud's idea of 'pansexualism' - the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

(a) attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children,
(b) abolish differences in the education of boys and girls,
(c) abolish all forms of male dominance - hence the presence of women in the armed forces,
(d) declare women to be an 'oppressed class' and men as 'oppressors'."

Programmes of Treason

"There are eight levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state:

• Healthcare - Control healthcare and you control the people;

• Poverty - Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live;

• Debt - Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That wa6y you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty;

• Gun Control - Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state;

• Welfare - Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income);

• Education - Take control of that people read and listen to - take control of what children learn in school;

• Religion - Remove the belief in God from the Government and schools;

• Class Warfare - Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take from (tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor" [source].

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil;
that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"
(Isaiah 5:20-21)

© Elizabeth McDonald     http://www.bayith.org     bayith@blueyonder.co.uk